Gio Thu - Vietnamese head cheese

My wife grew up eating Gio Thu - Vietnamese head cheese, and none of my efforts to make a European-style head cheese have especially won her over.  Our friends across the street threw a big party last week and they served a roasted pig.  Luckily, some of their friends are vegetarian, and they didn't want the pig to look too pig-like, so they removed the head and gave it to me!  My wife showed me a post on The Ravenous Couple and said their Gio Thu looked like the kind she used to eat.  The recipe was certainly clear and straight forward, so I decided to give it a go.  My ingredients were slightly different, mainly because I used a whole head and no hocks.  Heads take longer for the meat to get tender, so I removed the ears when they were done and let the head simmer a little longer. I found an old coffee can and lined it with a big ziploc bag, and added enough weight on the top to press it down. 
This evening we ate it for dinner, along with rice, swiss chard, and an omelette.  I think it's the best tasting (and best looking) head cheese I've made yet. 

Dried salted pig's liver, radishes, and boiled eggs

I was drawn to this recipe by its extraordinary creativity.  Fergus Henderson's The Whole Beast has a handful of recipes that cry out to be made and eaten. In all my cooking I had never seen a dried, salted pig's liver, and I had to try it.
The drying and curing process wasn't very different than that of making pancetta or another cured meat, but its deep red color was a vivid reminder of liver's organ status.  The liver has been hanging in my basement for around a month, and with my brother-in-law visiting from Toronto and tender young arugula in the garden, tonight was a perfect time to make the salad.  Some of my unpicked beets from last fall overwintered well, and their new leaves were also gathered.  I hard boiled eggs from the backyard and sliced the radishes, coating the whole salad with a mild vinaigrette.
The liver, when cut through on the diagonal, was a deep, ruby red, dense, firm, and glossy.  I never expected the texture to be so beautiful.  I sauteed the liver slices in a bit of olive oil and splashed the pan with balsamic vinegar, and as soon as it was reduced  I scooped the slices onto each salad, drizzling the remaining reduction on the greens.
Chewy but with give, meltingly rich, the liver was fantastic; my kids gobbled up slices and asked for more.  Against the snap of radishes, the spare bite of vibrant arugula, and the creaminess of backyard eggs, the liver had such deep flavor that I could barely compare its taste to other dishes.  Unlike a liver pate, the dried liver concentrated its flavor with a wonderfully clean profile; the flavor didn't expand across my palate; rather, it sunk into my taste buds, penetrating the greens of the salad with a shocking earthiness - the meat equivalent of my beloved, earthborn beets.
The cross-cut profile of the liver glistened like chocolate, and I'm wondering how to eat the rest of it.  Fergus Henderson's salad is wonderful, and I'm sure to make it again.  I also think thin shavings of liver could be used to add flavor and body to many dishes.

Slow pork roast

Despite the hard work by pork producers to market "the other white meat," little has been done to keep people from cooking it to death.
I started my pork shoulder roast on Tuesday night, rubbing generous amounts of salt, thyme, garlic, pepper and rosemary into the flesh.  I wrapped it tightly and put it in the back of the icebox until Saturday afternoon.   A big roast, about 7 1/2 pounds, with a bone in it.  I let it move towards room temperature for a few hours before I put it into a 400 F oven, surrounded by big chunks of russet potatoes.  A few scoops of duck fat kept everything honest and well lubricated. 
I had to remove the potatoes from the roasting pan after about an hour because they were browning quickly and the roast still had awhile to go.  I cooked the roast until its internal temperature was just under 140 F, and removed it from the oven and covered it with foil; I used the resting time to finish the potatoes in a 9x13 pan, scooping a little of the fat to refresh the potatoes.
By the time we finished our salad, the thermometer in the roast almost read 160 F.  I cut a few slices and the meat was juicier than a greasy hamburger and still had a nice pink hue to it.  I served it with applesauce and a raisin-onion chutney.  The potatoes were crisp on the outside and baked-potato fluffy on the inside.
We drank a stunning 2005 Alsace Grand Cru Mambourg Gewurztraminer and the massive floral nose nearly knocked me over.  Simply swirling the glass made the dining room vernal.  The intensity of the Gewurztraminer bouquet is unmatched, I think, by any other wine. I don't swoon very often, but every time I raised the glass I first pulled it to my nose and inhaled the memory of springtime love, wet plum blossoms splashed against dark bark, old Chinese poets remembering their youth.  And with it, a still-pink, still-juicy pork roast with pork-and-duck-fat roasted potatoes.

