I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

Some time ago, I made some headcheese and opined that while headcheese with no cheese was OK, headcheese with neither head nor cheese was crazy. That's why this isn't headcheese. It's probably not technically "toecheese" either, since a hoof isn't quite a toe, but I'm willing to stretch that point.

In any case, what this is, is slow-cooked offal, suspended in gelatin. I had, courtesy of a friend, goat hearts and goat's feet. I could think of nothing better to do with them than this.

• 300 gm goat heart
• 800 gm cut up goat's feet
• brine made of
  • 1/2 gallon water
  • 1/4 cups sugar
  • 2 tsp pink salt
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 3 cloves
  • 5 bay leaves
  • 3 juniper berries
  • 12 black peppercorns
  • 1 red spring onion

I removed the solids and strained the liquid through cheesecloth. The hearts got minced, and any bits which I could pick off the feet also got minced. The bits got tossed into a loaf pan. To the liquid I added a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar and a pinch of salt. The liquid went over the solids and the whole thing went into the fridge. The result of all this effort is pretty darn tasty. With less meat and more broth, the tang of the vinegar is more upfront than it was with the headcheese, which is no bad thing. The appearance is not quite as nice, since the gelatin is slightly grey and there's more of it with respect to the meat. Still and all, making this sort of charcuterie is a great use for offal and those connective-tissue heavy bits and bobs. There are medieval recipes that often call for this sort of thing, which I will explore another day ...