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

Bacon and Cabbage

This traditional Irish dish never appealed to me. The idea of boiling cabbage for however long (to death) in the bacon cooking liquid, fills me with sadness.

I've never 'boiled' cabbage of the white or green variety in my life and I certainly won't start any time soon.

I've always sauteed cabbage in a bit of butter with yes, a little water or stock if necessary, and only to the stage of  'al dente'. Seasoning with salt, freshly cracked black pepper and a good helping of nutmeg, grated on the spot.

In modern Ireland sauteed cabbage is more and more the norm. Fortunately.

The bacon used is cured in brine and then boiled in water with flavourings like bay leaf, onion, carrot, celery....

We have smoked bacon from our pigs in the freezer and cabbage from the garden and I set to work to make a, for us appealing, bacon and cabbage dinner.

For the bacon

Ingredients

• 1 bacon joint (enough for the family and/or leftovers)
• cider (I used 2 ltr for this)
• water

Preparation

• Put the joint into a cooking pot.
• Pour in the cider and top up with cold water till meat is covered.
• Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer 25 minutes per 0.5 kg (500 gr), plus an extra 20 minutes.
• Take the bacon out and keep warm

For the cabbage

Ingredients

• green, savoy or spring cabbage, 1 or 2, depending on size and density.
• a knob of butter or lard
• a splash of bacon cooking liquid
• 1 tsp mustard
• seasoning (salt, black pepper and nutmeg)

Preparation

• Trim the cabbage of outer leaves, halve or quarter it and shred/cut into largish strips.
• Melt butter in a cooking pot and turn heat up high.
• Add the cabbage, stir and turn heat low again. 

• Sautee until al dente
• You might need that cooking liquid to prevent burning the cabbage.
• Add the mustard and season.
• If you wish you can add cream or thicken with cornflour in a bit of milk.

Serve  this with a thick slice of bacon and boiled or steamed potatoes.

Now don't discard the cooking liquid. Store it in the freezer or make a soup with it straight away. I did. I made a whole pot of delicious erwtensoep/snert or pea soup in English.  Recipe to follow soon.

Patricia xxx...x

Mammoth Task

Last Wednesday we had to collect the pork at the butcher's. The meat from our piggies.
The largest of the two was sent off to the man who is going to turn the meat into salami, sausages, bacon, etc, etc.
For the 'smaller' one I asked the butcher to brine the two legs, so they will be collected just before Christmas. Pete (the butcher) minced one of the shoulders for me and the other, just boned, so that I could cube it for stews.
The heads were already in the freezer. Freezers full !! Of course, we have the lamb, that we acquired a few weeks ago, in there too.
I got Bert to ask Pete to just halve the saddle lentghways. I would do the rest. Pete almost got in a panic. He doesn't seem to trust my abilities of cutting meat. "But what will she do with it ?" Bert, in all his wisdom said that I was going to take the tenderloin off and things like that. "Yeah, I get that, but what with all the rest ?"
What, indeed ? Luckily Pete had the good sense to cut the belly off the back too. So, in effect the pig was quartered lengthwise.
When Bert brought in that first part, I broke out in a cold sweat.  That is not the meat from our pig ! That is from a friggin' dinosaur !
After wiping off the perspiration from my forehead and palms of my hands, I set to work on the loin.
Halved it, to just after the ribs. The rib side for chops and back ribs, the other side gave us 2 nice loin roasts. Oh, and of course I took off the tenderloin.

These loin chops measure 32 cm (1 ft ?), weighing about 600 gr !

That is Bert's hairy hand, not mine, thank you very much.

That was Wednesday.
On Thursday morning it became all too obvious that our two chest freezers wouldn't cope. I took out one of the heads and cooked it for, yes brawn.
By mid afternoon, the freezers were stuffed to the brim. Bert hurried to Kenmare to buy an extra one.
Due to lack of suitable space anywhere else in the house, it is now in his office of all places. Only temporary, I can assure you.

Thursday was the longest day, ever! (Just like this post, I guess). My hands sore, muscles achy. It is a good workout, butchering a pig.
I rolled pork belly with herbs for porchetta. Made and cooked meatballs, large and small.

Fat rendering down while I was working my way through and continued with that job on Friday, when I also finished the brawn.

There is so much clean meat coming off the head, that I can't justify not using it.

This time, I opted to put the meat through the food processor. In Flemish we call this kind of brawn "kipkap".  Nothing untoward has gone in. Just tender meat, onions and parsley, cooking liquid and seasoning.

I used the weekend to make yet another batch of brawn, the head taking up too much space in the freezer.

Bert so deserves a silver medal for manning the vacuum sealer, for being the knife sharpener, freezer stuffer and tidy up-er here and there. 

The gold medal is mine, all mine !