Pork roast ravioli

We stayed in on Christmas, leaving the house only to shovel.  Today we stayed in, too, but went sledding and took a walk after dinner, climbing over huge snow-plow mountains.  On Christmas we ate a delicious pork roast, and with leftovers in the fridge I thought we should use it up.  I cut a few thick slices of the roast and minced it with a big knife on my cutting board, added a little cottage cheese, an egg, sage, salt and pepper.  I wouldn't normally make ravioli with already-cooked pork, but we were really in the mood for ravioli and the pork was sitting there.
I made the pasta dough and let it rest while we puttered around doing a few things.  When it came time to roll the dough I got out the pasta machine, expecting my eight-year old daughter and I would follow our usual routine - I feed the dough into the rollers while she cranks the handle.  As we got ready to start, my daughter said she wanted to roll the dough out herself and didn't want any assistance; once she started she wouldn't even let anyone else near the machine.  She did everything - she cut hunks of dough, fed them through the rollers, she cranked the handle, and handled the flattened dough gently. Once she laid out the long strips of rolled dough, they were mine to use.
The pasta strips were 3"-4" wide and anywhere from 16"-24" long.  I used about a teaspoon of filling for each ravioli, and we crimped the pieces with a chopstick.  I put them into boiling water 10-12 at a time, and cooked them for about three minutes.  I immediately transferred them with a slotted spoon into a large pan with sizzling butter, added more sage, a little salt, pine nuts, and a little more butter to keep everything sliding smoothly.
The texture of the cooked  ravioli was perfect - the pasta had just a little bite to it, the pine nuts added crunch, and the minced pork blended nicely with the sage and butter.  Ravioli is turning into a pasta we love to make because it always comes to the table looking good and tasting delicious.  And now, with an eight-year old who's taken over the pasta machine, we might be eating it more often.

Pasties

A savory Cornish-style pasty turns a bleak, ill-humored day and resolves its blurred memories of unwellness into a well-fed, content family, despite the grey-edged rain upon rain.
I've got half a pan of headcheese and I want to eat it with everything, so I made a rich crust with a stick of butter and a big spoonful of rendered duck fat.  No need for salt because this duck fat was already used to make confit.  I divided the dough into five discs of unequal sizes and chilled it while I prepared the filling.
I also had a small plastic bag with kidneys and hearts that I wanted to use, so I cut them up and sauteed them with an onion and a little more duck fat.  A few tablespoons of brandy started sizzling and I scraped up the little meaty bits on the pan.  I still have a lot of thick, gelatinous stock from the headcheese, so I added a few hunks to the kidneys and let it cook down.
After peeling and slicing a few potatoes and an onion (we didn't have any turnips, another common ingredient,) the pasties were ready to be filled.  I rolled the dough into 5" - 8" circles, and put in a bit of 'taters and onions, as well as a crumbled slice of headcheese.  My wife and I got the kidneys and hearts, too, and the pasties were folded over and sealed, the once-open edge rounded up to keep any liquid from escaping. Head cheese is great for making pasties because of the gelatin that softens into a rich, flavorful broth in the oven.  Halfway through the hour-long cooking, I used a funnel to pour a bit more of the rich stock into each half-moon pasty, sealed all around its edges.
A rich, flaky crust with a piping hot interior was the result, and everyone loved the novelty and the taste.  Diced and shredded pork - and that's essentially what headcheese is - is a fantastic filling for a pasty like this.   And the gravy that keeps everything moist and enriches the crust?  I'll be making this again soon.

