I have a thing for making strange traditional peasant foods. By "peasant" foods I mean cheap or inexpensive cuts made to taste good and traditionally eaten by the lower middle socioeconomic class of society. I feel like I'm a peasant, at heart at the very least. One such dish that I tend to make annually, or on a bi-annual basis, is head cheese. Its is cheap but it taste good and its strange, so I feel like it fits the category.
I did a recipe post on head cheese about five years ago, which to be honest, was pretty much peak writing for me. I'm not going to redo the same post now but its been long enough for me to revisit the topic I think. So here we go!
I don't follow recipes when I cook so I can't really write about the specifics of what I did. Think of this more as guide on how to make head cheese. Its actually pretty simple really.
When it comes down to it, you're just making a gelatinous stock and putting some meat in it. That is head cheese really. Meat jello. Solid soup. The nicknames could be endless.
I'll explain the process in some detail below but if you don't care about all that then you can just skip to the end where I summarize my main tips and tricks in bold. There are only two of them so its fast reading.
The long version: start by boiling a cut of pork that contains gelatine. I used ham hocks but you can use pigs feet or tails, or even just by throwing a slab of pig skin in the pot with some meat and bones. The ideal cut would be to use a pigs head because they contain a lot of gelatin, but aside from specially ordering a head from a butcher and spending a ton of money, I don't know how to get a full pigs head. Cheaper and accessible cuts like the ones I mentioned previously, are easy and they work fine. I added
• 1 ham hock
• 1 carrot
• 1 onion
• 1 leek
• and garlic (to taste)
to make the stock more flavorful. Celery is another good vegetable to use for more flavor. For spices I used:
• salt (to taste)
• pepper (to taste)
• 1/2 - 1 tsp nutmeg (approximately)
• cloves (sparingly)
•and thyme (added later in the boil).
If you like the taste of garlic then I would suggest adding in a lot garlic - like 5-6 cloves and maybe even a little finely chopped/minced garlic at the end for more flavor.
The biggest trick to making flavorful head cheese is to over season the broth. When you're done and it solidifies into gelatin, it loses a lot of flavor, so you want the broth to be overly seasoned when you're finished. I add in:
• 1 chicken bouillon cube and extra salt.
Another thing you can do is skip using water to create the stock and boil everything in pre-made, store bought chicken broth. I really can't emphasize it enough that you want the broth to be overly seasoned. Aside from it losing a lot of flavor when its cooled, you could also think of it like eating cured meats. Prosciutto and pastrami for example are very salty, but you don't eat them in large quantities but rather in thin slices, so the saltiness isn't overpowering.
Judging how much liquid to boil everything in is somewhat tricky. You need it to solidify firmly at the end, so you can't have too much liquid to natural gelatin. I used just enough liquid to cover the meat and vegetables. After evaporation from boiling, you basically want about 2-3 cups of broth.
I cooked the meat and vegetables at low boil/simmer for a good 3-4 hours.
It's sort of a guess at how much natural gelatin you will have in the stock at the end of it all, but if you are using a decent amount of skin and bone then it will definitely firm up once its cooled.
You can add in packaged gelatin as well, which I always do, but I would recommend using as little as possible.
The gelatin is great for making it firm and allowing it to hold its shape when cutting. However, adding too much extra gelatin will make the head cheese rubbery and chewy, which to me is less pleasant to eat. I like it to have less chew and to almost melt in your mouth personally. I used about 1/2 a sachet of gelatin this time and it was too much. It was borderline rubbery and you can tell from the photos I took. If you look closely you can see the cut marks from the knife which is a bit of an indication that the gelatin is too firm. For the batch size that I made (about 2 cups liquid) I would say to use 1/4 sachet max - probably less. (Note: I don't know what that would translate to in gelatin sheets if that's what you have on hand).
When the stock done boiling, strain it all out and set just the meat aside to add back in later. You can shred the meat or leave it in chunks. I prefer the latter. Add the store bought gelatin (if you choose to use it) and dissolve that in the liquid. Transfer the liquid to a casserole dish or bread tin and add in the meat. Let it cool in the fridge overnight. That's it!
After the liquid solidifies there will be a layer of fat that rises to surface. That is where the cheese part of the name comes from. It looks like cheese. You can cut or scape that off or you can eat it. Its up to you.
You can add vinegar or lemon when you eat it for a little something extra, which I would recommend trying. It tastes best with vinegar.
My Main Tips
• Over season the broth
• Less is more when it comes to adding store bought gelatin
Conclusion
Head cheese is actually quite simple to make but its also a bit of an experiment. If this is something that you're interested in trying yourself, please feel free to ask questions in the comment section. I'm happy to provide more info if anything is unclear.
Aside from that, have you ever tried head cheese? Is this something that you would eat? Let me know in the comments.
