Smoked Snout in Beta

St. Martin's Day marks the begining of the traditional pig slaugherting season in Spain. The pig has spent the year carelessly munching on acorns, then November brings the cooler weather, ripe for some wet work.



My favorite part of St. Martin's Day is the colloquialism it spurred: A cada cerdo le llega su San Martín, Every pig has it's St. Martin's Day. Fun huh? I haven't been to Spain in many years but I'm sure this aphorism is muttered all over the penninsula.

This year I didn't slaughter or even butcher a pig, but I did pick up a head. I've done a stuffed pig's head, porchetta di testa a couple of times, I was inspired last year by pictures on flickr by dominic c. While my heads turned out good, I wanted better. This time around I focused making a snout sized roller.



I boned out the head and cured the intact piece plus the tongue in a Bacon Brine for two days.



Using the tongue and cheeks, I stuffed and rolled the snout. A bit of smoking and voilà.



This is the point where I have trouble, the skin is way too chewy. I figure a long low temp water bath is the ticket. Since I lent my sous vide rig to my neighboor to wash sweaters, I had to do it the old fashioned way.



I rolled it torchon style (as shown in a previous post)and poached it with some aromatics for several hours.



It slices really nice and it frys up like a creamy bacon. So it's a start, and a tasty one. I had a little trouble with the slice fracturing while cooking. Maybe I'll get some meat glue like the pros use. I'll work it out and get back to you with a recipe. In the meantime, happy cooking.

Cheers.