In an effort to keep up with some of the exciting trends of Latin cooking coming from south of the border, our kitchen at Las Palapas will be serving the famous delicacy - Tacos de Cabeza de Cochinita – (pig’s head tacos), as one of our upcoming taco features. We have developed a system to cook and season the heads to perfection, and most of the kitchen agree it is one of the tastiest dishes we have ever served. It has been very exciting and rewarding and we would like to share the experience with everybody.
We started by sourcing Saskatchewan pig’s heads through Prairie Meats. They come in cleaned and split down the middle. We work with one half head at a time and score them to facilitate rendering. Then we brine them overnight in a salt and sugar brine. The next day we simmer them confit method in a large pot of enriched pork lard, which aids in crisping the skin (chicharron stylings), and keeping the jowl meat tender. This is followed by a quick deep fry in canola oil to crisp the skin further. Then we season them with our house seasoning salt and tajin spice, and drizzle fresh squeezed lemon, lime and orange juice over them and finish in the oven. After which they are deconstructed and the cheek meat and the crisp skin chicharrones are mixed together and sautéed like carnitas. We will be serving them on our jalapeno slaw with a fiery and smokey Mayan hot sauce - K’uut Bi’ik . Not to be missed! We will try to let you know when they are being featured and hope you will try them and let us know what you think!!
Buen provecho!!
