The Brawn Ultimatum - #Brawnoff Revealed

What I found strange was that no-one questioned me!  They must know what was in the bag?  They could see the pan, the battered and blackened instrument of porcine torture that I was struggling with in the rush hour traffic.  Just getting home had been a struggle but what awaited Boris was going to be far worse. 

As I lowered him into the pan I could see his eyes were open, he was staring silently, tongue-less and unable to voice plea or protest.  I knew at this point it was going to be a hard-core twelve hours, something inside questioning how it all came to this. 

The click click click of gas igniting seemed to echo in the quiet kitchen and the roar of the gas burner suddenly seemed deafening.  I had no choice but to cover sweet innocent Boris, I couldn't take the accusation from his eyes any more.  As he turned slowly in his last bath I opened the window, turned the lights out and left him to his fate. 

If you follow me on twitter you’ll have probably realised what I'm on about but last weekend I took part in my first bit of competitive cooking for a while!  #Brawnoff was brawn-child of Danny the Food Urchin and in clever collaboration with Barbecoa swiftly become grim reality as four brave food adventurers conspired to cook the best Brawn in Britain!

The remit was simple but gave us quite different results as we all cooked our interpretation of the classic dish.  Then when we’d all completed the task we’d take our wares to the butchers of Barbecoa to be judged!  We picked up our heads last Friday and the game was afoot!

I believe strongly in the food doing the talking, keeping recipes simple where you can and letting the natural flavours run through.  Nothing seemed more sensible than doing the same here so I kept it very simple and here follows my recipe for deliciously easy brawn!

You’ll need a big pan for this, the bigger the better, along with a lot of time!  Wash your Boris, really well, in the sink with cold water.  As gross as it sounds you’ll need to shave him as well.  Get as much of that hair off as you can using a clean and sterilised, most importantly DISPOSABLE, razor.  Then wash him again!

Put all the ingredients in the pan with enough water to cover the head completely once the ears have been cut off.  Turn on the gas and bring the water up to heat but don’t take it above a rolling boil.  You just want the water to be just bubbling on the edge of boiling ever so gently, this means any impurities are not going to be boiled back into the liquor but any nasties are killed by the heat and the long cooking process.

Keep checking on the pot, topping up the liquid when appropriate.  I cooked mine overnight but you might want to start it in the morning to avoid the disruption in your sleep as you need to be checking on this fairly often.  In the morning after twelve hours I turned off the heat and let it cool till the head was just warm enough to handle.  Don’t throw away the stock just yet you’ll need it in a minute or so.

Now for the gross part and my one tip you must follow – DON’T do this with a hang-over!  Pick all the meat, fat and skin off the head.  12 hours in the pot and the meat should come off in strips but really work through the fat as the muscle layers are marbled and you can miss good stuff if you are not thorough. 

Season the mix to your taste but you must remember the seasoning will alter when it’s cold so go heavy on the salt and pepper.  Place a mix of the meat, fat and jelly like skin in glorious chunks into a dish for now. 

You need to heavily reduce down your stock but you won’t need anywhere near what you’ve got available.  So remove two litres and reduce by half in a smaller but far more manageable vessel.  Pour the jelly stock over the meat mix and allow it to filter down, give the dishes a little shake to let it all mix together.

Now for the tough part... Let it cool and leave it!  This will taste good now but so much better when it’s had a couple of days in the fridge to mellow and mingle in its juices!  Brawn DONE!

What I wasn’t prepared for was how competitive I was going to get and I was starting to get nervous...   We took our cooked brawn back to Barbecoa on Monday night and the fun started again.  Our judges had clearly been looking forwards to this as well and took to the role with a lot of enthusiasm and after much deliberation the winner was decided!

Danny the food urchin took inspiration from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and cooked a light and herby brawn speckled with Parsley and heightened with a squeeze of lemon juice to help cut through the creamy fat. 

MiMi Aye of Meemalee’s Kitchen cooked a fantastic Burmese version of Brawn and served it with a Spicy dip that added a fiery punch to the deeply cooked down meat. 

The winner however was Aaron a.k.a. The Grubworm who cooked the poster boy of the Brawn world!

Never has a more picture perfect example of brawn been prepared and he took to his task with the utmost professionalism.  A well deserved win but a bitter loss for me and a day the Butchers of Barbecoa will rue forever Muhaha! (not really they were lovely) 

With all seriousness the whole thing was fantastic fun from start to finish and a massive thank you goes out to the guys and the Danny’s for sorting the whole thing out.  (Danny FU for starting the ball rolling and the other Danny who happens to be editor of Jamie Oliver’s website for helping to arrange everything with Barbecoa)

Ingredients:

1 x Pigs Head – Mine was called Boris

2 x Trotters

1 x Stick of Celery

3 x Large Onions

A handful of Carrots – Roughly chopped

1 tbsp of Cumin Seeds

1 tsp of Cloves

1 tbsp of Black Peppercorns