A friend an I butcher two pigs a year . We do it up , smoke our own hams , bacon and chops .
We also make scrapple . For those of you who haven't had it your missing out on some good eating .
If your butchering your own pigs and not making it , ... well your missing out on the good eats and a whole lot of cheap food .
Traditionally scrapple is made from the head and organ meats .
I do things a little different . Because I take the jowels and cure / smoke them there isn't a whole lot of meat left on the head . So I don't bother with it .
But , much like making good chicken soup if you want to make good scrapple you have to make a good stock .
So instead of the head I use the rest of the carcass bones to make stock
For me this ends up being , three legs , front shoulders and about half the ribs ... we takes every inch of meat we can for bacon so the ribs aren't all that great for eating , I only save the best of them .
Ingredients. .
3.5 gallons of stock
7 lbs course ground corn meal
2 cups buckwheat flour
1/2 - 3/4 cup course black pepper ... start with 1/2 c and add to taste
1/3 - 1/2 cup salt . To your taste again
to make your stock .. youll need a large pot or a kettle .
Cut the bones up into manageable pieces , if your using the head leave it whole of course . Toss them in your pot and heat to a rolling boil .
And then add in what organ meats you desire .
I use the entire heart , and about half the liver .. I am not a liver fan
If you are then by all means use it all .
I also do not use the kidneys , you can if you like them .
Now that everything is in the pot reduce your heat to a medium simmer And give it a stir every now and then for about three hours .
Remove from heat and then pull out the bones and pull off any meat that hasn't already fallen from the bone .
Then strain all the meat from the stock and carefully sort threw it and remove any stray bits of cartilage and gristle from the meat And chop the meat up into medium fine bits . And toss it back into the stock
Now you'll start the real cooking ... bring your stock back up to a roiling boil .
Add your salt and pepper
And slowly start stirring in half your corn meal , if temp has dropped any keep stirring until the temp comes back up .
Then stir in your buckwheat flour .
Now is the time to very quickly taste and adjust your seasonings .
And then slowly stir in the rest of the cornmeal .
As soon as the last of the corn meal is in reduce to a low heat and keep stirring for 25-30 minutes .
Once your done cooking immediate pour into greased bread pans to cool . Once they are cool I like to put them in the freezer until they are almost frozen , and then dump them from the pans .
And wrap them in butcher's paper for freezing .
It's going to be thick and hard to stir ... so if your lazy like me your gonna want to cheat And go buy a paint mixer for your electric drill
It's $10 well spent
Total yield is around 35 pounds .. depending on how meaty your bones are and how much liver you use .