Diary of a Pigs Head - Part 2

After 72 hours in a bucket of brine, William no longer had that pink ‘alive’ look. He looked pallid, and slightly greyish, as you would imagine anything would that had spent time immersed in salt water. I don’t like using Saltpetre as the pink-preserver because it seems like one chemical too many in a life already filled with unseen chemicals hidden in our foods.
I am always curious about the long line of lineage of preserving food. I wonder how long it took stone-age man to realise that eating spoiled meat would consequently spoil him (and his family) too. And how many more years before salt became the chief preserver of all meats and fish?
Either way it was of little or no consequence to William. He lay submerged in the brine, his empty eye socket filled covered over with a dried bay leaf and his skin (skin? I suppose at this point it becomes rind) pitted with peppercorns.
I removed William from his briny depths, knowing this would be the last time that he would bear any resemblance to the proud beast he once was. I rinsed off the brine and placed him and a pair of trotters (which I doubt were his but it would be nice to think so) in my large stockpot to rapidly boil out any excess salt.
The smell of hot cloves and brown sugar quickly filled the air. I was expecting a rather more unpleasant offal-like smell but the brine had taken care of that. Besides, with the brain removed there is nothing but meat and fat left anyway. And what’s not to like about meat and fat?
Once again, William and trotters were transferred to another pot, this time immersed in an herbal infusion of celery, fresh herbs, carrots, onions, a whole head of fresh garlic and a splash of white wine vinegar to sharpen the ensuing jelly.
I was rather precariously working from two recipes: the Jane Grigson one, which instructed four hours of slow simmering, and the Fergus Henderson one which advocated just two hours cooking and that was for a whole head.
Striking a happy medium between the two, I simmered it for 2 and a half hours. After this time, the vegetables had collapsed and the meat was falling from the bones.
I lifted the meat (no longer referred to as William) from the pan, and put it in a large bowl to cool off slightly before I started to pick it apart. I strained the cooking liquor and then reduced it by half with rapid boiling. This would – in theory – produce a rich, flavoursome jelly, made further gelatinous from the addition of the trotters to suspend the shreds of meat in the terrine like tiny pink rags.
And, bolstered by some alcohol, I tasted the stock and was pleasantly surprised by the intensely savoury liquor, imbued with the whole head of garlic and numerous herbs, not to mention Williams sweet meat, made sweeter still by a lifetime spent in pig luxury. No salt was needed, I just added a dash more vinegar to smarten it up a bit. I left it to simmer whilst I attacked the head.
Ah yes. The head. Whilst I was flitting around tweaking the cooking liquor, there was always that dark spectre of the cooked pigs head, staring up at me from the draining board.
I took it downstairs. Paul was going to have to watch me do this if not actively participate. Unfortunately, he was on the phone to his parents and seemed to be making unnecessary conversation with them, as if to prolong the call. I figured there was only one way to deal with this: hands straight in. And that is precisely what I did. I had my lined terrine next to me, a waiting vessel for the meat as I removed it from the various parts of the head. I was interested to note that there was moist, lean brown meat right behind the eye socket that, with a lot of coercion I managed to work loose. When you have your fingers eye socket deep into a cooked pigs head, you do seriously start to question your own sanity.
After about an hour spent picking apart this once masterful animal, I was left with about half a terrine of decent meat, of varying textures and colours. Some as dark as roast duck, some as pink as a rare steak. Some of the fat resembled raw pork, such was it's white density.
Fingertips still tingling from the heat of the freshly cooked pigs head, I trot upstairs with my half filled terrine and pour over the reduced gelatine-to-be. The Brawn or Cochon du Tete or Headcheese - which it now is - is refrigerated for several hours. After this time, it will separate into two distinct layers, one a protective covering of pure pig fat, the second a pink and bronzed translucent strata of gelatine and meat. It turns out perfectly.
William’s work here is done.