Blog Reboot

Posted on May 14, 2012 by admin

Gammon and Spinach and High Cockolorum, is it really nearly 4 months since I last posted in here? I’m so ashamed.

In my partial defence, while it has been a long time, been a long time, it has not been a lonely time, but a busy busy busy time. We have more than quadrupled our agreage, trebled our livestock numbers, branched out into new foodie territory and eaten loads.We have produced poultry and piglets aplenty, and a pair of puppies (well, a bit of alliterative licence there – one puppy, one new dog)

To my chagrin I notice half a dozen articles in various stages of completion from before I became so slack. Have no idea where the pictures for those are but will dig through and find them.

On the upside, I have nailed a few new techniques so there may be some interesting stuff to look forward to, and I also have a new and very smart camera, courtesy of my stepfather Stuart, which means the photography should be a major step up from the blurry indistinct images of yore.

Getting back in the blog saddle after such a long absence is a little like forcing one’s self back into exercise (I am guessing here) – easy to keep putting off, but the year is whizzing by and there is much to document so I am going to make an effort to post at least 2 or 3 times a week. Feel free to nag me if I fail.

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Festive Feast Part 3 – Paté de Foie Gras

Posted on January 10, 2012 by admin

We’re going in rather reverse order here, but what Hey, It’s Christmas! Or, rather, it was.

Remember the big picture with all the birds lined up? In the middle were three large foies gras entiers.

Now, before I get the inevitable barrage of flaming, let me say that I am not in any way in favour of the commercial factory produced foie gras or the methods used to produce it, just as I abhor the way commercially reared pork or any intensively farmed animals are produced. Our foie gras comes from our own ducks, however, and is produced humanely, ethically and without cruelty. And tastes divine.

Right, glad we cleared that up *. Now, let’s get back to those livers…

Lovely! Just under 2 kg together.

It would be a bit on the piggy side to put all three of them in the stuffing for the 13  bird roast. Gilding the lily. So only one went into the stuffing.

So we have 1.4 kg of lovey fatty liver left (say that 3 time quickly!)

What to do?

Paté de Foie Gras, of course.

It is Christmas after all, and Paté de Foie Gras is one of my wife’s favourite foods.

So…

A decent knob of duck fat. Always a good start to any culinary project.

Garlic and shallots. Did not have splendid new Global chef’s knife at this point, as we are working in reverse order here.

Sweated  with some thyme and a couple of crushed bay leaves on a low heat for a good ten minutes until soft. Then a mug of water added and heat brought up.

In go the livers, sliced in half inch pieces.

The Kitchen cat is so sated by this point he is not even roused by the smell of foie gras. He has retired with his chocolates (although I think that is gingerbread in that box, in fact).

After a matter of only a couple of minutes the pan comes off the heat and its contents go into the food processor, along with a good slug of brandy, for a few short pulses – we don’t want it to become completely liquified. Its all pretty soft stuff by this stage anyway, all we want to do is incorporate the fats and onions into the foie gras, whilst still retaining some texture.

The resulting gloop goes into a loaf tin lined with cling film, and is weighted down and put into the fridge for 48 hours.

Well it stayed in the fridge for quite a lot longer than 48 hours in fact because we were so overwhelmed with other rich foods we quite forgot about it, and were not in any great rush for a kilo and a half of fatty paté, but that only made it all the nicer a surprise to rediscover after Christmas…

Although, upon closer investigation, I surmise that whilst I may have forgotten about it, my wife did not, as about half of it has gone already. Hmmm. Wonder when she managed to eat all that without me noticing?

Oh well, all the more reason to try some now, before its all gone.

Have taken out a small pot to warm up to room temperature. Looks pretty good, if I say so myself. Unctuous, indeed. Now all I need is an oatcake. And a star to sail her by.

Mmmm. That is delicious. I cannot help but pull a Nigella-face here, but will spare you what that looks like. The texture is great as well. Smooth but not mush.

Appallingly out-of focus though. I’d better have another one and try again.

Mmmm, God this is moreish. Rich, buttery… I much prefer duck foie gras to goose in fact, as it has more depth of flavour. And homemade tastes so much nicer than anything you will get in a pot in a shop. I was quite sparing on the brandy this time, which has worked out well. It is easy to overpower the foie gras with the alcohol. For all it s a robust flavour it is quite delicate at the same time.

Is that better against a white background? Hmmm. Still not really in focus. Better have another one.

3rd attempt. Slightly more focussed but I’m not sure I like the composition. Better have another.

I’m beginning to think I didn’t take out a large enough pot.

