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Pig's Cheeks, Potted
Take a large pig's head, split it open, take out the brains, and cut off the ears. Let it soak in cold water for twenty-four hours, then put the cheek, with the tongue, into a saucepan, cover with cold water, bring slowly to the boil, and let the meat simmer gently until it is so tender that the bones can be easily drawn out. Draw off the skin, if possible in one piece, and while the meat is still hot mince it quickly, and season rather highly with pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg. Lay half the skin at the bottom of a pan or bowl, put in the mince, and cover with the remainder of the skin. Place upon it a plate with a weight on top, and leave it until the meat is quite cold. It will turn out in a shape, and should be cut in thin slices, and eaten with vinegar and mustard. It may be kept in a pickle, made of the liquid in which it was stewed, boiled with a little salt and vinegar. Time to boil the cheeks, two hours and a half to three hours. Probable cost of pig's head, 6d. or 8d. per pound. Sufficient for a standing breakfast dish.
This is brawn by another name: the cheek meat set in its own gelatine and pressed under a weight. The whole thing hangs on working fast while the meat is hot, since the natural gelatine in the cooking liquor is what binds the mince into a sliceable block.
- Mince while it is still hotOnce the meat cools, the gelatine clinging to it stiffens and the mince will not knit together under the weight. Pull the bones, chop or coarsely mince immediately, season, and pack while everything is still steaming.
- The 24-hour soakThis draws out blood and gives a paler set. Do it in the refrigerator, not on a cool larder shelf, and change the water two or three times.
- Sourcing the headButchers rarely display pigs' heads but will order one, usually split, for very little. A half head is easier to handle than a whole one and will give a couple of pounds of picked meat at most. Ask for the tongue to be left attached.
- Brains and earsBoth were likely kept back for other dishes — brains crumbed and fried, ears boiled and pressed — though the recipe itself says only to remove them. If your butcher has already taken them out, nothing is lost here.
- Simmering timeThe recipe allows two and a half to three hours for the cheeks; a smaller quantity of meat will take less. The test is the one given: the bones should slide free with no resistance. Keep it at a bare tremble rather than a rolling boil or the liquor turns cloudy and greasy.
- Seasoning "rather highly"Cold pressed meat tastes markedly blander than it did hot, so overseason deliberately. As a starting point, about 1 teaspoon of fine salt and 1/2 teaspoon of white pepper per pound of meat, with nutmeg to taste. Fry a spoonful to check before you pack the bowl.
- PressingA loaf tin or a straight-sided bowl lined with the skin, then a plate cut to fit and 2 to 3 lb of weight — tins of food work. Refrigerate overnight; the moulded shape will turn out cleanly and cut in thin slices with a sharp, wet knife.
- Keeping itThe old advice to store it under a boiled vinegar pickle assumes a cold larder and daily use. Treat it as fresh cooked meat: cover and refrigerate, and eat within four or five days. It also freezes well in slices.
- Yield and servingA full head makes a great deal — enough for ten to fifteen servings. A "standing breakfast dish" meant it sat on the sideboard to be cut at will; serve it cold with sharp mustard, vinegar or pickled walnuts, and bread.
Potted cheek is brawn, the English name for what the French call fromage de tête and Americans head cheese — meat from the head cooked until it falls apart, then set in its own gelatine and pressed. It is one of the oldest forms of preserving pork, the setting agent being simply what boils out of the bones and skin. Cassell's, compiling in the later nineteenth century for households of every income, notes the price at sixpence or eightpence a pound and calls it a "standing breakfast dish": the cold joint that lived on the sideboard through the week and was cut at by whoever came down first. Pigs' heads were among the cheapest things a butcher sold, and recipes like this one are a reminder that the Victorian kitchen's thrift was not sentimental — it was a working household's way of getting breakfasts out of the part of the animal nobody wanted to roast.