following the mostly-successful meat removal and subsequent stock-making, the meat was left to cure in the fridge for about 3 days. and it was a lot of meat – about 8.5 pounds, all told (from a 20 pound head). Finally, on Sunday, i decided it was ready to cook, and bounced out of bed around 7 AM to begin the preparations.

Chris Cosentino and Ryan Farr both cook their porchetta sous-vide, so why argue with success? Unfortunately, I lack both a chamber sealer and an immersion circulator. However, I have read that FoodSaver sealers stand in fine for the vacuum side of things, and since the cooking itself is done at a rather-warm (for sous vide) 190 degrees, I decided that a pot of water in the oven and my FoodSaver sealer would make an excellent poor-man’s sous-vide-rig.

porchetta, in jeans

Wrestling the rolled head into the FoodSaver bag was no easy task – in fact, the entire head wouldn’t fit on the first go, so i made the decision to lop off one of the jowls and hang it to dry in the basement. Even with the removal of the second jowl, the head barely squeezed into the bag. Farr wraps his in cheesecloth, but i think cheesecloth is, more or less, shenanigans, and it turns out that the leg from an old pair of jeans was a perfect size to give some form and support to the porchetta while it cooked. So into the jeans it went, and into the pot and into the oven and then I waited. For 14 hours,  I monitored the temperature using a probe thermometer and it turns out that my oven, on it’s lowest setting, will maintain a pot full of water and vac-sealed porchetta at 190 degrees. Perfect!

Now, more waiting. Cosentino claims that the meat needs two days before it is unwrapped “to develop flavor”. I dutifully strung the meat up in the fridge and waited. Finally, the big day. I rush home from work, visions of lumpy, gelatnous meat spilling forth from the unsealed bag, reeking of botulism and fail – the meat is still vac-sealed and wrapped in jeans at this point, and i have NO idea what has happened since I sealed it.

the porchetta, sliced

I cut the jeans off of the outside, and slice the vac bag open and…..glorious, porky aroma spills forth. The meat slides out in one coherent loaf, covered in a gleaming, beautiful layer of pork fat and gelatin. Slicing into the meat reveals an unctuous spiral of meat and fat punctuated by squiggles of cartilage and pockets of gelatin. I nervously shave a thin slice to sample. Amazing – subtle pork flavor, assertive but not aggressive. The fat, almost liquid at room temperture, melts in my mouth. The spice hovers in some twilight zone between salt and sweet, hot and soft.

Per Ruhlman, this really is “the power and the glory” – animal fat, salt, and the Pig – although he was referring to sausage; close enough I say.

I have a meat slicer arriving Friday to serve this properly. Did i mention I have about 6 pounds of this (four of which are frozen at this point)? Please, invite yourselves over, bring some beer, and let’s grub on this. Porchetta sandwiches, porchetta-wrapped asparagus…the possibilities here are endless.

Flickr photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zulick/sets/72157619768970971/

A few things worth noting: I am not a professional by any stretch of the imagination, and the most complex assembly i’ve “butchered” is a whole chicken. Everything I know about removing the meat from the head of a pig i gleaned from Cosentino’s video. Hilarity, necessarily, ensued.

The head, fresh from the bag

To begin with, hogs are animals and animals are a bit dirty, especially when they’ve had their heads mechanically removed in some fashion. This one was no exception – it came to me caked in mud, blood, and with a fair amount of fur and bristles still attached, necessitating removing with B razors and a blowtorch, and then a good scrubbing in the sink. I was very glad to have purchased the 10-pack of razors, as we used  six of the ten getting the bristles removed.

Once the skin was mostly clean of dirt and bristles I started cutting. I don’t think i did a terrible job but there were some really choice bits of meat left behind that Mikeal, in a fit bloodthirsty determination, hacked off after i got the jaw apart. All of the bits of meat and face were then rubbed with a dry cure (kosher salt, sugar, and sodium nitrate), 10-12 chopped cloves of garlic, thyme, and rosemary, and then placed in a bag in the fridge. There they will sit until Saturday-ish, when they will be slow-cooked under partial-vacuum (sous vide? not really.) in a giant roll.

All the meaty bits accounted for we turned our attention to the now-jaw-less skull. Cosentino recommends making stock, and I am fortunate enough to own a stockpot large enough to accommodate a whole hog’s head, so into a hot oven (~500 degrees F) went the skull, and into the pot went the celery, onions, garlic, and carrots. I don’t own a bone saw so we did not get to enjoy the brains, but there was a question as to whether the brains were even present in the skull. Once the skull was sufficiently roasted, i dumped it into the pot along with the drippings in the pan, and brought the whole assembly to a quick boil. Eight hours later, the mostly-meatless skull emerged.

Lessons learned:

1. I need more workspace for these sorts of shenanigans. A tiny plastic cutting board and my kitchen table aren’t sufficient space or equipment to take apart a hog’s head, much less a whole hog (coming soon, hopefully).
2. I need better lighting in my kitchen.
3. Butchery is messy, artful business.

Full flickr photo set here.