Freezers Full

Two porkers arrived back from the butcher on Friday morning. Two porkers, minus 2 legs and a side, as they are being cured for ham and bacon respectively.
Thank goodness they were much smaller than our previous pigs. Still, we had our work cut out (scuse the pun), transforming the meat into suitable sized portions.

Luckily, our friend Sophie was here to help.

She's been such a trooper, grating nutmeg as if there was no tomorrow, peeling pistachios, sausage guider and linker, de-boning, slicing chops and dicing for stewing meat....

This time I asked the butcher to mince the meat from two shoulders. I have a meat mincer on my Kenwood food processor, but for such a quantity it is much quicker if the butcher does it.

We made three types of sausage. A Belgian style bratwurst with white pepper, salt and NUTMEG ! A curried sausage and a mild chorizo (see mixture in photo above)

 Belgian braadworst (Bratwurst)

We have acquired a sausage stuffer (see red contraption in photo above). It can handle 3 liters of minced meat at a time and it does a fantastic job. Again, much better than my Kenwood version.

And here they are drying for a few hours. Allegedly, this helps to tighten the sausage and skin together. I believe it worked. We've had some for dinner the other night and they were absolutely stonkingly tasty and firm.



Wait ! I'm not done yet !

This is my sous vide cooker. And what's in there is this :

Our own homemade luncheon meat or mortadella-esque Bologna sausage, with pistachios, pink and green peppercorns. No artificial colouring or flavour enhancers added. Only good quality meat, herbs and spices and pistachios.
We stuffed these on Friday and left them to settle in the fridge till Saturday. Then they went in the sous vide cooker for 3 hours at 60°C. Very nice they are, but next time I'll probably use less salt than what was stated in the recipe.

With that out of the way, it is high time to get the chicken and duck run electrified. The ultrasonic sensors seem to have helped so far (touch wood), but I'll be more relaxed with extra precautions.

In between, I have been sorting through my craftroom too. Moving furniture and folding fabrics. Neatly. A long way to go still, but we'll get there in the end.

Have a lovely week.
Patricia xxx...x