Patricia xxx...x

Brawn or Head Cheese

You really didn't want to see this first thing, did you ?
My apologies. The worst is yet to come. So vegetarians, vegans, people who don't eat pork or people who are just squeamish, look away now.
We keep a few pigs and even though I can get a bit squeamish myself, I toughen myself up when it comes to the slaughter and using as much of the pig as possible. Some things get cooked for the dogs, mind you, but in general all is used. So too is the head.
In Belgium it is still very common in the charcuterie department at the butcher's or supermarket to buy slices of  'geperste kop'  or 'kip kap' . The first one consisting of larger pieces of meat and gelatin. The latter is when the meat has gone through a mincer, also containing gelatin, but less visible.  We eat it between slices of bread and spread mustard over it.
I was pleasantly surprised when we moved to France and noticed that you could just buy half a pig's head in the supermarkets. How cool is that ?

I ask the butcher to saw the head in half and remove brains and eyes (can't deal with that just yet). When it comes back from the butcher's it goes straight into the freezer until the time comes I feel I can deal with it.
That time came when my mum was here and she prompted me to get the head out.
The recipe I use as a guide comes from a Flemish/Dutch website http://www.smulweb.nl/recepten/630633/Kipkap-en-preskop But as per usual I don't follow any recipe to the letter. Here is what we did.

Ingredients
for the first stage

• 4 carrots, peeled and halved or cut into large chunks
• 2 leeks, cleaned and chunked
• 4 large celery sticks, cleaned and chunked
• 2 onions, peeled and (no, not chunked) left whole and pricked with 4 cloves each
• a bunch of thyme, parsley and a few bay leaves
• 1 pig's head, halved, tongue, included.
• 4 trotters (if you have them)
• bones (if you have them)
• a bottle (or most of it) of dry white wine (keep a couple of glasses behind if you feel like you need it)
• a scoop of salt (2 tbsp) and black pepper
• cold water

for the second stage

• 2 tbsp lard, butter or oil
• 3 onions, peeled and finely chopped
• 20 ml plain white alcohol vinegar
• 8 gelatin leaves

Method

for the first stage

• Put all the ingredients into a large pot and add enough cold water to just cover everything.

• Bring to the boil and simmer for a good 3 hours
• The meat should be tender and start falling away from the bone

• Take the head and other meat out of the pan and let it cool for a while or completely, that is up to you. But it is easier to get the meat off when it is still warm.

• We (my mum and I) left everything to cool off during the night as it was too late in the day to finish this.
• Have a few bowls at the ready. One for the good clean meat, one for the stuff that you can give to the dogs, one for the stuff you want to bury in your backyard (or dispose of in an appropriate manner)
• Start the process of removing every little scrap of meat from the bones or let your mum do this. Just for your information, the tongue needs to be peeled from its outer lining.

• While she does that you can busy yourself with the stock. When it has cooled it is easy to scoop off excess fat

• When you've done that bring it back to the boil and cook ferociously till reduced considerably.
• Strain the stock through the colander, lined with a clean tea towel or cheese cloth that you have positioned over a clean cooking pot.  Let gravitation do it's work, no need to start pushing or squeezing.

for the second stage

• Sautee the onions in your chosen fat/oil till translucent. You might want to add a splash of the stock if it gets too dry.
• Chop the meat you want to use in the size that you are comfy with. and add together with the onions to the stock.
• Bring everything to the boil again, and add the vinegar. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if necessary. Take off the heat.
• The gelatin leaves. Soak them in a bowl of cold water for 5 to 10 minutes. Take them out and squeeze the excess water out somewhat. Stir them into the meat mixture. They dissolve pretty quickly.
• Ladle into a large or several smaller dishes. I used smaller ones, so I could freeze them individually.

• Leave to cool completely and put them in the fridge overnight.
• Next day you can release the brawn from the bowls by sliding a knife between meat and bowl. Turn it upside down and voilà 

• Freeze what you won't be using in the next few days.

This, to me, would make a great contribution to a buffet table, served with cornichons (small vinegary gherkins), mustard and some rustic bread.

NOTE : You can easily imitate the brawn with less provocative meat.  When I was much, much younger I have been known to imitate this with stewing pork. These days you can even buy pig cheeks in the supermarkets, which would work very well. You would have to use many more gelatin leaves though, as you'll miss out on that due to lack of skin and bones.

Bon appétit !

Patricia xxx...x

Mushroom and Chorizo Ragout with Creamy Polenta

It's been a few years  (8, at least)  since I last made polenta. But the idea must have been on my mind because a couple of months ago I bought some in the wholefood shop in Kenmare. I stored it safely away in the pantry in case of an apocalyptic event.
That apocalyptic event happened on Monday when I ran out of steam after I sliced about 6 kg of cucumber, plus onions, salted the bejaysus out of them, ready for pickling the next day.
Starving I was.  Right, I have mushrooms.  I'll make an autumnal  mushroom ragout and thus I set to trawling the internet.  I used this recipe as a guide, adapting as I went along.
I used only fresh mushrooms and not my dried porcini as they are for another apocalyptic event. I also added 4 of our homegrown chorizo sausages.

