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Pig's Cheek, Boiled
If the cheek has been dried, soak it for three or four hours; if it has been taken fresh from the pickle it will require only to be washed in two or three waters. Put it into a saucepan, cover with cold water, bring the water to a boil, and let is simmer gently until the meat is tender. Draw off the rind, and cover the outside of the cheek with bread-raspings. Put the cheek before the fire for five of six minutes, that the raspings may set. A bag of raspings may be bought at the baker's, a pint for 2d., or they may be made of pieces of stale bread, which have been dried slowly in a cool oven until they are brown and hard, and then crushed to powder. Time to boil the cheek, two hours and a half from the time of boiling, if the cheek is fresh; three hours if it has been dried. Probable cost, 8d. per pound.
A cured pig's cheek, gently simmered and then finished in a coat of dried crumbs. The method is sound; almost everything needing translation is a matter of vocabulary and sourcing.
- Keep it below a boilBring it up to the boil and then drop the heat so the surface barely trembles, around 180F. A hard boil on a salted cheek squeezes the muscle tight and turns it stringy, and no amount of extra time will bring it back.
- What a pig's cheek isThe jowl of the pig, cured in brine, sold whole with the skin on. In Britain a cured cheek, often boned, is sold as a Bath chap; in the United States it is cured jowl or jowl bacon. A butcher who cures their own pork may have it or be able to order it; pieces of a pound and a half to two pounds are common.
- Fresh from the pickle vs. dried"Fresh from the pickle" means straight out of the wet brine, needing only a rinse. "Dried" means it has been salted and then dried, which concentrates the salt, hence the three or four hour soak in cold water. If you do not know how heavily your cheek was cured, soak it and change the water once.
- Bread-raspingsDried, browned breadcrumbs, finer and drier than fresh crumbs and closer to what is sold now as toasted crumbs. To make them, dry stale bread in a cool oven, around 250-275F, for an hour or more until it is hard and light brown, then crush or process to a coarse powder.
- "Before the fire"The crumbed cheek was stood on the hearth facing an open fire to set the coating. A broiler on medium, with the cheek six inches from the element for five or six minutes, does much the same, and a hot oven will serve at a pinch. Watch it: dried crumbs scorch quickly.
- Skin off while hot"Draw off the rind" works only while the meat is hot from the pot. Let it cool and the skin sets and tears. Peel it away, pat the fat dry, then press the raspings on firmly.
- Judging donenessTwo and a half to three hours is realistic for a whole cheek, but go by feel rather than the clock: a skewer should meet no resistance at the thickest point. Larger cured cheeks can take longer.
- Yield and servingA 2 lb cheek serves four to six. It is traditionally eaten hot with pease pudding, greens and mustard, or pressed under a weight and sliced cold for the next day.
Pig's cheek belongs to the older economy of pork, in which every part of the animal was cured and eaten and the cheapest cuts carried the household. The recipe gives the price at 8d. a pound, and the book's readers were expected to care about the per-pound figure: it was a filling dish for a modest table. The bread-raspings finish, bought by the pint from the baker for tuppence, is the same thrift running the other way, stale bread turned into a decorative crust for boiled meat, and raspings were applied to hams and bacon joints in the same period. The boned form is still sold in the west of England as a Bath chap, generally traced to the city's trade in cured pork, and the same cut survives in the American South as cured jowl, cooked with beans and greens rather than crumbed and browned.