Meat under pressure. Pressed pork head meat

Pork head is rarely considered a serious culinary product. It is customary to cook jelly from it, and a good aspic is obtained from the tongue. But that's not all. It turns out that you can make very tasty pressed meat from a pig's head.

Everything ingenious is simple

Recently, the daily menu of any family is increasingly "attacked" by sausages. They have become a real attribute of a quick breakfast or a light dinner. This significantly reduces the cooking time, but does not give the pleasure that is felt after eating food prepared by oneself. And to do this is not so difficult. Take, for example, a pig's head. From it you can cook not only jelly, but also something interesting. There is a great recipe that makes it easy to make unusual pressed pork head meat. To do this, you need a pork head, garlic, onion, ground pepper, carrots, spices and water.

You need to prepare as follows:

1. Wash the pork head, cut into two parts lengthwise and put in a wide pan.
2. Pour the product with water and immediately put to boil for 4 hours.
3. After that, remove both halves from the pan, lay them out on the table and completely free them from the bones.
4. Then spread gauze on the table, lay one piece on it skin down and season it with spices.
5. Randomly chop the onion, carrot and garlic. Mix the products and spread the resulting mass over the first piece of the head.
6. Cover the whole structure with the second piece and wrap the resulting roll very tightly in gauze.
7. Set oppression from above and leave the product in this position for one day.

Pressed pork head meat prepared in this way is very tasty, juicy and aromatic.

A well-known product

In cooking, there are many dishes that are prepared in this way. Take, for example, brawn. By and large, it is the same pressed meat from a pig's head, designed in the form of a sausage. To prepare it at home, you will need: 1 pork head, 7 liters of water, 3 onions, 1 kilogram of lumpy pork, salt, 1 carrot, parsley root, spices, 2 bay leaves, greens (parsley, dill) and lemon zest (for lovers ).

Preparing brawn is quite simple:

1. Boil a piece of pork and head with roots for 5 hours. Half an hour before the end of cooking, throw bay leaves and salt into the pan.
2. Lay out the finished product on a cutting table, free from existing bones and cut everything into small pieces.
3. Now the chopped meat must be boiled again together with onions and lemon zest. This will take approximately 1 hour.
4. Combine the boiled pieces with the rest of the ingredients and mix well. After putting everything on gauze, tightly twist it into a roll, tie it with twine, put it under arbitrary oppression and send it to the refrigerator for several hours.

Ready-made pressed meat from the pig's head should be served on the table, after cutting into pieces and sprinkled with plenty of herbs.

To cook pressed meat, you can use not only pork heads, but also legs. For variety, you can also add the meat of any bird. For the standard version with pork, you will need the ingredients:

• 2.5 kilograms of pork legs;
• 2 carrots;
• 1 potato;
• 3 bay leaves;
• 5 sprigs of cloves;
• a tablespoon of peppercorns;
• 2 onions;
• 5 cloves of garlic;
• salt;
• a few stalks of dill;
• 2 tablespoons of gelatin powder;
• 1 tablespoon of honey;
• a couple of juniper twigs and 10 berries of this plant.

Work begins with the most important:

1. Rinse, clean and dry with a paper towel.
2. Then grease them with honey and let them lie down for 15 minutes.
3. Fold the legs tightly in a saucepan, pour water and, slowly, bring to a boil.
4. Remove the foam from the broth, and then pour in the chopped vegetables and the rest of the ingredients. In this composition, cook the legs for at least 3 hours.
5. After that, remove the skin from the legs and cut off the meat.
6. Cover the prepared form with pieces of leather.
7. Grind the meat, mix with gelatin and put on top of the skin in a mold. Make several such layers. From above, again cover everything with skin.
8. Close the form, place a load on it and leave it in this position for a whole day.

It turns out very tasty pressed meat, which is well known in Norwegian cuisine. Scandinavians eat it with toast or special flatbreads, pouring sour cream sauce with dill. But everyone can decide for himself what to eat such yummy.

Appliances in everyday life

More and more appliances come to the aid of housewives in the kitchen. Designers are developing new devices that can facilitate work in the kitchen. One of these mechanisms is the ham. It makes cooking so much easier. A special recipe has been developed for each dish. Pressed meat, for example, is very convenient to make with this device. It is not necessary to take the head. For cooking, you can use the following ingredients: carrots, spices, sweet peppers and 2 eggs.

