Jump to recipe
Last Updated on 4 years by Tim
First of all, Merry Christmas to all my loyal followers who are reading this post on its day of publishing. Of course, I have a little present for you. In today’s post, I’m going to show you how to make your own pork head cheese. Yummy!
I know, gelatinized sausages might’ve fallen a bit out of fashion but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re addictively delicious. There’s hardly any dish that has a better texture and mouthfeel than a properly prepared head cheese.
And as you might already know from reading my blog, people from the south of Germany are generally very fond of gelatinous food. Sour tripe is another one of these gelatinous delights the Swabian cuisine has to offer. If you’ve eaten and loved sour tripe you will love head cheese as well.
Table of Contents
The cuts of meat that go into head cheese
A strong and flavorful pork broth is the basis of all head cheese preparations. To cook it you will need to use parts of the pig that contain a lot of gelatin so that your head cheese will properly gelatinize once cooled.
The parts of the pig most commonly used to make head cheese are the head, knuckle, and foot. I omitted the foot in my recipe, as it doesn’t have any meat on it and its sole use is to extract some extra gelatin into the broth. It’s usually enough to only use the pig head and knuckle which both contain plenty of gelatin.
Other optional additions to head cheese include the pig’s heart and belly. The heart is very lean meat and one of the most flavorful cuts of pork. The belly, on the other hand, offers some extra fat and skin along with a little bit of lean meat.
How to cook an aromatic pork broth
The pork needs to be poached in the broth until it is fall-off-the-bone tender. In a traditional stockpot, that means 2-3 hours of gentle simmering. A pressure cooker will get this job done in 60 minutes on the high-pressure setting.
To make the broth even more aromatic a bunch of soup vegetables and spices are added to the poaching liquid. My recipe uses juniper berries, allspice berries, and black peppercorns. As herbal aromatics, I use thyme, parsley, and bay leaf.
After all your meat is tender, take it out of the pot and let it cool down while reducing the broth by 2/3. You want a superstrong and concentrated broth as it will lose a lot of its fragrance once cooled and gelatinized.
It is therefore super important that you season the broth very generously with salt, sugar, and vinegar. Add a little more than you are comfortable with. Once the broth tastes overseasoned, you’ve probably got it right. Always remember that the flavor will be dulled once gelatinized.
How to check if your broth contains enough gelatin
It’s wise to always check if your broth gelatinizes properly before adding the meat back in. Simply transfer a tablespoon of your broth to a small coffee plate and chill in the fridge for 15-20 minutes. If the broth doesn’t gelatinize to your liking, add in more gelatine according to the package instructions of your product. I like to use gelatine sheets which need to be soaked in cold water for 10 minutes before adding them to the hot broth.
Expect for the bones, every edible part of the pig should make it into your headcheese. So when cutting the pork into bite-size pieces don’t remove any of the skin or fat. It’s perfectly edible and super delicious. The pigskin is without a doubt my favorite part of the headcheese.
How to enjoy head cheese the German way
You must remain patient and give your head cheese enough time to cool down and gelatinize in the fridge. So always prepare it in advance and give it at least 4-5 hours to set.
Head cheese should always be served fridge cold, sliced into serving-size pieces. It’s delicious on a piece of sourdough bread but serving it with warm pan-fried potatoes takes head cheese to the next level.
So, that’s it with recipes for this year. I’ll be back in January 2020 with many more German recipes. Until then: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my dear followers. Stay healthy and keep cooking German food. There is much more to come!
Pork Head Cheese (‘Schweinekopfsülze’)
December 25, 2019
byTim
Cuisine German
Category Pork Swabian
Persons
6
Ingredients
- 3 carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1/4 celery root (celeriac), cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 leek, white part only, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 bouquet garni, consisting of 5 sprigs of thyme, 5 sprigs of curly parsley, and 2 bay leaves
- 1 sachet, consisting of 1/2 teaspoon juniper berries, 1/2 teaspoon allspice berries, and 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns
- 1/2 tablespoon salt
- 1/2 pig head, about 1.8 pounds (800 g) total weight
- 1.5 pounds (650 g) pork knuckle
- 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar, more or less to taste
- 1 tablespoon sugar, more or less to taste
- salt, to taste
- gelatine sheets, in case the head cheese doesn’t gelatinize properly
Instructions
- Place the carrots, celery root, leek, bouquet garni, and sachet in a large stockpot or pressure cooker. Cover with 8.5 cups (2 liters) of cold water and bring to a light simmer. Stir in 1/2 tablespoon of salt and add your pig head and knuckle to the broth. Make sure everything is submerged in the water. If not, add some additional water so that all the broth ingredients are covered.
