Pawaru-Grahmata

№ 42II. nodaļa

Pildīta teļu galva

Stuffed calf's head

  • Serves 4–6
  • about 5 hours, plus the calf's foot the day before
  • Melnraksts · vēl nav izmēģināts

1796Pildita tellu-galwa.

Modernizētslpp. 85–87 · PDF 99–101
4 porcijas

The book uses a whole head with 5 eggs, 2 good spoonfuls of fat bacon, the meat of 2 calf's feet, bread the size of a turkey egg and butter the size of a hen's egg, which converts to about 40 g bacon, about 80 g bread and about 55 g butter. We use half a head, boned, and halve the rest.

Method

8 soļi
  1. The day before, simmer the calf's foot in salted water for 3 hours until soft. Pick off all the meat and skin, chop it and chill it. Throw away the bones.
  2. Lay the boned head skin side down. Cut the cheek meat away from the skin, leaving the skin about 1 cm thick and whole, especially round the snout and ear. Cut away glands and blood vessels. Peel the tongue raw with a sharp knife, or blanch it for 10 minutes first to make peeling easier.
  3. Chop the head meat, tongue, roast veal, foot meat and bacon finely by knife or through the coarse plate of a mincer, then pound it or pulse it in a food processor, adding the eggs one at a time, the bread, spices, salt and 30 g butter, until it holds together. Fry a teaspoonful to check the seasoning.
  4. Spread the forcemeat over the inside of the skin and fold or roll the skin round it into a rounded head shape, with the ear on top. Sew it up with kitchen string and pat the skin firmly so it sticks.
  5. Heat the oven to 180 °C. Put the head in a buttered roasting tin and cover it with the cabbage leaves. Roast for 30 minutes.
  6. Take off the cabbage leaves, brush the head with butter and sprinkle it with breadcrumbs. Roast for 1 hour more (1½ hours in all, as in the book), until golden and the centre of the stuffing reaches 75 °C. If it isn't there yet, cover loosely with foil and keep going.
  7. Meanwhile make the sauce: simmer the fruit with the water for 10 minutes, push it through a sieve and sweeten it to taste. It should stay sharp.
  8. Rest the head for 10 minutes. Pour the sauce into a warm dish, set the head on top, remove the string and slice at the table.

Notes

What the book says vs. what we added

the book takes the skin off the scalded head in one piece with the ears and nose whole, makes a forcemeat from all the head meat and fat, eye fat, tongue and jowl, half as much roast veal, fat bacon and the meat of 2 boiled calf's feet, pounded with 5 eggs, milk-soaked bread, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, salt and butter, then breaks open the skull and jaws, takes out the brains and mixes them with butter, salt and pepper. It packs the forcemeat back onto the skull so the head "gets its former face back", covers it with the skin and bakes it for 1½ hours on a tin-lined dish, under a cabbage leaf for the first half hour, then buttered and crumbed, and serves it on cherry or gooseberry sauce. Boning the head instead, the halved amounts, the sauce recipe, oven temperature and core temperature are ours.

The book's version rebuilds the head on its own skull so it looks like a whole calf's head at table. That needs a whole head, a lot of skill and a butcher willing to split the skull for you. Rolling the forcemeat in the boned skin gives the same flavours and slices neatly.

Getting a calf's head

order it from a butcher (see 02-039). Ask for it scalded, dehaired and boned in one piece. In France, tête de veau is sold boned and is the easiest starting point.

Brains

calf's brains are rarely sold today, so we leave them out. If you can get them, the book mixes them with a little butter, salt and pepper; poach them first and add them to the forcemeat.

Sauce

Kesbeere is the cherry (Latvian ķezberes) and Stikkenbeere the gooseberry. A sharp fruit sauce cuts the richness of the head.

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