I will start with the finished product. Why? Because the process is absolutely gross to look at… so if you do not like knowing what your food looks like before it shows up on your plate, skip this post.
Ok… you have been warned!
Mike threw me an awesome birthday party at Albert Hall Tavern. (You can see pictures of the party on my sister’s Facebook album)
The party consisted of a sampling of food and drinks and peaked with a suckling pig roast. It was fantastic, delicious, and fun. We had the private room in the back and Chef Bill treated me and my guests to a night to remember. (Ok… maybe I don’t remember ALL of it… but I will say that the beer was flowing and I MAY have eaten an eyeball AND a snout… but I’m not copping to anything)
Chef Bill was nice enough to send me home with all the pork bones to make pork bone soup. I diligently picked off the meat, broke up the bones, and set it in a pot with spices, herbs, and vegetables to boil. And boil. And boil. And boil.
When you are making soup from bones, it is variable as to how much flavor will come out and how much fat. So you boil it for flavor then put it in the fridge to let the fat rise to the top. Then you skim off the fat and reboil it. Repeat until desired flavor/fattiness.
The first time I boiled the pork bones, I decided it wasn’t quite enough flavor so I put it in the fridge and readied it to be boiled the next day. What I didn’t anticipate, however, was what would rise to the top…
Well hello piggy!
I’m not going to lie… the science nerd in me thought this was SUPER cool. So cool in fact that we actually tried to preserve the skull, however, it wound up disintegrating when we left it in detergent for too long. OH WELL.
After I got it to the desired flavor, I drained out the bones and refrigerated. Skimmed off the fat (which I froze to use to make bread at a future date) and then at the soup with rice and bok choy.
And it was good!
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