My recipe went as follows.
For the ragout.
Ingredients - serves 2 to 3

• sunflower oil, 1 tbsp (or thereabouts)
• 4 chorizo sausages (or other, of good quality)
• 2 shallots, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• thyme, a few sprigs - hard stalks removed.
• butter, 1 tbsp
• 3 portobello mushrooms, sliced
• 200 gr closed cup mushrooms, quartered
• 250 gr chestnut mushrooms, halved
• tomato concentrate, 1 heaped tsp
• white wine, 100 ml
• chicken stock, 200 ml (from a cube is fine)
• 1 tbsp cornflour in 1 tbsp of cold water
• freshly chopped parsley,  a few sprigs
• seasoning, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation Use a pan large enough to receive all the ingredients at one stage or another.

• Heat the oil in a pan and brown the sausages all around. Please don't turn them into lumps of coal, so brown them on a low to moderate setting. 
• Remove from the pan when cooked through. Set aside.
• In the remaining oil, sautee the shalots with the whole, but crushed garlic cloves and add the thyme
• When the onions are translucent, add in the butter.
• Turn the heat up a notch and sautee off the mushrooms.
• Then stir in the tomato concentrate and let it cook for a minute.
• Next in is the white wine. 
• Let it reduce before adding the stock.
• Cut the sausages in disks and add to the pan.
• Let this all simmer for about 5 minutes or until the liquid has reduced somewhat.
• This is where I then add the cornflour if the sauce is too thin. Let it cook through for a minute.
• Season to your liking and stir in the chopped parsley.

Oh the polenta !

I didn't even know instant polenta existed, therefore I used the guidelines on the packaging. I suggest you do the same.

• 750 ml water to 120 gr polenta
• chicken stock cube, bay leaf and sprigs of thyme
• 1 tbsp butter
• a splash (100 ml) of cream - I used double
• a couple of handfulls (depending on the size of your hands, I've got shovels) of grated parmesan cheese.  
• black pepper

Preparation

• Bring the water with stock cube and herbs to the boil
• Reduce to a simmer and pour in the polenta in a steady stream while you whisk with a whisk to prevent lumps.
• Revert to a wooden spoon and stir, this time to prevent sticking to the bottom and consequently burning your polenta !  Low setting.
• Now, my packet said 30 flippin' minutes. Luckily, it was ready in 10 to 15.
• Take off the heat and mix in the parmesan, butter and cream.
• Season with black pepper and serve.

Don't let my long-winded post put you off, or the seemingly long list of ingredients, because it was a doddle and ready in half an hour.
The flavour was as rich and intense as the colour of the ragout. And boy did it shout autumnal!

Patricia xxx...x

Sausage and Bean Casserole

This is a recipe for a quick one pot wonder.  I say quick because you can have it on the table in half an hour.  And no, I'm not trying to be a Jamie Oliver, even though I like his cooking style very much. Sometimes I have to prove to myself that I can rustle up something delicious without spending ages on the prep and cooking. I am the slowest person I know.

The French charcutier who has turned one of our pigs into delightful morsels of cured meats also made lots of sausages and while they are all very tasty, I really like the chorizo sausages. Especially for a dish like this.
You can use any good quality sausage, of course, but if you can add some cubed chorizo salami to the pot for extra smoky flavour, it makes all the difference.

Ingredients - 2 people

• 4 fresh chorizo sausages
• sunflower oil
• 1 onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped or grated
• half a red pepper, cut into 1.5 cm pieces
• half a green pepper, same as above
• chilli pepper, take one that suits your palate, super hot or just mild, sliced
• 1 star anise
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 sprig of thyme
• 1 tsp cumin, powdered
• 1 tbsp sweet paprika
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp concentrated tomato paste
• 1 tin +/- 400 grs kidney beans, drained
• 1 tin +/- sweetcorn, drained
• 100 ml water or stock
• Seasoning (salt, pepper)

Preparation

• Heat some oil in the pan and brown off the sausages on all sides. Give this time and do it over a low-ish setting. Add the oregano and thyme to this.
• When they are cooked through, take the sausages out of the pan and set aside.
• Depending on how much oil is left in the pan, you can add some or not. 
• Sauté the onions with the garlic until they're almost translucent.  Then add the peppers and chilli.  
• Sauté for a few minutes longer.
• Stir in the tomato paste and spices. Let it cook for a minute or so, but don't burn the spices.
• Add the beans, sweetcorn, stock or water and sausages.
• Simmer, with lid on, until everything has heated through.
• Season to taste.  I always add a good portion of coriander leaves, because I like it.
• Serve with crusty baguette or oven roasted sweet potatoes or both.

