So Cheeky

If you've been following along, at least since Christmas, you've heard us mention guanciale a time or two.  I know I keep telling you I'm going to post about how we made ours, and that day has finally come.  Huzzah!

So, if you remember, back in December when Justin unwrapped his Christmas present of a pig head, and we made porchetta, we cut off one of the cheeks to make guanciale.  If you're not familiar with guanciale, it's basically like bacon, but instead of being made from the pig's belly, it's made from the cheek.  It's quite easy to make too.

Once you have your cheek, you want to make sure that all surfaces are as smooth as possible.  Since it's going to cure, and be exposed to air, you want to minimize the amount of nooks and crannies where the bad bacteria/mold can grow.  So if you're cutting the cheek off the face yourself, make as smooth of cuts as possible.  Then rub 'er down with your salt and spices.  We used a combo of Kosher salt, black peppercorns, juniper berries, star anise, red pepper flakes, and coriander.  Pretty much the same mixture we used for the porchetta.  Once it was rubbed down, we put it in a ziploc bag and stored it in the fridge for about 2 weeks.  You really only want to cure it for about a week, otherwise it'll turn out a tad salty, as ours did (womp, womp!)

after a week of curing

Before you hang it to dry out, you want to rinse off the salt and spices you rubbed all over it.  Pat it dry, and hang it up over the sink.  You want it to lose about 30% of its weight.  If you notice any fuzzy or colored mold starting to grow on it, you'll want to wipe it off with a towel.  But if you see the white mold, like you'd find on salami, you're in good shape.

Day 0

Day 7

Day 14

So after 2 weeks, our guanciale had lost 40% of its weight, and we could finally eat some! At this point, you can just slice it up and cook it like bacon.  We've had some for breakfast in place of bacon, and we've added it to our meals, like when we made gnocchi the other night.

Now, go get yourself a pig head and start curing!

California Christmas Recap

Now that we're back home in chilly DC, its time for a little recap of our culinary adventures in CA.

First, there was the pig head.  After 2 days in the fridge, our roll 'o head went into the oven at 325 degrees for 5-6 hours.  We rotated it a 1/4 turn about every 90 minutes in order to get all sides nice and crisp.

As it roasted, a lot of the fat seeped out, and the porchetta really shrunk down.  Once it finished roasting, it went back into the fridge, and we compressed it from all sides to squish even more moisture out.

Once it was completely cooled, it was ready for eating!  You can see all the fat marbling through, and all the meat that came off the face.  The really thin squiggly is the ear!  All that's left to do is slice it super thin and eat!  The seasoning was spot on and there was so much flavor imparted in the meat.

And so as not to waste any part of the head, we roasted the skull, and then simmered it in water to create a really rich pork stock.  A bunch of meat fell off the skull, so we ate those along the way, but now we also have a really rick, gelatinous stock for future meals.

Next came the joong.  Justin really had a knack for wrapping them, and they made the perfect snack/lunch when we got home today off the redeye.

Now that you're caught up on how those items turned out, I'll throw some new info your way.  We had some leftover lobster meat hanging out in the fridge, so Justin & I cooked dinner  for mom, dad and grandma, consisting of a simple salad, and lobster quinoa.  The lobster quinoa was super simple...cook up the quinoa, and in a separate pan, saute onions, garlic and ginger, toss in some mushrooms, deglaze the pan with Chinese rice cooking wine, add it some soy sauce, sesame oil, and sriracha, then toss in the lobster.  It was topped with some green onions and ready to eat!  It came together rather quickly and was a great way to use the leftover lobster.

 

But we didn't spend all of our time eating at home.  We hit all of our favorite restaurants: El Burrito Jr., In-n-Out, and A-1.  Plus, we tried out a really delicious Polish restaurant, some great tapas, a Top Chef contestant's bar, and a burger joint in the back of a liquor store.

And finally, Christmas gifts.  We were both really spoiled this year and received a lot of items to add to our pantry and kitchen.  I have a new All-Clad pan, along with cooking utensils and a wok.  We both now have a mortar & pestle, some squid ink, bottarga, and a variety of flavored salts.  And since Justin tends to be a little messy, a pirate chef apron was long overdue!

Face Off!

What better to way to spend Christmas morning than by defacing a pig, literally?!?! 

Justin was welcomed into the family by receiving a pig head for Christmas.  I guess its a replacement for a lump of coal ;) 

So after opening presents on Christmas morning, we set off to make porchetta di testa!

First, we needed to grind up our spices that would later be wrapped in the face.  With Justin's new morter & pestle, we ground up black peppercorns, coriander, star anise, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, and some juniper berries.

Next came Mr. Pig!

I gave him a quick shave to get rid of some of the longer facial hair.  He had a lot on his ears too.

Once he was clean shaven, and looking handsome, it was time to cut the face off.  I took the first stab at it (get it...stab...).  My cousin, Lauren, who'd taken a pig butchering class and learned how to make this, coached us along.  Using short strokes with the knife, and pulling the skin away, we just followed along the skull to release the face.  We were careful not to puncture the eyeball, and tried to keep everything in tact as best we could.

It was a little tough to navigate around the socket by his temple, but I managed to get the left side of his face off in one piece.  Next, it was Justin's turn to cut off the right side and the snout.





Then we were left with the pig face, in two pieces.  Since Justin cut the snout off, I had the pleasure of cutting out the tongue.

The next step in the preperation was to remove all the glands, lymph nodes, and other untasty bits.  We took off a fair amount of fat in the process, but there was plenty of meat left.  Before laying out the face to season it, we cut off one of the cheeks to make guanciale (more on that in a minute).  We tucked the ears through the eye sockets to fill the holes, and layed out the face.  It took a lot of flipping and turning of the face pieces to figure out the best way to layer the two sides so we could roll it into a fairly even log.  Once the pieces were in place, we massaged in our seasonings with Kosher salt, getting into all the little nooks.



With the leftover salt and seasonings, we packed it on top of the cheek we cut out, and placed it in a ziploc bag where it will sit in the fridge for a week.  When we get home we'll hang it up to finish curing, so we'll post an update when that's ready to eat.

Now, back to the pig face.  While removing the face was time consuming, it was quite a fun experience, while tressing it proved to be more difficult.  Essentially, we rolled our seasoned porchetta like a pork loin, but the uneven shape made it a bit of a challenge. It took me a while to get the hang of looping it around, but it turned out alright.

The porchetta is sitting in the fridge until tomorrow, when we'll roast it.  Once its ready for eating, we'll slice it thin, and treat it like charcuterie.  We'll let you know how it turns out!

And, so we don't waste any bit of the head, we're roasting it (eyeballs and all), to make pork stock.  It should make for some tasty dishes down the road.