The day of the slaughter I had made a brine to put the head in when it was all done being processes. The brine consisted of 14 qts water, 4.5lbs salt and you could also do 4.5lb sugar but we chose to do some molasses. I should have started it the night before because you have to let it cool overnight so you aren’t putting meat in a warm brine (and partially cooking it).

The process of making pig head pozole was easier than we thought (to an extent). After cutting the head off of the pig, we had to clean it with intense detail. The head is usually the most time consuming thing to shave and clean (after the intestines) due to all the lovely creases. Thankfully we had one of our most detail oriented friends there to help! He took a razor blade to it and worked on it till there was no more hair on it and it resembled food. We needed to find the bullet so we split it in half and searched for it. The guys were not finding it so I came in to search for it. They had already taken the brain out. I tend to be more obsessive with finding the potentially toxic item (thanks to anxiety that actually comes in handy). I put a head lamp on and started searching. Within minutes I found a few large fragments (yikes), and we decided to cut out the whole path of the bullet just to be safe.

The head is the most complicated part of the animal to maneuver cuts with. There is so much going on with it. After getting the bullet out, we needed to remove the salivary glands. Apparently they contribute a weird taste to whatever it is you are trying to make with the head and we had no objections to cutting them out. It was hard to find the glands at first but then we succeeded. . We found other little glands (or lymph nodes) around the head and decided to cut those out too. They looked rather unappetizing.. little green/brown bean sized things.

After cutting the glands out, we fully submerged the head in the brine to sit till we were ready to making the soup. On Monday morning we put the head in the brine and on Tuesday we took it out to start making soup. We put it in the day after because the brine still wasn’t cooled down enough the night of.

After taking the head out of brine, we added herbs and simmered it for a few hours. After simmering for a few hours, we took the head out and put cubed shoulder meat in the broth and let that cook. While the head was cooling we separated the meat from the bones. We also dry fried some chili peppers (pasilla, anaheim, red fresno, serrano, guajillo) and then made a yummy chili paste to go in the soup. We couldn’t find dried hominy, so we subbed it with canned hominy. Everything except the brain, bones, and esophagus/part of the tongue due to the bullet was in the soup! We topped it with red radishes, green cabbage, chili paste, green onion, avocado, and paired it with mezcal and some cold coronas with a lime. It was WORTH all the work. The soup was the most delicious soup I’ve ever had. The flavor was so rich and I have found with any part of the pig I eat, I need to eat slow because the dense nutrients and flavors are so filling that a little goes a long way!