- Cover your pot with a lid and let the broth simmer over the lowest possible heat for about 3 hours or until all the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender. If using a pressure cooker, cook the broth on the high-pressure setting for 1 hour letting the pressure decrease naturally afterward.
- Remove the head and knuckle from the broth and set them aside to cool. Discard the vegetables, herbs, and spices and strain your broth through a fine-mesh sieve or cheesecloth. Reduce the broth, uncovered, over high heat to about 1/3 of its original volume. You should be left with about 2.5 cups (600 mL) of broth. You can optionally refrigerate your broth and discard any fat that solidifies on the top. That way your head cheese won’t have a small fat cap on top. I don’t mind the fat cap and just leave the fat in the broth for a better taste.
- While the broth is reducing, slide all the meat, fat, and pork skin off the bones and cut into small pieces. Don’t discard any of the skin or tendons. Everything that comes off the bones is edible and should make its way into the head cheese. Even the pig’s nose and ears are perfectly edible.
- Heat your broth to just slightly below simmering. Season generously with white wine vinegar, sugar, and salt to taste. The broth will lose a lot of its flavor once it is chilled and gelatinized. You must overseason the broth. It should be slightly more intense than what you’re comfortable with.
- Spoon about a tablespoon of broth on a small coffee plate and place it in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes. Check if the broth gelatinizes properly to your preferred firmness. If the broth jelly is too soft for your taste, soak 2-3 gelatine sheets in cold water for 10 minutes before stirring them into the hot but not boiling broth. Check again for gelatinization and continue adding gelatine until the meat jelly firms up to your preference.
- Add the meat, tendon, and skin pieces into your broth and stir well. Pour everything into a rectangular or round mold and place your head cheese in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours to allow the broth to cool down and gelatinize. Once firm, the head cheese can be removed from the mold and sliced into serving-sized pieces. Serve chilled alongside some roasted potatoes or rustic bread.
Tags
pork,
sausage
https://www.mygermantable.com/pork-head-cheese-schweinekopfsulze/
Related
Tags
pork sausage
Tim
Crispy Orange Duck ('Knusperente mit Orangensauce')
Free Ebook Giveaway
19 Comments
David Kraus
December 31, 2019 at 3:40 am ·Reply
Your recipe sounds very familiar. My mother made excellent head cheese. and homemade kraut in an old crock with a plate weighed down with a brick. My mom had this large wooden like mandolin to cut her cabbage,. I believe it was my great grandma’s as was the crock. But this is about head cheese or souse. There’s quite a lot of meat in the snout. and ears have a very sweet white meat . We butchered our hogs in late November,. That was a family effort. Cleaning intestines to stuff with sausage and cook the head complete with tongue ears and snout the whole head. My great Uncle said we used everything but the squeal.
Tim
January 1, 2020 at 9:10 pm ·Reply
That sounds great! I love eating the whole pig as well. It’s not just the muscle meat that tastes great. I have a recipe scheduled for sour pig kidneys in a few weeks. I’m sure you’re familiar with this dish as well. It’s very popular in Southern Germany.
Margot
January 26, 2020 at 9:45 am ·Reply
Hi, or Guten Tag, maybe you are also familiar with beef tongue. That also takes a long time to make, but the result is very good.
Tim
January 26, 2020 at 2:27 pm ·Reply
Yes, beef tongue with madeira sauce is my grandma’s favorite dish. We usually make it in our pressure cooker at home to cut down on the cooking time. I will post a recipe for it on the blog the next time i get to make it! It has been almost a year now that I’ve eaten beef tongue the last time.
Georgette
March 1, 2020 at 7:57 pm ·Reply
Hi Tim! Hope you can help me out. I found a recipe of my grandmother’s titled Gola Rah or German Head Cheese. Have you heard of the recipe referred to as Gola Rah or Gala Rah? It is somewhat similar to your recipe. Hers does not include the veggies and spices like yours but it does include S&P & onions.
Tim
March 2, 2020 at 3:44 pm ·Reply
Thanks for your comment, Georgette. Unfortunately, I don’t know Gola Rah. I’ve never heard that word before. There are many different kinds of head cheese. Some are left to gelatinize on a serving plate. These are called “Tellersülze”. Recipes for head cheese can be very easily altered to taste. There are no hard rules, so I think you can give your grandma’s recipe a try. I’m sure it’s delicious as well!
JoeW
February 8, 2021 at 5:15 am ·Reply
Georgette/Tim,
If this only confuses things, please forgive.
My parents are from Silesia, now part of Poland, and my mother used to make a dish she called “gallert”. It was made with stock, vinegar, gelatin, boiled chicken meat, carrots, celery, spices.
