Pig’s Head Brawn part 2

By MisteR Fitz on September 25, 2013 • ( 1 )

‎My pal Jack had a couple problems with his brine for this.. he was a wee bit upset when I spoke to him at the pub this evening.. is cool.. and I asked nicely that he helps us all learn.. FAIL FORWARDS JACK!! X FAIL FORWARDS! X‎‎

‎‎‎‎‎

Well took the meat out of the brine and rinsed it well. Separated it into 2 batches. I decided to cook them in batches using the pressure cooker with about half a litre of water, HG carrots sliced thinly, and a whole HG onion studded with about 4 cloves. It took an hour instead of 4 or 5.

Brought the pressure down and had a taste. Yuk! Much too salty. Not just a little salty, really yuk. So what to do.

I tried adding some chopped up HG potatoes and boiled them in the gravy. Useless. So separated the meat from the bones and rinsed out the salt under cold running water. Tasted the meat and was very pleased with the result. I put it to one side while I pressure cooked the second batch, filling the cooker up to 3/4 full with fresh water, for half an hour.

Removed the water and added about half a litre of fresh water. Brought it up to pressure and cooked it for another half hour. Removed the meat which tasted good and more flavoursome than the first, rinsed, batch. Kept the stock.

Separated the meat from the bones and mixed it with the first batch.

Left both the meat and the stock overnight to see if there was enough gelatine in the stock to set the brawn.

What have I learned? First, I don’t know how I screwed up the brine but in future I will revert to a 6% brine i.e. 180g each of salt and sugar with all the other spices to 3 litre’s of water.

Or get the butcher to brine it?

Watch this space tomorrow!

Nice one JT.. let’s see what happens tomoraa x

Sent from Samsung Mobile on O2