 

 

 

 

 

(* Not that that will prevent the deluge of flamers, I feel quite certain)

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Ducks and Geese, Recipes, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The Return of the Prodigal Prosciutto

Posted on January 10, 2012 by admin

Rejoice, Rejoice for air-dried venison ham was delivered back unto me this Noel!

Do you remember the Venison Prosciutto that disappeared under mysterious circumstances before Christmas?

Well, it’s back!

 

“Go ask the maid if she heard what I said, Tell her to change the sheets on the bed.

My Prosciutto’s come back to me!

Charlie! Champagne right away!I know you’ve been saving it for a holiday,

but my Prosciutto’s come back to me!”

(with apologies to Scott Walker)

Not sure where it had been. My wife allegedly ‘found it’ whilst ‘tidying up’ in the Shed of the Dead. Which sounds not entirely plausible on either count, to be honest, but I know better than to enquire further and am just glad to be reunited with it.

It had a bit of a chequered history this prosciutto. It started off life in a wetcure back in October (well, it started off life attached to a deer, but it is it’s journey thereafter which concerns us).

Then the weather turned unseasonably warm and it moved to a dry cure just in the nick of time before the brine turned into something from Quatermass and the Pit.

And then it was rinsed and hung out to air-dry for a few weeks.

And then it disappeared.Off the face of the Earth.

It wasn’t in the curing chamber. It wasn’t in any of the sheds. It wasn’t under the lean-to. It wasn’t in any of the usual or unusual places that we hang meats. It wasn’t anywhere to be found.

Until now that is. When it has equally mysteriously ‘re-appeared’ in the Shed of the Dead. Hmmm…

But anyway, let us not look a gift-ham in the mouth. Let us just eat the thing before it absconds again.

It is not looking particularly the worse for wear for it’s travels.

It is a bit of a shame as it had been out a few weeks longer than I would have liked and consequently has dried a little bit more than I would have wanted ideally. That said, it is still reasonably pliant so now is definitely the time to eat it.

It smells great!

Into the Shed of the Dead to fire up the slicer. This is going to be rich stuff so we are not going to want it anything more than waffer-thin. Great hunks of it would not be palatable.

So after a bit of experimenting, we reach optimum thickness. Because of the small size of the ham and it being bone-in, it is going to be tricky to slice large pieces but that’s okay. as we said, we’re not looking for slabs and a little goes a long way. the aroma as we cut through it is heavenly. Getting seriously hungry now.

There we have it. A bit dry at the edges as mentioned but a superb taste in the middle. Much richer than a conventional pig-based ham, with a good gamey tang. Veyr happy with the result flavour-wise.

If it had been sliced two or three weeks earlier, or the humidity had been better controlled, I suspect it would have been better but that was circumstances beyond my control. I am definitely going to start a couple more of these from the very next deer I get. This time I think I may pack the leg in lard to keep it from drying out so quickly, and will smoke one of them as well.

And keep them under lock and key.

In the meanwhile I have seen a interesting recipe for Gnocchi with crispy Venison Prosciutto and Black truffles, which I might try with this fellow. I am also intrigued to try a wet-cured Venison ham to have cooked. Oh and some Venison Landjaeger… hmm, better get a few more deer in…

 

Posted in Butchering, Charcuterie, Salumi, Venison, Wild Game | 1 Comment

Festive Feast Part 2 – Fish Dish, Slovak style

Posted on January 9, 2012 by admin

As my wife is Slovakian, we have two Christmas dinners: one Slovak-style on the evening of the 24th, as is tradition there, and one British-style on the afternoon of the 25th.

Normally this is Carp. A nice fat, juicy carp. Like this:

Many people dismiss carp as tasting muddy. Which is probably true if you tried eating one of those tame breadbin shaped monstrosities carp fishermen pay money to pull out of overstocked ponds. A proper wild carp, purged for a few days in fresh running water (or kept in the bath to the bafflement of the cats, lol) and then soaked overnight in milk and garlic is a delicious fish.

This year, however, we shall be having trout, on the basis that there is nowhere in striking distance I have seen any decent carp, and the places far away are charging exorbitant prices for them (bet they will be  giving them away come Boxing Day) and, as I have half a freezer full of lovely trout, that’s what we shall be having. I am sure neither the Virgin Mary nor the Baby Jesus would look askance at a trout.

The first thing we are going to need is some breadcrumbs. Normally we have a huge stock of breadcrumbs which we make up everytime we have left over bread, dry them and store for later use. With all the chipolata making that went on in the run-up to Christmas we are completely out.

Making from fresh, I find bagels make much better breadcrumbs than actual bread. The texture lends itself to crumbs that are neither too fluffy nor too dry.

See what I mean? Nice fine, even crumbs. Perfecto.

