This Little Piggy...

Ham Hock with Pork Belly and Puy Lentils

Went to market....who..me?..well, I suppose I am what I eat..but I mean the other little pork chop.

My favourite animal would have to be the pig, or rather, its' meat - for I don't particularly want to take it for walks in the park or throw the pig a bone. It is so versatile and used in abundance in Chinese and Vietnamese cooking that I grew up eating pork in all its forms. Stewed, Braised pig trotters with 'hair' for Chinese New Year, Roast Pork, Char Siu, Grilled Pork Chops with Rice (Com Tam), boiled trotters in Vietnamese soups (Banh Canh)...you name it...there was a way to cook it. This was every part of the pork. Intestines, liver, trotters, ears, marrow, blood. All of it. The whole concept of nose to tail eating was born long before Fergus Henderson started his St John restaurants. 

So needless to say, in the Western world, cured meats, terrines, crackling, accompanied with a glass of red simply added another dimension, another way, to enjoy this little creature.

Brawn, the sister restaurant to Terroirs, but over in the East Side served all of this. Brawn is the meat from the head of a pig, cooked and pressed into a block. This is then likely served on a wooden board, accompanied with bread. Well, it doesn't have to be, but it makes me want to eat it more then if it were served on a white plate. Just as everything is better dusted with icing sugar, everything looks better on wooden boards.

Ok, pork isn't the only thing on the menu but we ordered predominately this, throw in some salad leaves and a cauliflower and cheddar souffle. Pork scratchings, nduja scotch eggs (tasty!), mixed charcuterie platter, foie gras and a ham hock that was to serve three or more. There was four of us. The three or more did not account for the other plates we had already ordered, nor the extra chunk of pork belly that came with it. Nonetheless we ate our way through it and left Brawn feeling very much like the porker we had consumed. Great little spot at the end of Columbia Road worth returning for, but ordering just slightly fewer plates. Just.

Brawn
49 Columbia Road
Bethnal Green
E2 7RG

Pork Scratchings

Mixed Charcuterie Platter

Foie Gras

Cauliflower and Cheddar Souffle