I need to start posting here more often. There are so few hours in the day. One minute I’ll be writing at my desk or tending to a head in the pot, and the next, the day will have flown by. My foray into butchering has turned my life topsy-turvy, though in the best way possible.
I love Fleisher’s with an unholy passion that I reserve for few other things in my life: my wok, my cast-iron skillets, my Foot Buddy (which, for those of you who haven’t seen a lot of late-night Infomercials, is a cheap plastic electric heating board that warms my feet when I’m sitting at my desk.)
I don’t deserve half the love and attention I get from the good folks at the shop. Mostly, when I’m there I’m futzing around on a pig or ranting about gizzards. Josh will come up to me every hour or so and tell me that I’m doing it all wrong. So I try again.
Last week the only thing I managed to do correctly was learn how to skin. A lot of the skin on the shoulder and back needs to be separated from fat and flesh if you’re breaking down meat for the chop bin, or preparing to tie up a roast. The standard procedure is to cut the skin into strips; then, holding your boning knife so that the blade is parallel to the table, make a smooth, long cut underneath the fat – as close to the skin as you can get it. My own cutting was more of a jagged, wrist-turning movement than an steady slash.
“See, you’re shying away from the edge of the blade too soon,” Josh said. “Ever shot a gun?”
I shook my head.
“Well, it’s like shooting a gun. A lot of people are scared by the sound of a gun. So when they’re aiming at something they move the barrel away too soon as an overcorrection. You’re doing the same thing with the blade of your knife.”
“But if I keep cutting, then it feels like my knife will go right through the skin,” I replied.
“No it won’t,” Bryan chimed in. “Ever start a lawn mower?”
I shook my head again. There aren’t too many well-manicured lawns in New Mexico. And so continued the well-meaning though entirely unhelpful analogies.
What finally got through to me was long, hard practice. For three hours I stood at the table doing nothing but skinning the sections of fatback Bryan tossed my way. Finally the fingers on my left hand were covered in grease from pulling at the base of the skin and my right hand twitched uncontrollably from the constant pressure applied to the blade. But the two separate piles of fat and skin were a sight to behold.
Today’s post is really more of a suggestion than a recipe. I’ve been cooking a lot of heads in my kitchen. I get such pleasure from sifting through a cooked head, from pulling off the meat and skin and arranging my yield into different piles. The prime pile is the meat and skin pile, the second-best pile contains extremely fatty meat, and the third-best pile is mostly fat. The reject pile is small – as I’ve mentioned before, it contains items like bones and the lining inside the mouth. I use the first and second pile for ramen soup and headcheese; for the third pile, I put it into a jar to keep on hand for sauteing.
I don’t know if the excitement of digging through the head will ever wane with time and more heads. I really hope not.
Headcheese is a treat when it’s sliced cold and served with pickles and toasts, but it can be the whole meal if you cook it. Pan-fried headcheese with potatoes is my ideal meat-and-potatoes dish. The fat in the headcheese will melt down and crisp up the meat and skin. Sections of skin will get so browned in the process that they’ll end up as cracklings. And since the meat was chilled prior to being cooked, by the time you pull it off the pan, it’ll be warmed throughout. In other words, pan-fried headcheese is an extremely fancy, perfect meat hash. And depending on whether you’re in the mood for something composed or something broken up, you can take your fork and mash the slice down into the pan to produce more of the crispy, porky shards.
For an even greater contrast between crisp crust and warm interior, you can bread the headcheese in eggs and panko crumbs and pan-fry or deep-fry the whole thing. But I tend not to deep-fry headcheese. Usually, when I come home I’ll heat up the cast iron and toss in the potatoes. A little fat from pile number three goes into the pan. When the potatoes are nearly ready, I’ll put in my judiciously large slice of headcheese, and pan-fry for a minute on each side. Dinner in 10 minutes. (Plus the eight hours it took you to stew the head.)
If you’ve never pan-fried or deep-fried headcheese after it’s been molded and chilled, then a word to the wise: Apply the same rule for portioning headcheese as you would a delicious cake. If you start with just a small slice, you’re going to end up taking “just a sliver,” and then another a sliver. But if you start with a rationally indulgent portion of the headcheese, you may be able to refrain from seconds.
Hi Chichi! Great post and I love the new website! I’ve followed you on serious eats and I can’t wait for what is to come. I’m curious about your foray into butchering. Are you enrolled in a class at Fleisher’s or are you apprenticing? Sounds like a blast, thanks for your hard work.
“If you start with just a small slice, you’re going to end up taking ‘just a sliver,’ and then another a sliver.”
Ha, I thought I was the only one that did that! That last picture is just excellent.
Apparently I haven’t been watching serious eats close enough, I found the answer to my question.
Hey Pat, I’m apprenticing – slowly, over many months – as much as I can afford to get away from the city!
Ryan, though trial and error I’ve found that I’m less likely to overeat if I start out with a first helping that’s hearty though still reasonable. Otherwise that second slice behavior is a slippery slope!
Chichi,
This is the best. Anyone who tackles a whole hog in the right manor is a hero. The only fried pig part I think is overrated are pork rinds (chiccarones). Even seasoned well, I find them dry and soulless bits of crunch. However, crispy pork skin when attached to another piece of the animal is special. Some things were meant never to be divided.
Chichi – I hope you keep posting at this site, if for no reason besides the fact that you have a great url
From my perspective, offal is a great way to get experience a variety of tastes, textures, and nutrients not found in “normal” cuts. But we need more awesome recipes suited to the average pallet.
heelllp?
Once, this dude told me that his gramma usta grease her skillet with a hog’s snout.
Hi ChiChi, I just saw the offal cook from Today Show.
I just want to share w/ you that back in my home country, Indonesia, eating offal is common there. I ate brain and intestines before but now I avoid it…
And even though I’m Chinese-Indonesian, I don’t eat chicken feet, I don’t taste the meat in the feet, so I only ate the sauces most of the time.
You should go to Indonesia, we have so many varieties of food
Great posting!
Hi Chichi,
How are you? I’m a reporter of Singtao Daily(星島日報) new york. After watching your blog and video on NBC today.com, I’m so impressed and interested on your passion and creativity towards traditional Chinese food culture. Could you share your stories and experienc to Singtao Daily’s readers? Your story will be one of the best to talk about how oversea Chinese and the next generation carry on the traditional culture. I’m thinking about interviewing you and writing a feature story about you and the related issue. Please contact me if you could help (E-mail:catherinelee@nysingtao.com).
Sincerely,
Catherine