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They raised me on silk and alcohol
Dec. 21st, 2014 12:01 pmIt's about this time at any given party - official start time, ie - that I find I still want to crack a beer, light a cigarette and breathe out slowly.
It's been, um, fifteen years since I was able to do that, what with the not-being-a-smoker-any-more and so forth. Still miss it. Hey-ho.
(And I have forgotten to put the beer in the fridge. I should go and do that. Soon as.)
Meanwhile, I am juggling things in and out of the oven, trying to make space for the hog's head. Turns out the distance from neck to snout is quite long (at least on a largish porker; I have fifteen pounds of head here) and there may barely be room for him, if he sits on the oven floor. There may, on the other hand, be not.
This may be the first time since I came here that I have seriously thought "I need a bigger oven."
Anyway: pork shoulder is done, and transferred to the slow cooker to keep warm. Its rind is still in the oven, defiantly uncrisping. I'll get it there, though, despite misleading instructions; I am on my own, and I do know what I'm doing. Then the buns go in to bake, and then, at last, the hog's head can begin. I have rubbed it with five-spice and bourbon; I have devised cute little ear-caps of tinfoil to keep its tender parts from burning; I have infiltrated sprigs of rosemary beneath its wound, and I might just slosh half a bottle of mead in there with it, as I'll be basting it with honey anyway and if it's sitting on the oven floor it's right on top of the flame (American gas ovens are ... differently designed, or at least this one is; the flame is beneath the floor, invisible, inaccessible except to an engineer; which means that the bottom of the oven is not the cool space I'm accustomed to, it's a hotplate).
How or when I shall ever make my sossidges-in-bacon, I have no idea, if the hog's head is Occupying Oven to the exclusion of all shelving. But hey, other people are bringing other fudz. No one's going home hungry today. Happy Hogswatch, one and all!
It's been, um, fifteen years since I was able to do that, what with the not-being-a-smoker-any-more and so forth. Still miss it. Hey-ho.
(And I have forgotten to put the beer in the fridge. I should go and do that. Soon as.)
Meanwhile, I am juggling things in and out of the oven, trying to make space for the hog's head. Turns out the distance from neck to snout is quite long (at least on a largish porker; I have fifteen pounds of head here) and there may barely be room for him, if he sits on the oven floor. There may, on the other hand, be not.
This may be the first time since I came here that I have seriously thought "I need a bigger oven."
Anyway: pork shoulder is done, and transferred to the slow cooker to keep warm. Its rind is still in the oven, defiantly uncrisping. I'll get it there, though, despite misleading instructions; I am on my own, and I do know what I'm doing. Then the buns go in to bake, and then, at last, the hog's head can begin. I have rubbed it with five-spice and bourbon; I have devised cute little ear-caps of tinfoil to keep its tender parts from burning; I have infiltrated sprigs of rosemary beneath its wound, and I might just slosh half a bottle of mead in there with it, as I'll be basting it with honey anyway and if it's sitting on the oven floor it's right on top of the flame (American gas ovens are ... differently designed, or at least this one is; the flame is beneath the floor, invisible, inaccessible except to an engineer; which means that the bottom of the oven is not the cool space I'm accustomed to, it's a hotplate).
How or when I shall ever make my sossidges-in-bacon, I have no idea, if the hog's head is Occupying Oven to the exclusion of all shelving. But hey, other people are bringing other fudz. No one's going home hungry today. Happy Hogswatch, one and all!