The Aspiring Luddite

	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.

Headcheese Jus Mousse
5 May 2011

I made this for the great breaking of the Lenten fast but wasn't completely happy with the way it turned out, so I made it again this week with good results.

It is still smooth and relatively mild, so it should probably open the meal; at the very least, it shouldn't be paired with anything too aggressively spiced.

Headcheese Jus Mousse
[The mousse]

2 Tbs headcheese jus
pinch of salt
1 cup heavy cream
1-3 Tbs fresh herbs, scallions, etc.

First, I must address the use of headcheese jus. If you have recently made headcheese, you might still have some jus left over. The jus is flavored with pig and, in my case, onion, pepper, juniper, garlic, clove and bay. It is also quite full of gelatin. So if you don't have headcheese jus handy, and don't want to wait until after you've made some to give this a try, you'll have to improvise - either buy or make a nice aspic and use it instead of the headcheese jus.

Heat the jus/aspic until it is liquid, add a pinch of salt unless it's already very salty, then set aside while you whip the cream. Whip it very thoroughly, since it will lose some air when you fold in the rest of the ingredients. [The cream]

Chiffonade the herbs and mince the vegetables. Then fold everything together, as quickly and gently as you can. Put into small serving dishes and chill.

For color and flavor, I'd recommend adding at least a little something in the way of herbs or small tasty vegetables. Basil is good in this. Chives would work well. Finely chopped or minced ramps or scallions would not go amiss. I used basil in the second batch, but for the first batch I only garnished it with a single ramp, and wished that I had mixed some in.

Still, as a fairly light starter, it makes a lovely, cool spring dish.

The Aspiring Luddite