Everything is prepared in two stages:

1. Cut the meat, carrots and peppers into pieces, mix and set aside for a while (2 hours) so that the products are slightly marinated.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix everything again.
3. Line the ham with foil and put the prepared mixture into it. Cover the device with a lid and place in a deep frying pan. Poke holes in the marked holes, and pour a glass of plain water into the pan. Put the structure in the oven for 1.5 hours.

After cooling, the finished product can be removed from the device and safely served on the table. Such a fragrant meat product can be put on bread in the form of a sandwich or served in a plate with a vegetable side dish.

Rich choice

Any hostess herself can decide how to make pressed meat. It all depends on the availability of food and auxiliary equipment in the kitchen. If there is no standard ham at hand, then the meat can always be cooked in ordinary cling film. The recipe is better to take easier. For this option, the following set of products is suitable: 1.2 kilograms of pork, a glass of water, spices, 3 tablespoons of gelatin, salt, a little garlic and onion (if desired).

The dish is prepared in the usual way:

1. Cut the meat into large pieces and place in a bowl. Then fill it with water and put on fire. During cooking, add salt, onion and pepper.
2. At this time, dilute the gelatin with cold water and set aside to swell.
3. Remove the cooked meat from the hot broth to a separate plate and let it cool. Then carefully disassemble each piece into fibers. Add minced garlic to meat.
4. Dilute the prepared gelatin with a little hot broth.
5. Moisten a baking dish with water and line the inside with cling film.
6. Pour a little gelatin on the bottom, and put a piece of meat with garlic on top. Then lay out in the same order until all the products run out. There must be gelatin on top.
7. Wrap the resulting mixture with the edges of the film, and put a load on top. Put this design in the refrigerator for 10-12 hours.

On the table, meat should be served abundantly sprinkled with herbs.

The head of a pig is a product that not every housewife will undertake to cook. Some are frightened by the need for cutting skills, others by the intimidating appearance. However, if you look, you can find many advantages in such a purchase. The cost on the market, compared to other parts, is quite low. Dishes from the head are tasty and nutritious. It remains only to study the recipes tried more than once by culinary specialists.

Pig's head is a product that does not stay on the market for a long time. The low price and the possibility of preparing several delicious dishes attracts knowledgeable buyers.

It is better to make a purchase in the market in the morning. After learning a few simple rules and using them in practice, choosing a quality product will not be difficult.

Attention! In the old days, the head of a pig was served in every tavern and dishes from it were of high cost.

Attention! A whole pork head goes bad quickly. To prevent such a nuisance from happening, you need to cut it immediately after purchase.

How to butcher

Delicious dishes are obtained when the head is properly butchered. Therefore, you need to be patient and do the work in accordance with the following points:

• Carefully scrape the cinder from the ears and other places.
• A well-sharpened knife with a strong blade separates the ears. Do it as close to the main part as possible.
• Proceed to the branch of the cheek. The meat, together with the skin, is cut off with a large knife in the direction from the top of the head to the patch. At this point, you should be very careful and try not to hurt the eye socket. The dark fluid that fills the organ of vision, if it gets on the detachable piece, will spoil its appearance.
• Cut off the forehead. They do it with a knife.
• Treat the chin. They take out the tongue.
• Using a sharp ax or cleaver, you need to cut the skull, after which the head is divided into 2 parts.

• Separate the lower and upper jaws by running a knife along the connecting ligament.
• Cut off a patch.
• Proceed to the separation of the jaws.

The remaining bones with meat are sent for storage and used later for cooking broths. Finish cutting by extracting the eyes and brain. The first are sent for animal feed. The head, cut according to all the rules, is soaked in cold water for at least 6 hours.

Advice. If there is no confidence in the success of self-cutting, it is better to ask for a similar service from professional deboners on the market. The head will be butchered in minutes.

Delicious saltison

Saltison or brawn, as the Germans call it, is a dish of boiled parts of a pig's head. Perform it in 2 versions:

• in the pig's stomach;
• pressed in cling film or sleeve.

