Nibbly Pig Meets the Comité de salut public* I

Practicalities
There are a few things to consider when you decide you want to set about cooking a pig's head.

Have you got a pan big enough for it to fit in?
I know it sounds kind of obvious, but it's one of the things that made me tackle the task. I'd bought a large pan recently and realised that it was probably big enough for a pigs head to fit in.

How are you going to cook it?
I'd originally planned on turning the whole thing into Brawn, or Head cheese as it's sometimes known. I suspected that I'd end up with quite a lot of food for one person. In the end I found this recipe by Fergus Henderson for half a pigs head. There is also a video of him cooking it and it's always handy when you're trying something for the first time to have as much information as possible. Hopefully this post and the pictures will help out anyone thinking of cooking a Pig's head for the first time.

Have you got the tools to cut the pigs head in half, now you've decided that's how you're going to cook it?
I have a small cleaver, but wasn't sure it'd be up to the job. To be honest I wasn't sure the work surface in the kitchen would be up to the job of me trying to cleave a head in two. Do you know how thick a pigs skull is? Neither did I until I'd cooked this. So I got the woman at the Market to cut it in half for me. She had a big cleaver and proper butchers block to chop on.

Have you got the stomach for it?
I have friends that will not eat meat off the bone. Some people are squeamish about cooking a chicken. Cooking this you're going to have a pigs head in your kitchen. A kind of grisly item to have sitting on the side and to deal with. Especially if your set text at school was 'Lord of The Flies'

So what are we getting into here?


You're going to have to clean up the head and get rid of any hair remaining. Here's half the head lying in the sink. You can see how I've singed off some of the hairs around the snout, chin and the eye. Also how big a pigs ear is. How come cartoon pigs always seem to have small ears?


OK This is were it gets grisly. The inside of the head. That's the tongue I'm pointing at there. I was going to cook this separately so took it out as you can see in the next picture.

Tongue removed and I'm pointing to where the brains where. Keep those for a snack whilst the head is cooking.** Notice above my finger. That's about the thickest point of the skull, around an inch. You'd need to be able to hack through that. Also notice there's a good bit of meat on the top of the head and around the lower jaw.


The back of the head. Once again you can see that there's a good bit of meat on the cheek below where my thumb is.

If you've not been put off by the pictures. Let's press on.
Besides the pigs head I'd been a bit half arsed about getting the rest of the ingredients together that Mr Henderson calls for:

• A dollop of duck fat
• 8 shallots, peeled and left whole
• 8 cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole
• A glass of brandy
• 1 bundle of joy - thyme, parsley and a little rosemary
• ½ bottle of white wine
• Chicken stock
• A healthy spoonful of Dijon mustard
• 1 bunch of watercress, trimmed, or other greens
• Sea salt and black pepper

I didn't have any Duck fat, Shallots, Fresh Thyme, Parsley and Rosemary, Brandy, Proper Chicken Stock, Water cress/Greens, or Sea Salt.
So what.
Part of the art of cooking is substitution. As the Shallots (roughly chopped onions in my case) and garlic, have only got to sweat a bit. Olive oil did fine. The bundle of fresh herbs was replaced by dried; Two teaspoons each of Thyme and Parsley with one of Rosemary. Brandy I just left out. If I've got brandy in the house I'll probably be drinking it. I didn't have any Brandy in the house, so I didn't drink any, or add any to the recipe. Instead of Proper Chicken stock I used a couple of Oxo cubes. They work fine for most things. Water cress I like, but it's basically an accompaniment so I just missed that bit out. I did have Grainy mustard, but forgot to add it to the juice. Ah well, next time. I didn't add any salt as I find that Oxo cubes have enough salt in them for any recipe, but that's just me. I'm not big on salt in my food.

I found that the whole head would fit in my roasting pan, which is 6cm x 33cm x 24cm The pan could maybe have been a little deeper. Ah well. I didn't have to use 'The Big Giant Pan' (TBGP) The whole thing ends up looking like this:


Which is a fair approximation of an "Alligator in a Swamp" as Mr Henderson describes it. Notice the tinfoil on the ear to prevent it burning. I didn't have any Greaseproof paper, so I covered the whole lot in more tinfoil, which I removed for the last half hour of cooking.

3 Hours later and I've got this:


Where the skin is submerged it's cooked to a wonderful tasty softness, where the skin is out of the cooking juice, like the bit in the picture that the foil has stuck to, you get some good crackling. Not rock hard, but enough crispness that it's enjoyable to eat and makes a nice difference in texture.

There's some good eating on a pigs head.


This is starting to hack the cooked head up for eating. You can see that there's quite a bit of meat on it, especially on the lower jaw. The de-meated bone of the lower jaw is visible in the serving dish at the top of the picture.

Being a bloke I had 'just meat' and see nothing wrong with doing that. Parts of the head have got a goodly bit of meat on and it's easier to carve those bits off, or just pull the meat off. As this method of cooking makes for falling off the bone flesh. There is quite a bit of fat under the skin and this might put some people off, don't let it. That's some of the best bit about eating pork.

