Pressed meat cooked at home is an excellent substitute for sausage. It is used as a cold snack. You can make a hearty sandwich for breakfast with pressed meat or serve it on the holiday table. Guests will appreciate the taste of this dish. The main ingredients are relatively cheap, but it turns out almost a delicacy. Give it a try!
Pick your recipe
You will need
-
- half a pig’s head;
- 1 large chicken leg;
- 1 onion;
- a few peas of black pepper;
- salt;
- 3-4 cloves of garlic;
- Bay leaf;
- large pan;
- piece of gauze 30 * 30cm.
Instruction manual
1
Buy half a pork head at a market or store. It can be fresh or frozen. Ask to be cut into 3-5 parts. Do not forget to buy one large chicken leg.
2
Soak pieces of pork head in cold water. To do this, put them in a pan, fill with water, leave for 2-3 hours. Then drain the water, rinse the pieces of meat under a stream of cold water.
3
Put in the pan pieces of pork head, chicken leg. Fill everything with water so that it completely covers the contents of the pan. Close the pan with a lid and set it on high heat.
4
Reduce the heat as soon as the contents of the pan boil. Put in it a peeled onion (whole), a few peas of black pepper, a bay leaf. Simmer the pork head over low heat until the meat begins to easily separate from the bones. During cooking, do not forget to salt the broth to taste.
5
Once the pork head is cooked, turn off the heat. Wait until the contents of the pan have cooled to room temperature.
6
In a deep cup, lay the cheesecloth so that its ends hang down along the edges of the cup.
7
On a wide flat plate, gently remove one piece of boiled pork head. Separate the lard with meat from the bones, put them in a deep cup on cheesecloth. Disassemble all the contents of the pan in a similar fashion. To ensure that subsequently pressed meat does not fall apart when sliced, first put large pieces of fat on the cheesecloth with the skin down (to the cheesecloth). On lard, put pieces of pork and chicken, boneless. Put the pieces of bacon on top again, only now with the skin up. Spreading meat and lard, sprinkle them with grated garlic.
8
Gather together the free ends of the gauze, twist them several times. You get a tight knot of gauze with meat inside. Put a bundle of meat in a cup so that the twisted ends of the gauze are at the bottom. Put a cutting board on top of the meat, put a load on it (a heavy pan, a jar of water, etc.). Leave the meat under oppression for 5-6 hours to set.
9
Free the meat from gauze, cut into neat slices, serve.
Bon Appetit!
note
When preparing pressed meat in the summer, make sure that during the soaking process the pork head does not begin to deteriorate.
In one of the pieces of a pig’s head is an eye. When disassembling boiled meat, the eye must be removed and not used in food!
Useful advice
Serve mustard or horseradish with pressed meat.
In the preparation of pressed meat, you can use pork legs and shank.
Do not grind meat by separating it from bones. Pieces of meat and fat should remain, if possible, large.