The first cooking method is considered classic, but it takes more time. The pressed version is simpler (you don’t have to mess with your stomach), but no less tasty. For Saltison, you need to take the following products:

• pig's head;
• muscular wall of the stomach of a pig;
• a head of garlic;
• carrot;
• parsley root, spices.

In addition to the head, pieces of the liver, tongue, and pork pulp are added to the brawn. If all the necessary products are available, the first thing to do is to process the stomach. The digestive organ is thoroughly washed, excess fat and mucus are scraped off the surface, sprinkled with salt. In this form, the stomach is left for 10-12 hours. Then again washed in several waters.

Saltison is prepared like this:

1. The cut head is placed in a suitable size pan. If you plan to add tongue and liver, they are boiled separately.
2. Boil under the lid for 3-4 hours.
3. An hour before the burner is turned off, onions and roots are added. For half an hour - salt and spices.
4. The head is removed from the broth. The meat is cut, cleaned of bones.
5. Add crushed garlic and a little broth.
6. Fill the soaked scar or polyethylene form.
7. The holes are sewn up and boiled in the broth for another 2-3 hours.
8. Take out and place under the press in a cool place for a couple of days.
9. The delicacy is served with mustard or horseradish.

jelly and roll

Pork head is great for making jelly. Prepare it as follows:

1. The cut head is boiled over low heat for about 5 hours.
2. The meat is taken out, chopped, cleaned of bones.
3. Pieces of pulp are scattered on glass or enameled trays and poured with salty broth.
4. Exposed to the cold.

The jelly is served at the table with mustard mixed with vinegar or horseradish with beets. In Belarus, a roll recipe is common, the basis of which is a pork head.

Make the dish like this:

1. The head is not cut as usual. First, the skin is removed from it with a layer.
2. Everything else that is suitable for eating is cut off and boiled in salt water with bay leaves for 3 hours.
3. The pulp is crushed, sprinkled with chopped onions, garlic, spices. Spread on the skin and roll up. Tie with thread or twine.
4. The roll is boiled for another 2 hours in the broth. Take out. Serve cold.
5. This roll goes great as an appetizer.

All of the listed dishes, for the preparation of which the pork head is suitable, even in the photo look very appetizing. It's easy to cook them. The main thing is to get used to and properly cut the product.

Selz: video

The pork head is that unusual offal that divides all gourmets into two approximately equal groups: some do not even want to look in its direction, while others rush to buy as soon as they see it. Contrary to popular belief, a lot of interesting things can be prepared from the components of this part of the pork carcass, and jelly is just the most banal thing that comes to mind.

Peculiarities

Important! At home, it is much easier to store such a product, since the cut head is stored much longer, but it is almost always sold as a whole, otherwise there may not be buyers for individual parts at all.

Butchering, by the way, often determines how tasty the dish will turn out - some delicacies do not allow the use of several parts of the head at the same time. In the end, the tarred head is covered in many places with the remnants of burning, which must be scraped off first, otherwise the taste of this foreign component will pass to the cooked dishes. To begin with, the ears and cheek are removed, and this must be done so that no fragments of these parts remain on the main part of the head.

Further, they sequentially cut off the frontal part and chin, cut off the tongue, chop the head in half, separate the jaws and cut off the snout, and at the end they cut the meat from the jaws. After all that has been described, there remains a bone frame with brains and eyes (it is highly undesirable to hurt or damage the latter during the entire cutting process). The last three parts are also divided: the eyes are good only for food for dogs, the brain can be used for human food, and the bones will become a fat for broth.

Benefit and harm

Pork head is a combined offal, its different parts can bring different benefits and harms to a person. Nevertheless, such a product is sold mainly as a whole (only ears and tongues can be found separately), so it is worth considering the pros and cons of such food in the complex. If we talk about the components of the head, then of the vitamins, only group B is abundantly represented here, but minerals are a whole scattering: iron and manganese, iodine and copper, cobalt and molybdenum, nickel and chromium, tin, zinc and fluorine.

As for the calorie content and BJU, there is no need to talk about it in exact numbers - the considered part of the pig is too heterogeneous, so the energy value can fluctuate greatly. The only thing that is not in doubt is that only ears belong to dietary products, while everything else is very rich in calories.