Would I do it again?
That's really the big test of a recipe. The answers yes. It tastes fucking lush. Rich, fatty and full of Pork flavour. With soft tasty skin and the bonus of crackling. It's a cheap meal, the pigs head cost me £2 at the market and this recipe only uses half of it.*** It is a faff though. What with shaving and singeing the head and having such a large item in my tiny kitchen. If you're by yourself and the sort of person who's happy with 'just meat' as a meal. Half a pigs head will leave you feeling nicely stuffed. If you've got a partner, add the greens and maybe some other vege' and you've got a great meal for two people. As long as you're both willing to be a little bit adventurous with your food. Because as I mentioned earlier, if you're a bit squeamish, preparing the head might be out of your comfort zone. I know people who definitely wouldn't eat it, even if it was cooked for them. If you're going to cook it. Make sure the person you're cooking it for doesn't mind you presenting a pigs head on the table.

*Comité de salut public = The Committee of Public Safety. The people responsible for a lot of beheadings during the French Revolution

**Pig Brains is another post.

***What I did with the other half is also another post.

Excuse me whilst I Metablog.

That'd be a fancy word for Blogging about the act of Blogging. The photographs so far are a bit crappy, the ones in the future will be a bit crappy. That's for a number of reasons:

• I'm using my camera phone to take them so I can MMS them to twitpic If I want.
• The kitchen is tiny and the work surface in relation to the light means I tend to shadow what I'm trying to photograph.
• I'm actually cooking the meal when I take them so I've got things to get on with.
• If it's picture of the finished meal I want to eat it before it goes cold, rather than be making sure the composition and lighting are good.
• Plus I've not got a Food Stylist handy. Yes that is a real job. Do a search, you'll be amazed how many there are out there.
• There is also a whole load of other stuff that goes into photographing food. Look at the picture 'Food photographers at work'. No one is going to eat that after they've finished dicking with it. I'm going to eat what I've cooked.

Also, it must be said after making all those excuses and blaming my tools:

I'm not actually a very good photographer.

Nibbly Pig got on the bus...

...but it was a bit of a struggle for him as I'd eaten his feet.
Work is a bit slack at the moment so I've been taking advantage of the extra time to eat, and watch cookery programmes on iPlayer or 4oD. Along with the various televisual offerings of Mr Fearnley Whittingstall. One of these was a series called 'Kill it Cook it Eat it'. The most recent series dealt with fast food, with each episode exploring how a different animal was used for food. One programme showed a pig's head being cooked and turned into Brawn. I watched it and then it disappeared into the back of my head ready to be dragged forth when needed.

A few weeks later a friend visited Wolverhampton from the wilds of Shropshire for a look at The Sales. We ended up down the Market. The Market is in a part of town I've not been to for a while. Which is strange, as Wolverhampton isn't that big, but think about your own town. I'm sure there are bits you haven't visited in a while.

Whilst she perused the fabric stalls I took a wander down to the Butchers end of the market with the vague idea that there used to be a game dealer and I might pick up a brace of Pheasant. Or maybe a rabbit. There wasn't any Pheasant, there were some Rabbits, but they were £3.99 which seemed a bit expensive for something we used to get for free.

Lord of the Flies
There were Pigs heads sitting on the counters of some of the Butchers though. Well, not on the Halal butchers stalls. The episode of 'Kill it cook it eat it' I'd Idly watched came back to me. I'd not thought I'd be able to get a pig's head without a lot of hassle, as I do most of my shopping in Tesco's. Having seen them available I thought it might be nice to give cooking a pigs head a go one day. It wasn't the day to be buying A pig's head though. I'd got stuff to do and I didn't want to be carrying one around with me whilst continuing shopping with my formerly Vegan, now Vegetarian pal.

Over the course of the next week, on the days I had time, I popped into the market. Only to be disappointed with a complete lack of Pig's heads. One of the days I was told:
"I had ten, but 'The Chinese' nabbed them all this morning."

Substitute.
This is how I ended up getting some Trotters instead - 80p for four. If I couldn't have a head I'd have some feet instead. Obviously I was all prepared for Head (fnarr) and not for feet. So:
"TO THE INTERNETS!"
The Internet is great. If there's something you don't know about, and want to find out about, you can be sure there's information out there somewhere. The quality of that information is admittedly variable and depending on the subject it might take more or less time to find. As I needed information quickly my search was a bit slipshod and I ended up using this recipe for an Irish Dish called Crubeens. Basically you boil the trotters in water with some herbs, spices and some veggies. How hard can that be?

In the pan.

Preparation
There is a bit of preparation. It's better if you wash them and remove any hairs that are still clinging to them. So I've already bought a pack of razors from the pound shop ready for the pigs head. I don't shave my own face, but give me a bit of pork and I'm happy to be a pig barber. Singeing them off is another technique you can use. If you've got a blow lamp. I don't have a blow lamp, but I do have a gas soldering iron. I couldn't find it that day. Being of a practical bent and always willing to improvise I tried using my camping stove. It worked quite well, but as you have to hold the two big toes open to get at the hairs between them I couldn't achieve that without the risk of burning myself. Plus there is the smell of Singeing hair. Ah well I thought. I can cut that bit off later. Now it's just a matter of waiting 3 hours whilst the trotters simmer away on the stove.

