Day Twenty - Page 201 - Pig's Head Torchon - Part 2

In spite of warnings in the book and some blogs, the broth was not too porky and, in fact, was sweet and aromatic with flavors of the vegetables. It will be great for ramen or other dishes. Because my pig's head was relatively small, picking out the meat from the cavities was easy and the fat and skin mostly just fell off the bone. I was tempted to discard some of the fat but decided against diverging from the recipe and taking a risk that the decrease in fat content would somehow mess up the process. In all, it was about 50/50: fat/meat where skin is considered fat. 

The hardest part was rolling the torchon into a cylindrical shape. Everything started falling apart and it took some wrestling and upper body contortions to get it to behave. I think the trick is to let it cool but not so much that the pieces no longer adhere to one another. Also, industrial-strength plastic wrap and larger pieces of skin to line the bottom would have made this step easier.

By the next day the garlic had permeated the whole log, it had firmed up nicely, everything held together, and it was easy to slice. I like lots of texture so, for me, the chunky marbling was just right. 

 

I deep fried the panko-coated pucks and served them with a Dijon and dried mustard mayonnaise dressing and some of last year's canned cherries that were steeped for a few minutes in balsamic vinegar. The look is deceptively simple; the payoff for all the effort is the amazing first bite of melting fat and scrumptious tender bits of meat.