Headcheese

There’s no avoiding the bad name; maybe Americans should look abroad and consider brawn, souse, or fromage de tête, syltty or huspenina, as it’s known in some of the lands of our parents and grandparents. Headcheese sounds like it’s made with mucus or boogers, and the name has somehow come into American English as a real unknown. What is it and why did people ever make it? Does anyone even care to know what it is, outside of the handful of bloggers who populate the internet and drive the search engines to their sites? You might even think I’ve moved away from my love of food and am searching for food with a shock value.
If you or I walked into a nice restaurant and saw Cheek Medallions from Berkshire Pig with Juniper Berries and Port Wine Cranberry Glaze we wouldn’t think twice about it, except to wonder if we should order it. But say headcheese and most people will cringe, even while admitting they don’t know what it is and don’t care to know; they assume it’s gross.













I made headcheese this weekend because I bought a pig and it had a head. Sure, I asked the guy at the meat locker not to grind it up, and I asked for the feet as well, but only because they’re part of the pig. Unlike restaurant food, which a chef can create from disparate ingredients and sources, headcheese comes from a tradition rooted in seasonality and culture. In cultures where families still raise a pig each year, headcheese is still being made. Look to any of the poorer European countries, from Moldova and Serbia to rural districts of wealthier countries like Italy and France, and you’ll find headcheese and its local variants. And headcheese isn’t eaten as penance, either; it’s a delectable way to get at the flavorful bits of head meat – imagine a concentrated combination of pulled pork and pot roast.
A head, with the brains removed, is soaked in a salt brine overnight, along with the pig’s feet. Next day the brine is dumped and the meat is cooked at a low simmer for several hours, along with bay leaves, peppercorns, juniper berries, and typical soup stock ingredients like carrots, celery, and onions. When the meat is fall-from-the-bone tender, remove it from the heat and let it cool. When you can handle the meat, separate it from the bones and fat. Strain the stock and boil to reduce by about a third to a half. The feet add huge amounts of gelatin to the stock, which makes the traditional aspic of headcheese a breeze to make.
Because headcheese is refrigerated, it’s important to season it heavily, so the flavors come through the cold. I added salt, marjoram, and re-hydrated a quarter-cup of wild mushrooms. Headcheese in many places call for vinegar, bringing to mind hasenfeffer and jugged hare. I used a saucier and kept reducing the already-rich stock, tasting as I went to ensure a strong flavor. I then put the meat into a Pyrex glass loaf and poured the flavored stock until it covered the meat, covered it with plastic wrap, and put it in the icebox. We ate it yesterday (and today) at lunch with a slice of bread and a gob of mustard.
There’s no reason headcheese couldn’t be warmed up so the aspic melts, and served with egg noodles. In fact, if you’ve eaten rillettes in a French bistro, you’re pretty close to headcheese, except that headcheese doesn’t have as much fat as the rillettes.
My guess is that headcheese is still popular where pigs are butchered on the farm because the process is so well understood. American consumers are suspicious of headcheese because our meat comes from huge factories and we don’t know anything about them. So, while Americans will buy millions of pounds of ground hamburger from unknown sources, few of us will eat headcheese. Is it because of the name or our suspicion of meat factories? If you know where your pig was raised and slaughtered, headcheese is an obvious addition to your repertoire of pork dishes.

Sausage

Have I said how much I enjoy cooking with my children? Last weekend was a long one and we spent some of that time in the kitchen. First we made pasta, and all three kids took turns putting the dough through the rollers, cranking the handle, and gently guiding the pasta with open palms. With pasta hanging over chair backs we decided to make sausage with our new grinder.

I had already cut and seasoned a big hunk of pork shoulder butt; it was my kids’ muscle power that I needed now. Pulling all the sausage-making equipment out of the freezer, we set up on the counter and began grinding. Grinding was tough at times and they switched off regularly, watching the new-cut pork extrude out of the die holes. Once ground, we put everything back into the freezer while we cleaned up the area.