If you eat pork head dishes in moderation, then you can get a lot of benefits from such a diet, namely:

• increase brain activity;
• protect against diseases of the heart and blood vessels;
• increase your emotional background;
• regulate the amount of cholesterol and strengthen the vascular walls;
• activate the formation of blood in the body;
• improve hair and skin;
• stimulate the bowels;
• for pregnant women - increase lactation.

However, the pleasant effects described above relate rather to individual components of the head, while in general it, and even with regular use, can cause a lot of harm. There are a number of diagnoses in which it is generally undesirable for use - this is low acidity of gastric juice and diabetes mellitus, a tendency to allergies and ailments of the liver or kidneys, diseases of the gallbladder or intestines. High-calorie pork, including the head, should be present in the diet of people who are inclined to be overweight and simply lead a predominantly sedentary lifestyle, in limited quantities, otherwise weight gain cannot be avoided.

As for pregnant women and children, they can eat pork head dishes, but they should follow the measure and carefully choose suppliers.

Recipes

At home and with a good imagination, you can cook a wide variety of dishes from a pig's head, not limited to the traditional aspic. You should consider how to make various dishes that can surprise gourmets.

Estonian studen

It is worth paying attention to its somewhat unusual variant of jelly, popular in Estonia. The key difference between the two dishes is that the Baltic version is not as fatty, so it is easier for the digestive system to digest and not so detrimental to the figure. Another thing is that one pork head is not enough here - you also need pork legs and veal.

The cheeks are cut from the head, and then it, together with the other two ingredients described above, is put in equal quantities in a large saucepan on the fire. When all the resulting foam is removed, two unpeeled whole onions, one carrot (also whole, but already peeled), parsley and celery are thrown into the dish being prepared.

Boiled meat, which itself is removed from the bones, indicates that it is time to add typical seasonings to the broth - salt, bay leaf and black pepper balls. After that, the fire is extinguished, the meat is allowed to cool and divided into small pieces, separating it from the bones. The broth is strained and the meat is poured over it, after which the resulting mixture should be boiled to a boil, on which the cooking is completed. As befits the jelly, then it is poured into portioned containers and sent to the refrigerator - without significant cooling, it will not harden.

Pressed meat

Pressed pork has various names, such as brawn or saltison, but in any case it is very tasty. There are quite a few recipes for preparing such a dish in various versions, it is worth taking the simplest version as a basis. The step by step instructions in this case are as follows:

1. a pork head (better, of course, without eyes, it is possible from separate parts) is carefully cleaned of dirt and soot, and then boiled in a saucepan over low heat, by analogy with jelly - for a long time, for about five hours;
2. at the end of cooking, spices are added to the water - usually salt, pepper and bay leaf, but adding your own components to taste is not forbidden;
3. as a result, the meat turns out to be boiled and soft, so it, as well as lard and even cartilage, is removed from the bones and cut very finely; the resulting mass is mixed with crushed garlic, which is also added to the eye;
4. further, you need to take a large bowl, put a colander in it, and that, in turn, lined with gauze; a mixture of meat, lard, cartilage and garlic is poured into this cheesecloth, and one or two more glasses of broth left after cooking are added on top;
5. the entire complex structure is sent to the refrigerator and pressed against it with something heavy so that the mixture is compressed and becomes dense; on average, after 5–6 hours, the dish can already be eaten.

Roll baked in the oven

Some refer to this dish as Belarusian cuisine, but in fact it is common in many European countries. To prepare it, you need to carefully remove the skin from the head, trying not to damage it, and then cut off everything else that is suitable for food. The final mixture of meat and lard is boiled for about three hours in salt water seasoned with bay leaves, after which it is finely chopped or chopped and mixed with spices, including crushed garlic and crushed onions.

Fat or lard is laid out on a baking sheet, pieces of which could be left when cutting everything else, so far completely raw skin is laid out on top of them. On it, in turn, spread the crushed mixture, after which they twist everything into a roll and tie it with food twine, and also cover it with foil on top. In this form, the roll is sent to the oven for three hours, and periodically it is taken out and poured over with fat, which drains from it. The finished product, until fully cooked, must still stand all night in the refrigerator.