Fast food cooked at home.

Patricia xxx...x

The Not-so-Italian Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Why not so Italian ? Because I wanted it extra creamy and added cream. Ouch!



For 4 people

Ingredients

• 500 grs spaghetti
• 150 grs pancetta or lardons - I obviously used the smoked variety from our own pigs
• 2 cloves of garlic, unpeeled and crushed 
• 3 free range eggs
• 100 ml cream - maybe a bit more, because I really wanted it extra creamy
• 100 grs grana padano, grated at home - that is what I used, but it should actually be half and half Parmesan/Pecorino 
• Black pepper, freshly pestled-and-mortered

Method

• Bring a large pan of water to the boil. When it boils add salt  (you know as salty as the Mediterranean). Cook the spaghetti al dente. Stir sometimes to prevent it sticking, especially at the beginning.
• While the water was heating up, you should have been busy already softly, softly frying off the lardons in some oil, butter or lard in a frying pan. You added the 2 crushed garlic cloves too. They come back out at a later stage. The lardons should be golden and crispy, but I prefer when they are a bit softer. 
• Now take out the garlic. and add black pepper to lardons.
• Whisk the eggs somewhat together with the cream.
• When the pasta is cooked, lift it out with a slotted spoon and add to the frying pan that contains the bacon. It doesn't matter that the 'hanging' cooking water is added, it brings a little extra liquid to the 'sauce'.
• Heat through.
• Add the grated cheese to the egg mixture.
• Take the pasta off the heat and stir in the eggs, cheese and cream.
• Lifting the pasta and stirring till  the strands are covered and the sauce has thickened.
• You can still add some salt to this, but I believe with the lardons, cheese and Mediterranean sea water it should suffice.
• Serve immediately, sprinkled with more black pepper and grated cheese.

I'm sure there is no need for me to add to the many, many recipes for carbonara that are available on the internet. But maybe, when you're browsing through my blog and come across this one, it might remind you what a simple to make and deliciously tasty meal this is.

Patricia xxx...x

From Free Range Pig to Pork - Part 2

Following up from part 1  I have to say, things didn't go so well for our second lot to get them to slaughter.
Like before, our local butcher collected 2 pigs for slaughter. I believe it was in June and always on a Tuesday. Teary-eyed, I sad my goodbyes.  It doesn't seem to get any easier.
By the time Tuesday night came along I knew they would have been killed and my emotions had settled down somewhat.
On Wednesday morning the butcher phoned us to let us know he was bringing back our pigs - alive!
And so he did.
What had happened was that he slaughters more than just our pigs. When he set about doing his job with another lot from other people, these pigs became extremely aggressive.  So he bottled out with ours and consequently brought them back.
I can understand him, though.  He is fairly new to pig slaughter. They are big animals and can get very aggressive when stressed. If that previous lot from 'other people' hadn't had much human contact, they would have been very weary and scared.
He said that before he would venture into pigs again he needed to redo his infrastructure and that wouldn't be for the foreseeable future. He recommended an abattoire  in the nearby town of Kenmare, which is only half an hour's drive.
We gave the pigs a few extra weeks to de-stress and  made arrangements with the Kenmare butcher.
In this case we had to bring the pigs ourselves. Oh dear !
We managed to get two into our van.  You know as well as I do that these were the other two than the ones before.
All went well and a week later we could pick up the meat.  One went to a French charcutier who was going to make salami, sausages, black pudding, paté, smoked bacon, etc for us.
Olivier has a market stall in Kenmare but lives on the Dingle peninsula.  His wares are so tasty and his ingredients locally sourced.  It would take a few weeks before we got all these goodies back from him.
And here are a few.

We vacuum packed all the goodies and put them in the freezer. Plain sausages, continental style. 

Black pudding, again continental (Europe) style. 

Salami, vacuum  packed and frozen.

Chorizo salami and plain.

Smoked streaky bacon. 

Coarse paté

From the other pig we sold half again to friends. But we were going to do the cuts ourselves on our kitchen island.  I asked the butcher to halve the pig and disjoint the shoulders and legs.  With the kitchen ready we set to work, thanks to youtube and some guidelines from a local chef, we did it.

Shoulder joint for roasting 

Now, these are pork chops !

We've had a lot of family and friends over on holidays this summer and our meat stock seems to dwindle considerably. 

But there is nothing more satisfying than seeing guests enjoying a good meal with homegrown meat from happy pigs.

It is high time though that we start thinking about the two that have escaped their fate up till now. They are getting very large and big. Maybe next month. Maybe.

Thank you for joining me here again and I hope you'll come back for the next post. And the next....

Please feel free to leave comments.

Patricia xxx...x