I took the hog casings from the bowl where they were soaking and ran water through them, causing the kids to laugh aloud as they inflated.  If you haven’t seen hog casings before, they look pretty ugly in the bag. After all, they’re the lining of hog intestines, a light but very strong membrane. Packed in salt, they’re shriveled and kind of smelly. After soaking in water they become pliable and slippery, and when you run water through them you can see where condom makers found their raw materials in the pre-latex days.

Once the now-enlarged casings are put onto the end of the sausage stuffer, the real sausage making can commence. Making sausage is as easy as cranking the stuffer and getting a rhythm so the meat is extruded and the casing is extended at a consistent rate. We had a few wobbly moments when we pulled on the casing faster than the meat was filling it, causing irregular-looking sausages. Another time the casing didn’t move as quickly as the meat, resulting in a few blimp-type sausages. But all-in-all, the twenty or so sausages were not very different from the ones you find in the store. Except for the taste.

Pork shoulder, salt, pepper, garlic, and white wine: a simple, unadorned sausage. With endless cold, wet weather, we opted for the fry pan to cook them. A dab of butter in a heavy, enameled cast-iron fry pan, and an easy, medium flame. A few minutes to brown the sides, and about ten minutes with a lid, and they were ready to eat. I added a heap of sauerkraut to the pan and quickly braised the fermented dream-cabbage in the browned bits of sausage residue. On the burner to the left, boiled potatoes. Put it all together and that’s a happy meal!

Home-cured pancetta

Last month we were in an Asian grocery store in St. Paul and when we passed the butcher counter a few guys were cutting up pork bellies. I asked if I could get a five pound slab and one guy walked into the cooler and brought out a whole pork belly. He cut off a big piece and I was on my way to making pancetta for the first time. Pancetta is similar to bacon but it isn't smoked; the seasonings are more aromatic and I think it's a lot more versatile than bacon.
Pancetta begins with a salt cure, a dry rub that includes kosher salt, pink salt (sodium nitrate), garlic, bay leaves, juniper berries, brown sugar, pepper, and a few other herbs and spices. The meat cures in the refrigerator for a week or so, after which the cure is washed off. The meat (not the fat) side is then coated with cracked pepper, and the whole thing is rolled tightly and tied with string. It ages in a cool, dark place for two weeks and it's ready to eat.
We've been slicing it thin, frying it briefly, and pouring a beaten egg over it for breakfast. It's great with pasta and leafy green vegetables, too. After making confit for two decades, I'm really excited to begin curing meats. There are so many traditional sausages and other forms of charcuterie, and I'll be trying my hand at them in the coming year. Happy New Year!

Pork shoulder confit with old fava beans

The fava beans were old and tough and the half-life of the nutrients had probably depleted to a point where it didn't matter if I ate them or not. But today was cold enough to eat shoe leather stew, and I still had a lot of pork shoulder confit to use. We also had a bottle of bad wine in the kitchen and a few other odds and ends that needed to be eaten.
I started by simmering the fava beans in water for an hour or two, trying to soften the skins. The kitchen started to smell good when I sautéed a big onion and a few cloves of garlic in an olive oil/duck fat mixture; a few bay leaves were added when the onions softened and I peeled and cut up a few carrots, too. I turned the flame high and poured almost a cup of inky-dark wine into the pan, and it bubbled and cooked away. For the next half hour I kept adding wine by the pour - a few glug-glugs or so, wanting to keep the reducing liquid at a boil. I softened a handful of dried porcini mushrooms in a bowl of hot water, and added the liquid before the chopped mushrooms.
Next came the drained fava beans with their tough skins; some people like to peel them, and it's easy to do after they've cooked, but I wanted the chewiness of the skins, and their dark color, too. A can of plum tomatoes came next and then a sprinkle of sugar. I covered this and let it cook awhile, adding a pour of water when it appeared to be drying out. I cooked it about an hour, scraping down the sides and giving it a stir when needed. I sliced the pork confit and spread it on the bottom of a dutch oven. I poured the bean mixture over it and was about to put it in the oven, but the dish looked incomplete. I liked the look of the carrots and tomatoes, so I peeled and diced a big sweet potato and a yukon gold, hoping their color and shapes would improve the texture. Finally, I added more pork to the top and poured a little water over the whole thing. I baked it with the lid on for forty-five minutes and removed the lid for the last twenty minutes - it browned up nicely on top.
Results were mixed: my youngest daughter and I liked it a lot, but my cassoulet-loving son was not impressed. My wife thinks most of these stew-type dishes are a homogeneous blend of things that turn purple; it was the attempt to prevent this that prompted me to add the potatoes.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow's dinner - more of the same, I hope.