Important! However, there are alternative ways to prepare this dish. Some recipe options suggest that there is no baking at all in the oven - the formed roll without any lining in the form of fat and covering with foil is simply cooked for another two hours in the same broth in which its filling was cooked.

Given the significant duration of cooking, many advise doing the basic manipulations in a home autoclave, which will significantly speed up the process.

Stew with pearl barley

For this dish, meat and lard are cut off separately from the head (in a ratio of 2: 1), the latter is heated to a state of lard. Onions and carrots are chopped (each ingredient should be one piece per kilogram of meat). The above ingredients are mixed, flavored with salt and pepper, and laid out in sterilized jars. With a mass of meat and vegetables, the dishes should be filled by a third. Barley is evenly added on top (400 grams per kilogram of meat), a little bay leaf is added and poured with water, leaving a few centimeters free to the lid.

In this form, the jars are boiled for an hour after boiling in a water bath - the dishes should be placed in water up to their shoulders. Containers with boiled stew are taken out and tested for salt, adding salt if necessary, and then poured with melted lard. After that, the product in jars is boiled according to the above scheme for another four hours, after which it is rolled up.

Before use, such a stew must be warmed up, but it can be stored for six months.

As is often the case, the final taste of dishes is highly dependent on the correct choice of ingredients, and not everyone knows how to choose a pig's head. That is why it is worth paying attention to how not to make a mistake when harvesting raw materials.

• The shade of the head in many cases indicates exactly how it was processed. Traditionally, such an offal was tarred on straw, and if the animal was young, after such treatment the head will be creamy, and in an adult pig it will have a characteristic yellowish tint; This option is the most beneficial from an environmental point of view. Today, many procurers make do with blowtorches on various types of fuel - then cinder deposits, which are normal in all cases, will not stick to your fingers. For sale in large stores, the product is not ground at all - it is simply deep frozen, and then the head looks completely white.
• An ideal, well-finished pig's head is already devoid of bristles, but in the absence of resin in the case of stores, you will have to remove the hairs yourself. Many consumers prefer to grind such a product at home on an ordinary gas burner, but such treatment will definitely give an unpleasant odor, so it’s better to simply shave the pig - a cheap disposable razor will do for this. After that, the head, and especially hard-to-reach places, are once again passed with a stiff brush or even a washcloth.

• A pig's head is never clean, even if it looks that way, so don't choose it solely for its neat appearance. Remember that you will have to wash it anyway, and very carefully.
• A properly processed pork head, despite its slightly intimidating appearance, smells quite pleasant - about the same as good meat at the beginning of cooking. In the original, it does not have aromas of various “chemistry” or dampness, if any are present, this indicates an incorrect storage procedure.
• A characteristic blue stamp means that a particular head was checked in the laboratory for compliance with basic food requirements, so the choice should be made in favor of “sealed” offal, although some of them pass such a test without a stamp. At the same time, it is better to simply throw away the piece of meat on which the stamp is applied - the composition of the ink includes formalin, which will not bring anything but harm to the human body.
• There is no place for moisture or any sticky coating on the head - if they are present, this is the first evidence that the offal is starting to deteriorate. The blood at the site of the former connection with the body should not be red (this can only happen with a freshly severed head that has not undergone any processing), but it cannot be black either - this is also a sign that the offal is stale.

You will learn how to cook pressed pork head meat in the following video.

How to cook a pork head at home is actually not an easy task. It is not for nothing that the preparation of a pig's head is one of the stages in the preparation of chefs in many educational institutions. But by following the correct sequence and adhering to clear rules for cleaning, cutting and processing, you can learn how to cook delicious dishes from this unusual part of the carcass.

Before you start cooking the dish, you need to understand what you want to cook from the pig's head. Kholodets or saltison, a whole head according to classic oriental recipes or a stew, a roll or pate, or maybe a baked head in the oven - you can list what dishes you can cook from a pork head for a long time, but they all take time and patience, but believe me, the result will definitely please you . So here's a recipe for you on how to cook a pork head in the form of saltison.

How to cook pork head saltison?