My search turn up this recipe, whose title has what I take to be “gallert” synonyms:
https://www.daskochrezept.de/rezepte/schlesische-suelze-golert-gallert-gallerte-lolot-plumps-uelumpla_205525.htmlIf the recipe is written in the old German script, it is possible that your interpretation of the name may be in error. I know that *I* can barely decipher it, most time.
If you read this (I know your post was quite a while ago), good luck on your search.
Joachim
Tim
February 8, 2021 at 2:41 pm ·Reply
Very interesting, Joachim. I had never heard of souse (Sülze) being called golert or gallert. I am from Swabia and the local German dialects differ a lot, especially when it comes to food. Nowadays, there are not many speakers of Silesian left. It sounds very plausible that this is the dish that Georgette’s mother refers to in her recipe. – Tim
Roger Hoff
March 10, 2021 at 10:43 pm ·Reply
I am a 3rd generation son of Germans from Russia and was searching for names of head cheese or jellied pigs feet when I found your response to Tim and a recipe you got from your grandma called Gula Rah. I never saw it spelled before, but it sounds very similar to what we made on the farm in ND when I was a kid cleaning pig heads. My parents called the finished jellied product Gula Ri, which must be the same thing your talking about. Could you send me that recipe to compare to mine? To make it easy, just take a picture with your smart phone and text it to my iPhone: 360-317-8250. I’ll reply text with my recipe for what may be similar. Thanks! Roger
Susin Kloster
November 30, 2022 at 12:11 pm ·Reply
I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to see your message to Tim. I was looking through the internet looking for what my dad used to cook and all I had to go on was the pronunciation of what my dad called it. I was looking for gullala! Of course found nothing but when I saw your post I knew immediately that that’s what my dad must have been saying! It was so lucky I stumbled across this! Thank you so much!
Pingback: Braised Green Beans ('Grünes Bohnengemüse') - My German Table
Steven Royal
October 3, 2020 at 1:45 pm ·Reply
When making head cheese do you use the brain and any other glandular part of the head?
Tim
October 3, 2020 at 2:09 pm ·Reply
No, I only use the skin, cheeks, nose, and ears for pork head cheese. However, you can use the brain or any other kind of organ meat you like. I just don’t use pig brain because it is hard to source in Germany nowadays. Ever since the BSE crisis, the European Union has been campaigning against the consumption of brains.
It’s a pity that it is so hard to find brains nowadays. Pork brain soup used to be served at Swabian weddings. If you can source pig brain, i think it would be a great addition because it adds a nice richness and creaminess to the head cheese.
Steven Royal
October 4, 2020 at 7:40 am ·Reply
Thank you for getting back to me. This will be my first time making head cheese. I’m not sure how it will turn out. I smoked a half pig head deboned the meat. Due to an emergency I had to freeze the meat. I have a couple quarts of reduced unstraind broth from another recipe I had done. I’ll just have to hope for the best.
Tim
October 4, 2020 at 9:07 am ·Reply
Oh I’m sure it will be fine. Head cheese is a very forgiving dish. People her put all kinds of stuff into it, often also veggies or pickles. As long as the broth tastes good and intense, it’s going to turn out delicious!
October 8, 2020 at 9:32 pm ·Reply
My father used to love this!!
Tim
October 9, 2020 at 8:42 am ·Reply
Oh yes head cheese used to be very popular in the older days! It’s a bit unfortunate that it’s not as popular anymore.
Barb
October 25, 2020 at 10:07 pm ·Reply
My dad used to make head cheese. He used half vinegar and half meat water. He boiled that for 5 minutes and then poured it over the chopped cooked meat that was put in a Lasagna pan. It always jellied. My brother just made it and it didn’t jell. Only thing he can think of is that he cooled the meat pieces too long. Any thoughts?
Tim
October 26, 2020 at 7:59 am ·Reply
If it hasn’t jelled, then there was probably not enough gelatine in the meat broth. Not all meat has the same amount and sometimes an extra pig foot or powdered gelatin/ gelatin sheets are needed. If you add extra gelatin powder or sheets, then you shouldn’t boil the broth anymore as the store-bought gelatin will lose some of its thickening power otherwise.
Maybe the broth in your recipe wasn’t reduced enough. After boiling the meat, the broth needs to be cooked down a lot to concentrate the gelatin.
Cooling usually doesn’t have an effect on the gelling capacity of the head cheese. Just make sure to not freeze it.
Overall, i wouldn’t worry too much if it didn’t jell. You can always gently reheat the head cheese and add some powdered gelatin or gelatin sheets. I have to do that sometimes too. Not all meat jells the same. If you want to be on the safe side, you can add a pork trotter or chicken feet the next time you make the broth. The feet of animals have the most gelatin.
I hope that helps and that your brother is successful with jelling the head cheese.
