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For some reason, I have decided to separate the actual play-by-play from my preview pics. Anyway, here is Day One. On day one we worked a lot, doing a lot of butchering, which is not pictured, and we made the blood sausage, which is quite time intensive. One interesting thing about the entire experience is that it takes absolutely no foundational skills when you have a good teacher. There is very little knife work and almost zero work on presentation. What it takes is a good attitude, a strong back and a hell of a lot of energy.
So, here is a somewhat step by step, or at least day by day, recap of the our Great Pig Adventure of 2010. Warning, there are a lot of pics.
We arrived at the house at which we prepared the pig on Monday. It is a truly beautiful area of the world, and the work was done in a very old farmhouse on our instructor's property.
The drive in:
At arrival, the pig was in four pieces:
The first thing which must be prepared is the boudin noir, or blood sausage. It needs to go first because the blood will spoil more quickly than anything else. It is a pretty simple procedure. First, the least noble parts of the pig are boiled in a strong court bouillon, and then they are chopped by hand to a very fine paste.
To them is added a large quantity of sautÃ
ed, sliced onions:
Then the blood and spices:
Unlike regular sausages which are fed through an attachment on a meat grinder, blood sausage must be filled by hand, with a funnel, because the filling is very liquid:
Here they are, ready to boil:
And going in the broth made from the pig parts boiled to make the filling:
When they come out, they are a dark grayish brown, but after being covered by a cloth and set to cool, they turn the characteristic black color.
After all of this it was hard to imagine eating dinner, and in fact, the traditional dinner after the first day is a light vegetable soup, some bread and some cheese. I don't know if I could have taken much more than that. The rest of the time, we ate a small bit of what we had prepared the day before, or if it was something preserved needing a bit of age, we ate the version our teacher made last year.
I'll try to put day two together tomorrow or the next day, if wi-fi and energy are willing to cooperate.
So, here is a somewhat step by step, or at least day by day, recap of the our Great Pig Adventure of 2010. Warning, there are a lot of pics.
We arrived at the house at which we prepared the pig on Monday. It is a truly beautiful area of the world, and the work was done in a very old farmhouse on our instructor's property.
The drive in:
At arrival, the pig was in four pieces:
The first thing which must be prepared is the boudin noir, or blood sausage. It needs to go first because the blood will spoil more quickly than anything else. It is a pretty simple procedure. First, the least noble parts of the pig are boiled in a strong court bouillon, and then they are chopped by hand to a very fine paste.
To them is added a large quantity of sautÃ
Then the blood and spices:
Unlike regular sausages which are fed through an attachment on a meat grinder, blood sausage must be filled by hand, with a funnel, because the filling is very liquid:
Here they are, ready to boil:
And going in the broth made from the pig parts boiled to make the filling:
When they come out, they are a dark grayish brown, but after being covered by a cloth and set to cool, they turn the characteristic black color.
After all of this it was hard to imagine eating dinner, and in fact, the traditional dinner after the first day is a light vegetable soup, some bread and some cheese. I don't know if I could have taken much more than that. The rest of the time, we ate a small bit of what we had prepared the day before, or if it was something preserved needing a bit of age, we ate the version our teacher made last year.
I'll try to put day two together tomorrow or the next day, if wi-fi and energy are willing to cooperate.