Spicy Souse Meat  Or Head Cheese

Ingredients:

3 pounds pigs feet (long ones work best)
1 large onion (chopped)
1 12 oz. bottle of beer
1.5 cups white vinegar
3 garlic cloves (crushed)
1 cup of hot sauce
2 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons onion powder
1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoons black pepper
1 bay leaf

Instructions:

Add pigs feet in large pot with 1 cup of vinegar, beer, garlic,
onion, 1/2 cup of hot sauce, 2 tsp. of onion powder, salt and
pepper.
Boil until tender and liquid has reduced (about 3.5 hours).
Let cool.
De-bone Pigs Feet and chop into small pieces.
Mix in 1/2 cup of cooking liquid, crushed red pepper, remaining
hot sauce vinegar and seasonings.
Adjust any seasoning to your taste at this point.
Place in a loaf pan and cover with saran wrap.
Let chill for at least 3 hours.

Comments: This is spicy and delicious! Goes great with potato
salad as well as all types of crackers.

Panamanian Souse


Courtesy of The Panamanian News

by Eric Jackson

Souse, or sou, is another of those West Indian additions to
Panamanian popular culture. Never tried it? Well, if you are in
Panama City on the Saturday or Sunday of Carnival, go to the
grounds of the Museo Afroantillano for the annual Antillean
Fair, and check out the tent with all the food. (Of course, you
may fill yourself up on other Caribbean fare --- maybe fried
fish, or some Jamaican curry, or sweet buns, or jerked chicken,
or ackee or whatever --- and not get around to the souse.) But
what you get there is likely to be a bit different from this
recipe. Most likely it will be made from pigs' feet and will
have bones in it. Sometimes people make souse with the meat from
a pig's head. All that stuff is good, too, but I make my version
a bit differently.

Ingredients:

* 4 large fresh pork hocks

* 2 cups cider vinegar

* 1 Tablespoon allspice berries

* Some tap water

* 4 large Persian limes

* 1 large Spanish onion, peeled and sliced thin

* 2 aji chombo (Scotch bonnet or habanero) peppers, seeds, stem
and pulp removed then minced (do NOT do this with bare hands,
unless you are a masochist)

* 1 Tablespoon salt

* 2 large cucumbers, peeled, quartered lengthwise and cut into
quarter-inch-wide chunks

Directions:

* Rinse the pork hocks under cold tap water

* Combine the vinegar and the allspice in a glass casserole bowl
with a cover, in which the pork hocks would also fit

* Add the pork, exposing all sides of it to the vinegar -
allspice mixture

* Add enough water to the bowl to cover the hocks with liquid,
let stand for 15 minutes

* Turn the hocks over, let stand for another 15 minutes

* Remove the hocks from the bowl, discard the liquid

* Put the hocks in a pot with the salt and enough water to cover
them, bring the water to a boil

* Turn the burner down low, cover the pot, simmer for one hour
(adding water if it boils down to where the hocks are not
completely covered)

* Rinse the hocks under cold tap water, allow them to cool for a
few minutes

* Shred the meat in the hocks (including the skin and what fat
may remain) into strips about a quarter-inch thick, extracting
and discarding the bones

* Combine the meat in a glass or porcelain bowl with the aji
chombo peppers, the onions, the cucumbers and the juice of the
limes. Stir so that everything is exposed to the lime juice and
the peppers, cover, put in the refrigerator

* An hour later, stir the ingredients of the bowl well, re-cover
the bowl and return it to the refrigerator for at least another
hour

* Stir again before serving

Souse is served cold as an appetizer, or as one of the munchies
to go with beer or soft drinks. A little bowl of souse, another
little bowl of oyster crackers and a mug of a favorite beverage
would go well together while you're watching the Panamanian
baseball team play in the World Baseball Classic.