Porchetta di testa

I have decided to make porchetta di testa with my lovely wild boar head.

Porchetta history goes back to ancient Roman times and was an original dish of Latium.  
http://www.marcadoc.com/porchetta-trevigiana/

Modern porchetta is made with a pork belly wrapped around a loin with garlic,  rosemary, sage, fennel, orange or lemon and salt and pepper.

The recipe I am doing is kind of the same method,  just different parts.

I saw this recipe on you tube with Chris Constantino demonstrating how to deboned a pig head and he has a brief speech about how to make porchetta di testa.   So I took that method and recipe and followed it as much as I could.   The recipe asks for you to vacuum seal the meat and sous vide it for about 8 hours at 200 degrees Celsius.   I do not have a vacuum pack machine at home nor do I have a sous vide machine.  So I decided to just put it in the oven.
https://youtu.be/nByH6yPWYj8

First step is to clean the head.   There are little hairs and dirt still all over so simply giving the head a good shave and wash will do it,  some people use a blow torch as well,  but I didn't have one.

Before

After

Next step is to debone the whole boar head.   I followed the cheek bones,  all the way to the back of the head and just began to simply cut on the bone trying to collect as much of that beautiful meat as I could.

I was really surprised how much meat was in the head.  There is a lot!

After the head was deboned I took the head and roasted it and made stock with it with just a simple mire post.   I left this simmer for around 5 hours.

Next step is to season the meat, I spread out all the meat and added salt pepper, crushed garlic, rosemary and some lemon zest.  After it sat for about an hour I rolled it up like a roulade.

I rolled and tied as tight and even as I could.  In order to make sure the whole thing wraps evenly I cut some of the jowl and placed it in different positions same with some of the cheek.

After tied I heated the oven to 450F and wrapped the porchetta with about 9 layers of foil to keep is as tight as possible.  Then placing it in the oven for 15 minutes then I lowered the heat to 200 and cooked it for about 5 hours,  basically a confit style of cooking.

After cooked,  let the meat cool in a fridge for a day or two to let all the fat and natural gelatin set.   Once set now it is time to slice thin and serve.   Typically served cold

To get a little feed back I brought it to my classmates to try and was quite surprised by the outcome.   I thought most people wouldn't like the texture because it is soft,  meaty at the cheek parts,  fatty around the jowls and a bit chewy around the skin.   Most people were scared of just the fact it is a boar's face.   Once everyone tasted it, a lot of people enjoyed the flavour and textures,  some even took seconds and thirds.

Overall I was extremely happy with the overall product.   I will deffinantly make it again,  next time I would like to add some kind of crunchy texture to it.      

Head

I was at work the other day and realized we had whole wild boar.   I brought the head home to see what I could do with it.

Wild boar is a very tasty animal,  has a more porky,  game kind if flavour.   It is quite extordinary.  This wild boar comes from the Ottawa area. 

There are many recipes utilizing a hog head.   There is a lot of natural gelatin in the head which can be set into a terrine or pate. 

There are also alot of different parts to the head.   The cheeks have amazing flavour and so does the jowl.   The ears can also be used. 

I am still uncertain what type of dish I will be making with it but I know I will be using the whole head,  even the left over bones will be used in a stock