Name: How to Cure Meat for Head Cheese
Ingredients: 1 lb Freeze-Em-Pickle; 7 lbs coarse sea salt; 5 gallons water; 10 lbs fresh hog back fat; 15 lbs cured hog tongues; 25 lbs hog rinds; Bull-Meat-Brand sausage binder (as needed)

How to Cure Meat for Head Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Cure and cook

Cure the heads and meat in a brine made from Freeze-Em-Pickle, salt, and water for 10 to 14 days.
Boil the heads slowly until the meat can be easily stripped from the bone.
Boil the hog rinds and hog fat in nets at the same time as the heads.
Remove the rinds when almost cooked and chop or grind them finely.
Cut the cooked fat into 1 to 1½ inch square blocks.
Boil about 15 lbs of cured hog tongues and cut them into strips.

Combine

Combine the cured meats in the following proportions: 10 lbs fresh hog back fat, 15 lbs cured hog tongues, and 25 lbs hog rinds.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Cured hog tongues: Supplies the whole-muscle meat that gives the head cheese its chunky, sliceable texture.
Hog rinds: Release gelatin as they cook, helping the chilled mixture set firmly.
Hog back fat: Adds richness and moisture, keeping the meat from drying out as it cooks.
Freeze-em-pickle: Cures the meat, giving it its pink colour and cured flavour.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.