Head Cheese

There's no denying that we love pork. In fact, pork is the only thing preventing me from eliminating meat from my diet. It is such a versatile animal and the meat is far and away the best of any animal. We go to great lengths to source awesome pork, including this year arranging with a local farmer to raise hogs just for us. Our first one came in last week and we were not about to waste a scrap of it, including the head.

Pork Head Cheese, Carrot-Dill Mustard, Cornichons

The head is covered in meat and after simmering away in a nice broth with bay leaves and peppercorns, that meat is fine, fine eating. Tony picked the meat and packed it along with diced and grilled heart for color variation (the heart is dark meat) into a terrine and then covered the meat with an aspic made from the cooking liquid.

And here you see the end result. As fine a piece of porky goodness as you could ever want. Customers loved it. We loved it more. Charcuterie: the reason I will never be a vegetarian!