Jelly or aspic always takes pride of place on the festive table. The hostesses are not even afraid that for its preparation you need to spend not so little time. As a result, you get a hearty and very tasty snack that will appeal to any person. There are no indifferents. Usually this dish is made from beef or pork legs and poultry. But an interesting and no less tasty option is pork head jelly. Here we are and we will now consider several ways to prepare it.
Standard Pork Head Jelly Recipe
By and large, such a dish is no different from any other pork jellied meat, but the housewives have one that is made from heads, it is called zelts. Such jellied pork head differs from the usual one only in the ratio between the broth and meat. It is very thick and is a good snack or breakfast. Now we will tell you the recipe for this delicious dish.
Rinse well and scrape the pork head. If you soak it at night - it will be ideal. We put it in a pan, add a piece of lean meat, a couple of pork legs, pour water - three centimeters above the meat - and send it to the stove. After boiling, remove the foam, add spices and bay leaf, pepper, salt. Many housewives put peeled onions and carrots in a saucepan for flavor. Cook over low heat for three hours. Transparent broth or not, it makes no difference to us, since we take it quite a bit, only as a bundle for meat. We remove from the fire at the moment when the meat begins to easily move away from the bones. Cool, catch meat , remove cartilage and bones from it, cut into cubes no more than one centimeter. Finely chop the garlic on a cutting board and mix with the cooled meat.
We form jelly
First of all, you need to prepare a container for the finished product. Take a tray for this and line it with cling film. Here we will put meat with garlic in it. Then pour the broth. In no case do you need to add a lot of liquid. Minimum - for gluing pieces. Mix. We collect the bag or film from above and bind it with a thread, after which we send it to the refrigerator for a day. We free the finished jelly from the pork head from the bag / film, cut it into slices and serve it with horseradish or mustard. It will be even tastier with boiled potatoes, especially if you pour it with oil and sprinkle with herbs. What is the advantage of such a dish?
In its small price, since the meat costs an order of magnitude more than the head. The only thing is, brawn does not need to be abused by those who have problems with the liver or stomach, as well as people who are overweight. If desired, jelly from the head of a pig can be made more dietary. Subcutaneous fat in the cooking process goes into the broth. Catch the meat from it, strain it and send it to the refrigerator. Then remove the rising fat with a spoon. Everything, the issue is resolved.
A more complicated jellied recipe: with zira, garlic and onions
To prepare it, you need to stock up on the following products: pork head, large onion, two carrots, garlic - four cloves, zira, black pepper, bay leaf, salt.
So, pork head jelly, a recipe for cooking. First of all, in a store or in the market we buy a fresh head of a fairly young animal. Please cut it here into several parts. Arriving home, well, under running water, wash our offal. We carefully check the skin, it should not have bristles.
If it is, it is necessary to singe it. Then with a stiff sponge or brush, carefully clean the animalโs nose and ears. Then we take a large pan, put all parts of the head into it and fill it with two fingers above the pieces of meat with cold water.
The process of making jelly according to this recipe
We put the pot with offal on the fire, preferably medium. We wait until it boils, remove the foam. Entirely drop the pre-peeled onion, carrots and garlic into the container. Then add a little pea of โโblack pepper, bay leaf and zira. Reduce fire as much as possible. All, let it cook for seven to eight hours. If you do not want to get a muddy broth, then do not close the pan with a lid. Excess fat is desirable to remove. Add salt from the pork head 15 minutes before cooking is complete. A sign of readiness, as you already know, is the freely separated skin and meat from bones. We take out our head on a baking sheet.
Then the fatty layers, skin and bones are returned to the pan, cook for another 45 minutes. At the same time, you do not need to add water to the jelly, since the jelly will get worse and the taste and color of the dish will deteriorate. With our hands we divide the pieces of meat into small fibers, arrange them in shapes. Filter the broth through a dense gauze or sieve. To taste, it should be a little brackish. Pour the meat and send it to the refrigerator for the night. In the morning you can serve it with horseradish or mustard.
"Specific" head jelly recipe
List of products: pig head, onion and spices. When buying a head, please cut it into four parts. We clean it thoroughly using running hot water, then rinse it with cold. Cut the fat. Some housewives harvest it for the winter according to the following recipe. Fill with garlic, roll in salt and black pepper, put in dishes and cover, not completely blocking the air. A day - at room temperature, a day - in the refrigerator, then put in bags of cellophane - and in the freezer.
Everything is ready. We return to our head. We put her pieces in a pan, pouring hot water there. We boil, remove the foam, cook for five hours on a small fire, not forgetting to put onions and spices. Then salt and cook for another hour. We take out the cooked pieces, separate the meat from the bone, cut it, divide it into trays and fill it with strained broth. Sprinkle with squeezed garlic and after cooling we put it in the refrigerator.
Another way to cut and cook a pigโs head
Cooking pork head jellied meat can be a very interesting process. Especially considering that you can make two dishes from the product. And if desired, even four. One piece of the head, for example, can be put on a delicious borsch, and the ears are fried with cabbage. In general, we ask the butcher to cut his head in the following way: carefully cut his cheeks, cut his head into two parts along, and finally cut each of these halves into two parts. At home we burn the remains of the bristles and carefully wash the meat. You can even use a dishwashing brush.
Soak in water, slightly salted, preferably even left overnight. In the morning we take out our cheeks and put them in a pan, pouring husks of onions, pour cold water and cook for two to three hours. The remaining meat, along with a couple of onions, is cooked in another saucepan - five to six hours. Salt immediately after boiling. After three hours, we pour black pepper into the peas, about 15 minutes before readiness - bay leaf.
The final stage of preparation of pork and jelly cheeks
After they weld, cheeks, salt, grease well with garlic, rubbing it on a fine grater. Then process with spices, cool and put in the refrigerator. And now the final stage of how to make jelly from the head. Here begins the most interesting and delicious. Therefore, try not to eat everything in the process of cutting and carefully look for small bones.
We lay out the meat in clean and dry trays, fill it with broth, strain it beforehand, after a little settling, remove excess fat. Then we send it to the refrigerator. In the meantime, while the jelly is set, we take out the pork cheeks, cut them into thin strips and have a bite. Enjoy your meal!