THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE REAL DOG FOOD
We often get pig heads. Sometimes they come cut in half but often a whole head. If you are not squeamish, then they really are an ideal source of dog meat. Lets face it, not so many years ago, the components of a pig’s head was thought of as good human food. I and my sisters certainly grew up eating it and the dogs got what we couldn’t/didn’t eat. Brawn, tongue, cheeks, homemade haslet etc. If you haven’t had braised pig cheeks in a thick brown gravy with mash, you have missed a real tasty dish and as a teenager coming home drunk(ish), attacking the brawn and spreading it on toast with brown sauce! Wow, 1970’s kebab lol!
You can buy pig heads online at Broughs.
Ingredients
- 1 pig head
- Several large potatoes
- Some carrots
- Bag of rice. But you can instead chuck in any veg trimmings, barley or couscous you may have.
Method
wash pigs head
Wash the pigs head!
boiling pigs head
Plunge in large saucepan of boiling water then boil until you can stick a skewer into cheek area with ease (2 hours +)
cooked pigs head
Lift out of stock…now this stock will be very fatty…if your dog is healthy and has no eating fat problems like dogs with pancreatitis then…
raw veg
Add veg trimmings, rice or barley or couscous or pasta to stock and simmer for 15 mins. Today we are using chopped carrots, potatoes and rice!
cook veg in stock
If your dog cannot do fat…leave to cool remove solid fat from top then use the stock as previous (save that fat…brill for roast tatties!)
peel skin of pig head
Once head has cooled strip off all the skin, we will come back to the skin in a moment!
strip meat of pigs head
Pick out all the meat, this is cheek area, brain (may have to crack the skull bone), tongue ( may have to force the jaws) and pick all the rest of the bones clean
One average sized pigs head will give you about 20 portions of meat content. We pay £1 for a head and once it picked down portion it up and remember this is high quality fat and meat and they don’t need the volume as if you was feeding from a tin…a dog about the size of a lab needs no more than 2 to 3 cooked ounces (about 100g). Add the veggies etc etc from the stock so now you have say 20 portions of pig head meat and veg/rice/barley/couscous etc. Add 1mug of cheap whole meal mixer to each dinner. So, 5p for the meat/fat, 5p for the veg, 10p for the rice/barley etc and 10p for the mixer. That’s just 30p to feed a Labrador size dog, compare that to balls in a bag or tinned meat with 80% water in it.
AND THAT SKIN?
pigs skin
Easy!! Next time you have the oven on place on baking tray and bake it until crispy…pork cracking dog treats without the salt and additives! 🙂
