I have decided to dedicate a separate thread to documeting the process of making this dish for three reasons. First, I truly don’t want to upset anyone with the pictures. Second, it’s fascinating. And finally because the recipe as written in TFL Cookbook is shockingly brief, for what is perhaps the most laborious, painstaking, and time consuming recipe in the entire book. There is not one single process shot, which is kind of unforgiveable as it is not at all easy to do even when you know what each step should look like. I can only imagine TK’s editors were also squeamish about the picutres. FWIW, David Chang had no such qualms, and his recipe for a similar dish, which I have also made, is 4 pages long (as opposed to a paragraph), and has plenty of pictures.
So here we go, starting with the full head, washed and shaved as needed. Note that the recipe has no quantities for anything, as you don’t get to decide how much of anything you have - you get the head you get!
First, you cut off the ears, and remove the entire face, in one piece if possible. This is the most difficult, as you want to keep everything intact, but also get every bit of meat off. Sorry I can’t get the pictures in the right order.
Next you remove the whole tongue and poach it, then cool it overnight in the poaching liquid. We used homemade chicken stock that had previously been used to poach a cow tongue - so tongue infused stock.
While the tongue is poaching, you separate the skin from the fat and meat. The skin gets rolled up and saved for another use (at least in our house). What you want is the fat all in one piece, as that will be the outside of the torchon roll.
Next day comes the other really hard part. Cut the cooled tongue into strips, dice the ear, chop with the meat. Lay out cling wrap, then the fat, then the meat, slices of tongue and chopped ear. Carefully roll it up and let it sit for awhile in the fridge. The next step will be to wrap in cheesecloth and poach all day, but that hasn’t happened yet, so this is it for now!
Thank you! This was all Jonathan. As I mentioned, I’ve done the David Chang version, which is very similar, but a little more forgiving about the meat/fat/skin removal, as he starts with cooking the head before you dissect it, so no need for the all-in-one-piece removal, which is the really hard part.
It’s less intentional than natural. There is no fat or meat covering the eye socket, and the eyes stay in the skull, so if you are removing all the meat/fat/skin from the bone, those holes occur naturally, since there are holes in the skull. Just like a mask has eyeholes.
Love it Sarah! A few years ago, I cooked the entire head of the pig that I sourced from a central American store in Portchester NY. I merely roasted it, but it turned out incredible.
Ok, how many others here have tongue infused homemade chicken stock sitting around their house? You guys live in a different home culinary world! Kudos and cheers!
Very cool to be able to do this one’s self. Pig face, including ears (& liver) are the main ingredients in sisig - what is one of the better known Filipino dishes thanks to, among others, the late Anthony Bourdain.
It can be an adventure freezer diving here. Never know what you might find. It’s amazing what it allows. It’s also amazing what it does to our electricity bill.