Pig Barber.

This is what you want? This is what you get
Eventually it's time to lift these bad boys out of the pan and onto a plate. It looks like a pile of land mine victims feet. The skin and flesh has softened in the hot bath and something in the joints has given way. I assume some other part of the foot's anatomy has shrunk in the heat and caused the joint to bend popping the bones through the softened flesh. The boiling hasn't added any real colour to the feet as roasting or frying might of. So it's a messy plateful of various shades of beige and grey with bone yellow.

To be honest not the most appetising looking repast.

Plated up (or dumped on a plate)

There's also the smell that'd been developing during the cooking process. It's not an unpleasant smell. It's not a nasty smell, but it's not anywhere near any of the great cooking smells. Like frying bacon or onions from a hot dog stall. It's difficult to describe and was partially masked by the onion studded with cloves. There was part of me that suspected the onion and cloves had nothing to do with the flavour of the dish, but was there to act as a pomander during cooking. I think it's probably just a smell I'm not used to. Like how people used to say garlic or curry stank, because they were foreign odours, before they became part of standard British food.

I'd got this far, why back down now? The trotters fell apart under the knife and fork. The skin was soft, slightly chewy and reasonably tasty, but there was very little meat on the feet. About a finger sized piece on each one. Literally that much. The rest of the foot consists of fat and gelatinous stuff, tendons? Connective tissue? I don't know. Whatever it is there wasn't masses of flavour. Even with the Onion, Cloves and Bay leaves. It had a succulent texture though. Actually quite pleasing to eat. After a while I gave up on the knife and fork and just started picking the bones out and spitting bits of bone, or pieces that were too chewy into the bin. I managed to munch my way through two and a half trotters before feeling full enough to give up. I picked the flesh from the last trotter and a half to try a trotter terrine. Though that's something for another time.

The aftermath.

So...
...was it nice and would I do it again? Let's say it was 'OK'. The texture is rather pleasant to eat, and I do like 'eating it with your fingers type food', but the lack of a full on taste left something to be desired. I'm guessing that I probably didn't cook them in the best way and that there are other recipes for pigs trotters. I'll have another more thorough search around the 'net and give them another go. 80p for a goodly quantity of potential food isn't to be sneezed at. I say potential food, as I'm not convinced I turned them into food, well not good food anyway. At least I've given them a go. Although I probably haven't enthused the reader into trying them. Not unless you like a challenge and think you can do something better with them.

If anyone has got any pointers on cooking Pigs Feet they'll be gratefully received.

Why have I set the 'Adult Content' flag?

I've set the 'Adult Content' flag because...
...I'm over 21 and I'm aware that there are people out there who have more delicate sensibilities than I have.

Don't worry. I'm not planning on posting nude pictures of myself. There will be pictures of Meat and Two Vege' though (Weak Joke. Grin at audience. Adjust cuffs)

I'm not going to make a special effort to be offensive or controversial, but I'm aware that depending on what I post, food is one of those subjects that can lead to a lot of yelling because it's tied in with economics, culture, religion, politics, ethics etc. All lovely, A1 rant inducing subjects.

The whole point of setting the 'Adult Content' flag is as a gentle heads up for the readers that arrive here.

This is a place on the internet where an individual posts stuff. Like many other places on the internet it allows comments. There maybe attitudes and ideas you don't like from the poster (that'd be me) or from the commenter's (that's you and all the other readers). Your disagreement with what I post and my disagreement with what you comment may lead to harsh words. I'm really hoping it doesn't. If it does though the 'Adult Content' flag is supposed to make you aware that this may happen.

It's also meant to make you 'wind you neck in' as they say round here.

Anyway.

After all the caveats above. Food is also something that can bring people together. Sitting round a table eating and drinking are some of the best times I've ever had. We all have to eat no matter what out colour or creed. There is a whole world of taste out there. Let me introduce you to some of the stuff I eat. Introduce me to some of the stuff you eat.

FIRST! (A sort of Mission Statement)

OK I've been sitting on this Blog for a while. I bagged it because I wanted to expand the cha0tic brand over the interwebs in a megalomaniac manner. That's unlikely to happen, as someone already owns the .com etc. domain names. There are other cha0tics on the interwebs and I am a rather desultory blogger. So it goes.

So why am I finally using it and starting a new blog when I'm rubbish at updating the ones I've already got? This one has a theme. It's all about food. It's all about my food: The food I shove in my pie hole. The food I cook. The food other people cook for me. The food I see written about on the web. The food programmes I see and hear. Things I think about food. You get the idea.

Yes. I know there are thousands of blogs about food all over the interwebs, but a bit like the story of 'Alice's Restaurant' I can't see how me adding to an already existing pile will do any harm.

There will be recipes and the term 'food' includes 'drink'.

Welcome.