The main rule of all pork head dishes is thorough cleaning and processing of this part of the carcass. Before preparing saltison, we clean the head, if there is a bristle on the head, then we burn it, then we cut off all the parts that you do not like, after which we proceed to cutting. We remove the eyeballs by cutting the head into several pieces, removing the brains and any unappetizing parts. Now wash the meat in running water, and leave to soak for 12 hours, while periodically changing the water. After soaking, put the head on the stove, as soon as the water boils, drain it, then fill it with fresh water, salt, add a whole peeled carrot and onion head, cook the meat for 3-4 hours along with a piece of veal. We need veal to make our dish less fat and more meat. At the end of cooking, add salt and spices to taste, in general, saltison is an appetizer, so a large amount of spices will only benefit this dish - bay leaf, black and allspice, maybe even a pod of bitter dried pepper, all this will add spice to the dish. The meat must be cooked until fully cooked, until it easily separates from the bones.

Now we take out the meat and chop it into small pieces with a knife, you should not use a blender, as the meat will turn into minced meat, but we need the texture of whole pieces.

Everything, the meat is chopped, now it remains to put it in a mold, after wrapping it in cling film, pressing down on top with a small load, put it in the refrigerator for 12-14 hours. After hardening, saltison can be cut into small strips 1-2 cm thick, after removing it from the film.

The classic saltison is prepared in a pork stomach, which must also be carefully processed beforehand, cleaned of everything that does not suit you personally, constantly changing the water, then put salt in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, the stomach can even be boiled a little. After that, having stuffed it with already prepared meat from the head, cook again in lightly salted water in an already formed form for 2-3 hours. Then, after cooling, put under the press in the refrigerator. This method of cooking, of course, will take much longer, but you will certainly surprise your friends at the festive table.

Saltison recipe for 5-8 persons:

Since it takes quite a long time to cook pork head saltison correctly, it is better to cook on the weekend to do everything without haste. Another dish, according to its cooking principle, is similar to saltison - brawn, since you can cook brawn from a pig's head according to the same recipe, only unlike saltison, broth is used in the brawn, which is why the dish is somewhat reminiscent of jelly, only with less liquid content. An interesting option for cooking brawn is to place it in a plastic bottle, due to which it will somewhat resemble sausage and can also be cut into small pieces.

How to cook jellied pork head?

If you cook jellied meat only from pieces of meat that is contained on the head, then the dish will surely turn out to be fatty and not everyone will like it. Therefore, to prepare a pork head, you can take lean veal or chicken.

Before cooking, we carefully process the head, removing everything unnecessary (eyes, parts of the cheeks, etc.), rinsing it in running water and soaking it for 12 hours. Then we boil and drain the water again, and only after that we fill the head with water and put the meat on the fire, adding salt, bay leaf, carrots, allspice and 1-2 onions. As soon as the water boils, we make the minimum temperature so that the water only boils slightly, so the broth will be transparent.

Don't forget to skim off the fat as it cooks. Cooking jellied meat should take at least 5 hours, and preferably 8-9 hours, so that the broth solidifies well in the future. After the meat is finally cooked, let it cool and disassemble it, carefully separating the bones and dividing the meat into small pieces. After placing the meat in deep plates, fill them with broth so that the broth only slightly covers the meat. And put in the refrigerator for 8-12 hours.

Recipe for jellied pork head:

The pork head and dishes from it are not yet very popular in home cooking, but the dishes from this part are hearty and at the same time cheap. So if there is a pork head on your table, then what to cook with a photo can be found on the Internet, for example, stew.

How to cook pork head stew?

To prepare the stew from the head, in addition to it, you will need salt, pepper, bay leaf, onion, garlic. We carefully clean and chop the head into several parts, removing the cheeks and, if desired, the tongue, boil for several minutes in the first water, drain it, and then cook in new clean salted water until tender, usually 4-6 hours, until the meat becomes soft and will not easily move away from the bone. We drain the broth, we do not need it. We chop the finished meat into small pieces, as well as all parts of the head (ears, patch), excluding bones.

Now we put the meat in pre-washed and steam-sterilized jars, put the jars in a saucepan with water so that the water reaches the middle of the jar and boil with the lid closed for 30-40 minutes along with canning lids. Taking out one jar, quickly twist them and let them cool, put in the refrigerator, where we store. Of course, the stew can be stored without a refrigerator, but in a cold place the likelihood that the dish will go bad is much lower.

