Pig Cheeks ?

[Wapiti1]

Now are these something I can Cut off and throw on the BBQ with some Mesquite smoking chips for 2/3 hours and have something great !
Or do I need to cure them with the rest of the meat?

Depends on how much fat. Usually they are pretty fatty off a domestic hog, so cured is better, IMO. If they aren't too fatty, rolled in spices and smoked would be good. It's pork, there is no right or wrong.

Jeremy

 

[Suga]

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[butcherboy]

You wouldn’t need to cure them unless you are wanting more of a salty bacon flavor. Seasoned and smoked would still be some good eating. Cured about 8 over the weekend and smoked them today.

 

[uglymud]

Idk about everyone else but when we butcher hogs the cheeks and jowls are two seperate things.

When I think cheek meat I'm thinking about the muscles attached to the skull that move the jaw.

Jowls are just the loose fat with streaks of lean that make up the neck area below the cheeks.

Jowls I don't care much for to much fat on our hogs really. Cheek meat is damn good though.

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[IN_Varmntr]

We raise and butcher our own hogs and I've experimented a bit with the "leftovers".

For porchetta di testa, I brined a hogs head in a salt/brownsugar brine for 4 months before skinning it, seasoning all of the pieces and wrapping them up in the skin from the head. The jowels, cheeks, tongue, ears, all get wrapped, tied, vacuum sealed and cooked in a 185*F water bath for 16 hours before being chilled to <40*F.

This is then thinly sliced for sandwiches, cheese and crackers, etc...

I just finished one but haven't had the time to dig into it yet. I need to get my slicer our and slice it all up and repackage it.

The mask.

Ready to be spiced, wrapped and tied up.

Chilling in my walk-in cooler.

 

[butcherboy]

Jowls are on the side of the head. It’s the fatty area that sits on top of the actual cheek meat. I’ve seen and taken thousands of jowls off of pig heads over the years.

 

[Opah]

I will give it a go, at least get the meat off the cheek areas

 

[jwcressman]

I oven roasted this head from a 200 lb pig. It was enough meat to make tacos for 3 adults. Delicious, fatty, and crispy.