The (Head) Cheese Stands Alone

I had quite the adventure when I realized that the bag of pork skin I’d pulled from the freezer was actually a whole deboned pig’s head. Got quite a bit of action out of that guy. I ended up making my first guanciale AND my first head cheese from it.

Made most excellent banh mi with my homemade head cheese and do chua; jambon and liverwurst; mayo, Maggi mustard and the juice from pickled tomatoes; sliced jalapeños and cilantro, and a handful of shrimp crisps; on An Xuyen baguette. Dagwoods in this muthafucka! #sandwich #lunchathome #banhmi #dagwood #meatconcierge #pork #vietnamesefood

A post shared by Heather Arndt Anderson (@heatherarndtanderson) on Nov 3, 2017 at 12:51pm PDT

Oh! I meant to tell you about my further adventures in head cheese. The first pass tasted good, but melted too fast on a warm baguette and became a gloppy mess. I was crestfallen. So yesterday I gently melted it all back down, added five leaves of gelatin and a few scoops of the jelly that I made last week by slow-simmering a pig’s foot in smoked pork stock. (I keep this in a jar in the fridge for adding unctuousness to broths and gravies.) It’s much more perky now! It stays together nicely, can be sliced cleanly and layered onto a sandwich. Here’s to second chances! Here’s to learning from our mistakes! 🐽 🐷 🐽 #makestuff #praticemakesprogress #charcuterie #headcheese #sülze #meatconcierge

A post shared by Heather Arndt Anderson (@heatherarndtanderson) on Nov 3, 2017 at 2:03pm PDT