Then we chopped off the head. And the work began!I only recently saw a recipe for scrapple in my Time-Life Variety Meats cookbook that really made me interested in making it myself. Wegmans sells a similar product that's rather gummy, but the Time-Life version seemed much more appetizing. As far as animal heads go, most recipes I'm familiar with are for gelatinous terrines of head cheese, or carefully boned-out head meat wrapped into a cylinder and gently poached. They seemed interesting, but never quite sent me into action. Although in retrospect, 
a Norwegian colleague once told me that it was a tradition to barbecue a sheep head, which sounded cool...if sheep heads weren't banned by the US FDA.
a Norwegian colleague once told me that it was a tradition to barbecue a sheep head, which sounded cool...if sheep heads weren't banned by the US FDA.But using the rotisserie'd pig head would be a great way to use that section of meat, as well as giving the scrapple a slight smokey flavor. So what is scrapple? To sum it up, you simmer a pig's head in water with stock vegetables to tenderize the meat and create a porky broth. The meat is removed and shredded, while the broth is used to thicken up cornmeal, just like polenta. The thick, porridge-like cornmeal is spiced with nutmeg, sage, cayenne and thyme, then the chopped head meat is stirred in to create a mosaic of pork suspended in a medium of cornmeal. Pour all this into a loaf pan and chill overnight to set it into a firm block.
2 comments :
AWESOME! Wish I was there.
Well, I was there, and I can tell you it was delicious, the best scrapple I ever had. If fact, I fried up some more later in the week.
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