Dinner Club: Summer grilling

For all the years we've been in our dinner club, we haven't hosted an evening in the summer. Our friends drive down in the dark winter months and we eat rich, red wine foods. With grilling season here, I was excited to plan a summer menu. Back in Buffalo, everyone grills with charcoal, not briquettes. Lump hardwood charcoal. When we first moved here it was hard to find, but now it's sold at Whole Foods and Menard's (our regional equivalent of Home Depot.) A 20 pound bag costs around $5.00 and it's the only thing to use for grilling. It burns hot and clean and its smoke is smoky - not chemical-laden and filled with fillers.

We started the evening with a light asparagus soup, no cream, just lemon to brighten it up. I grew up eating German potato salad and while we usually push for something new at these get togethers, I guessed that our friends may not have eaten as much as me. But, as a concession to trying something new and not using the recipe in our family cookbook, I found a very similar recipe from a 1957 Gourmet. Perfect, I thought - too old to have been fancified. I marinated a 6 pound pork roast for a day and a half with a lot of lime and a garlic/salt & pepper rub, along with a lot of fresh cilantro. The accompanying chutney/salsa was made with roasted red pepper, red onion, six stalks of rhubarb, diced into half inch pieces, and a grilled pineapple, also cut into bite-sized chunks.

I got the Weber grill quite hot, and cleared the charcoal from the middle; I put a drip pan at the bottom to keep the roast away from direct heat as much as to catch drippings. I put the roast on, closed the lid, and drank a beer. After about thirty minutes I turned it over and kept the lid off for a few minutes so the coals could heat up a bit more. Pork scares most people. They want to cook it until it's dead. Recommended cooking temperatures vary a lot. I cooked the roast until the internal temperature was 150 °F; I let it sit for ten or fifteen minutes, and afterward realized I should have removed it from the grill when it hit 145°F; the temperature continued to rise as it rested. Still, the meat was juicy, with just a touch of pink still in it.

I also roasted vegetables on my little Smokey Joe. I parboiled beans and radishes, and drizzled everything with olive oil, salt and pepper. A few diced zucchinis were added, and I grilled them in a basket while the roast finished.

The two wines I served with the pork were a Rosenblum 2004 Roussanne (Fess Parker Vineyard, Santa Barbara) and a Domaine LeFage, which uses Grenache Blanc as the primary grape, from the Cotes du Roussillon. Roussanne, a white Rhone varietal, fascinates me. If a peach was a citrus fruit, and you candied it, that's how I'd start a Roussanne. Then, I'd blindfold someone who's never left North America and put them on a plane to Bangkok. When the door of the plane opened in SE Asia, and they were smacked with a maelstrom of fragrances and smells, none of which were individually known or identifiable, but certainly agreeable, I'd capture that hot smell of the night and put it in the bottle, too. Roussanne also has a structure that lends itself to contemplation. When I drink a Roussanne, or a wine that's got a hefty percentage of Roussanne in it, the earthy minerality seems to push into the floral notes with heat and intensity. I find that Roussanne needs to be served warmer than most other whites. As it warms up a bit, all the floral qualities are expressed. Too cold, and it shuts down, again making it perfect for a summer evening when you're sitting around and the air temperature warms up your wine.

The char on the pork and the lime in the marinade were a worthy complement to the wine. I like the bone-in roast because the meat has more complexity. Unfortunately, a lot of pork is pretty one dimensional and bland. But a roast has the fat and the bone to improve both the texture and taste, and this one paired well with the wine.

A light blueberry tart with an almond crust finished the meal, and that's how we spent Saturday evening.