I had to share: I tried headcheese for the first time today! It was deeeelicious!
I went to the local butcher shop earlier this week and bought some sausage, and something caught my attention: headcheese. I had never tried it before, but I saw Andrew Zimmern try it a bunch of times on Bizarre Foods. Now, I love "weird" foods. (I can't watch Bizarre Foods without getting hungry. That must be how Mika feels when he stares at me eat.) The thing that Andrew hates, durian, I absolutely love. I think it is the best smelling, best tasting thing in the world. It might have also helped that I grew up eating it. I love chicken feet, pig ears (not the dog chews. There is a dish that my mom makes that uses pig ears. It's kind of jelly, but at the same time crunchy, but pure yum!), cow hoof (again, not dog chew. There is a local restaurant that makes a cow hoof stew on the weekend. Yum!), and many other exotic foods.
Anyways, I finally got around to opening my package of headcheese today. I said "look Mika! It's headcheese!" Mika gave me the most confused look ever. I think he was looking for cheese, but could smell that it wasn't cheese. For those of you who don't know what headcheese is here is a link to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_cheese I had told the kid who rung me up at the butcher's that I had never eaten it before and I asked him how do I prepare it. He said I could fry it up, or just eat it as is on top of some bread. I opted for both today. The first slice, I fried up. Now, I'm not sure if there is a trick to keeping the headcheese together while you fry it up, but mine disintegrated on me. Oh well, I dumped the headcheese on my toasted bread and chomped away. Mika was looking very intently at what I was eating. For a good reason too. The headcheese fried was delicious. It almost took on the taste of corned beef. I didn't give any to Mika because I didn't know all the exact ingredients that went in their "spice" blend. The next piece of headcheese I tried as is. Straight out of the bag onto a piece of toast. This way was also delicious! Not as much flavor as when I fried it (but when does anything have more flavor before you fry it?), but the taste of the beef tongue and other misc meats really pushed through for a delectable treat. The kid who run me up warned me about the gelatinous texture of the headcheese if it is not fried first, but you know what? It didn't bother me. It is actually less gelatinous than the pig ear dish my mom makes. The texture was like bologna but the taste was much more.
Next time, Mika. I'll let you try some. There is a zip top bag full of it in the fridge. But now, I need to save room for dinner. I'll give you some turkey when I come home, Mika. ...Stop staring at me like I just took your favorite toy away... I don't have anymore headcheese on my plate.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We're thankful for everyone of you readers and tweeters (is that how you say it?) and everyone who has supported us!
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