Description
A roasted pigs head is a great outdoor festival food
Ingredients
Scale
- A whole pig’s head split in two. (Get your butcher to do this unless you have a chainsaw at hand in the kitchen drawers.)
- A disposable razor for shaving the pig.
- One cup of sea salt for seasoning
- Duck fat
- 1kg of small potatoes (peeled)
- 15–20 shallots, peeled and kept whole or halved
- Garlic
- 400g of smoked bacon
- Borlotti beans (soaked overnight)
- Bundle of thyme
- Two litres of chicken stock
- A bottle of white wine
- Dijon mustard
- Flat leaf parsley
Instructions
- Give the two halves of head a good shave with a disposable razor to remove all hairs.
- Boil them in a large pot of water for about 5-10 minutes to clear off the worst scum.
- Rinse the heads and pat them dry.
- Give them another once-over with the razor and a small knife. Especially the inside of the ears need a good clean.
- Salt them generously, wrap up and leave overnight in the fridge.
- Depending on the size of your oven and the heads, you can either get a large roasting tray or two separates ones for each half.
- Start off by placing your roasting tray(s) on the hob and heat up a dollop of duck fat.
- Fry off the shallots, garlic and bacon.
- Place the beans in the tray and nestle the pig’s heads on top. Add the bundle of thyme and fill up with stock and wine until the head is halfway submerged up towards the middle of the cheek. Please refer to the brilliant video by Tim Hayward and Fergus Henderson to see how you should create this alligator-like effect – http://bit.ly/xlUdWR
- Wrap the ear in tin foil and cover the whole tray with parchment paper and then tin foil. Put the tray(s) in a preheated moderate oven and leave to braise for about three hours.
- Take out the tray, unwrap the pig, add the potatoes and put back into the oven for another hour or so. You want the skin to crisp up and turn golden, but not burned. If the skin still feels a bit soggy at the end, you can crank up the grill for a few minutes, but be very careful.
- Once your head is ready, remove it from the tray and leave to rest for a few minutes. Add a couple of teaspoons of mustard to the bean and spud stew, some chopped parslay and season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Place the two halves of pig’s head back in the tray on top of the bean mixture and serve with a crunchy green salad on the side.
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 4 hours