Ingredients for Pork Head Stew:

As you can see, preparing homemade pork head stew is not difficult, and does not require a large number of ingredients, but only takes a lot of time.

And how tasty can you cook a pork head? For example, according to the classic Russian recipe in the oven, making minor changes to the recipe.

How to cook a whole pork head?

Baked pork head is a primordially Russian recipe that has been known since time immemorial, even our great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers baked pork heads in Russian ovens. Indeed, in those days, not a single part of the carcass was wasted, we will only make small changes to this simple, but delicious dish.

Before you cook a whole pork head in the oven, it must be thoroughly washed, scraped and singed with an open flame, if this has not been done before you, cut off the cheeks, remove the eyes and the skin around them and soak the head in salty cold water for 12 hours. Salt should be taken at the rate of 100 grams per 1 kg of head weight. After soaking, rinse the head thoroughly with cold water again, washing off the remaining salt.

Now we rub the skin with spices, wrap our “piggy” with foil, wrap the ears and the “piglet” especially well, and then place it in the oven preheated to 180 degrees for 5 hours. While the pork head is baking, prepare a kind of glaze mixture based on mustard and honey. After 4.5-5 hours, when the baked head is almost ready, take it out, remove the foil and carefully coat with our honey-mustard mixture. Now again in the oven for 40 minutes at a temperature of 210 degrees.

Recipe for cooking a whole pork head in the oven:

Serve the finished pork head with a side dish of rice, boiled potatoes or buckwheat. As you can see, nothing is difficult, just be patient and time before you cook the pork head in the oven.

First of all, going to the market, we do not pass by the meat rows, but buy a pig's head. At the anti-crisis price of 35 rubles/kg.

For 145 rubles. such a miracle (4 kg 800 gr.) (photo1)

Don't worry about the crack on your forehead. It was she who did not kill herself against the wall, it was I who asked the butcher to cut it.

We soak the head in cold water for 5 hours, because no one processes it cleanly for sale.

We scrape the soaked pig's head "with special cruelty" with a knife.

As you will see, the recipe is very flexible. At will, you can enter into the composition both the tongue, if it is in the head, and the liver and heart. Here whoever likes it. Any recipe is not a dogma, but a guide to action.

We put the head with roots and onions on the stove, salt. Cook on low heat for at least 2 hours, maybe 4 hours. Before the end of cooking, add pepper and bay leaf.

Put the boiled head on a baking sheet. After letting it cool down a bit, we start cutting, cutting off the skin with the fat layer, trying not to damage the skin. (Photo 3)

Having removed all the skin from the head, we lay it on the gauze or canvas previously laid out on the table, skin down. Salt, pepper, sprinkle with chopped garlic. (Photo 4)

Having thoroughly cleaned the meat from the head, pour it in a slide on the skin. There is a tongue or liver, add it here. Again, salt, pepper, sprinkle with chopped garlic. At that moment, I also added nutmeg there, for smell. (photo5)

We carefully collect the gauze by the edges, so that the contents are inside the pigskin.

Option one - put it in the boiling broth left after boiling the head and boil for 10-15 minutes. At the same time, the garlic will soften a little, lose some of the pungent odor and will not be “heard” so sharply in the finished dish.

Option two - immediately, without intermediate cooking, throw gauze into a colander and, without straining your brain for a long time, put it under oppression. (photo 6-7)

I have done this and that in my practice. I like both ways, I don't see much difference. The only thing is that in the second case, when eating a dish, the garlic does not come across in small pieces, but somewhat “dissolves” in the overall taste. But whoever likes it.

Since it takes 20 hours to keep the dish until ready, at least, the waiting time must be filled with something. In order not to secrete gastric juice in vain, I "grilled" a pig's penny, cut off before putting the meat in a pan and boiled together with the head. Used it with beer and hot pickled peppers. I should note that such a pig snout is a thing of rare taste, a gift for true pork lovers. (photo 8)

Well, after the above time has elapsed, we get our “cheese” (but it looks like it, really!). We serve on the table, accompanied by the right alcohol, which in this particular case is vodka, and other joys, such as horseradish, mustard, greens. On top, you can embellish with coarsely ground black pepper. (Photo 9)