Handful of salt, a few cloves of chopped garlic, and a small finely chopped onion

A sprinkle of marjoram, a grate of nutmeg and a good whack of red paprika,

And we break out the good sweet paprika, because it is Christmas, and proper Slovak sweet paprika is the only thing for a proper Slovak Christmas dinner.

The fish, a nice 4lb rainbow trout caught by my stepfather, is put in a tin, slashed four times on each side and slathered inside and out with 6oz of softened butter.

And the breadcrumb mix piled on top. Tucking the tail in neatly the whole tray is wrapped in foil and into the Oven of Doom for 30 minutes, and it is done.

Alongside the fish we have the traditional potato salad.

Boiled potatoes, chopped carrots, peas, chopped pickled gherkins, hardboiled egg, onion, a dash of vinegar, salt, pepper, lemon juice and then a liberal amount of fresh-made mayonnaise… Generally best to make this the evening before and keep refrigerated to let the flavours mingle. But that didn’t happen.

Before the fish we have a starter of vegetable soup. There is a traditional recipe for this as well but this year we broke with tradition and had buttered carrot soup, which everyone likes more. What with one thing and another we were running a bit late this Christmas Eve and it was all a bit of a rush but as the hungry cast of the village church Crib Service returned from their thespian endeavours, hot soup was served

Magic!

Usually we have a sort of thin round wafer biscuit thing for dessert, whch is another Slovak traditional Christmas thing, although I forget the name. Not sure why we didn’t this year – not my department. Did manage however to produce…

Chocolate Mousse! which was well received by the festive revellers.

Finished! Can we open presents now???

 

 

Posted in Fish, Recipes, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Wild Duck Confit

Posted on January 9, 2012 by admin

It must be said, much as my family all like eating game, by about this time of year everyone is a little bit tired of eating it three times a week. All of the freezers are filled to bursting. Different ways of eating and preserving ducks and pheasant are at a premium.

In the game cupboard today we have a couple of cock pheasants, three mallards and nine teal. The pheasants went off to become Coronation Pheasant (see other post). Which leaves us with the ducks. With which we shall make confit.

First of all we will deal with the teal. Plucking and drawing first.

Plucking a lot of small birds is a fairly tedious job, but having plucked geese every day for what seemed forever before Christmas, achieved quite quickly. The big pan of boiling water for scalding them is just visible at left. Bag full of feathers and guts and heads at centre, celebratory glass of strawberry wine from a demijohn I found in the shed at right rear. Just look at that colour!

The birds are washed and dried and packed snugly in a roasting tin, and then we get on with making the rub for them:

First a couple of sprigs of rosemary and a couple of bay leaves rushed up in my rather splendid new pestle and mortar.

To which we add the ubiquitous fuzzy Fennel seeds,

Black Pepper,

A handful of sea salt,

and four fat bulbs of garlic and a few star anise. All pounded up using my rather splendid new pestle and mortar (did I mention the pestle and mortar before?)

… and rubbed all over the whole teal. These go into the fridge overnight.

Next day, without any rinsing the pan is filled up with melted goose fat. It takes quite a lot as the quails fill up completely.

Melting yet more goose fat to completely submerge the teal, and into the Oven of Doom it goes at 130c for 3 hours.

The smell of this slowly cooking was heavenly.

There they are. Drained and cooked to perfection, if rather out of focus.

There  is no need to pack the whole carcass, so we trim off the head, take out the beastbone and split the birds in half.

Pack them closely in a jar,

And then fill it up with the still hot goose fat. Job done.

However, we used a heck of a lot of goose fat in the cooking and whilst we probably used two litres topping up these bottles, that left us with a considerable quantity of that lovely fat rich with meat juices and herbs.

So, putting on a bit of good music for duck pluckerei by the ever wonderful  Märtini Brös at great volume, we trundle back to the game cupboard and out come those three mallards.

We pluck them quickly.

Feathers fly.

And cut off the breasts and legs. I am going to do these  a little differently. They are rubbed in quite a lot of salt and left for 24 hours.

After a day dry curing they have firmed up considerably – this is the amount of liquid that has leached out already.

They are rinsed clean of the salt, dried and repacked snugly in the roasting tin.

And all the rest of that lovely seasoned fat poured back on top.

Back into the Oven of Doom at 150c for an hour and a half.

The mallard pieces are beautifully tender.

What’s left in the drained roasting tin is a dictionary definition of ‘chef’s perks’

The breasts are packed in one bottle, the legs in another. And the remaining fat used to top up the bottles.

As we get to the bottom of the fat in the tin we get all the meat juices and we don’t want those going in, so the remaining liquid is decanted to a jug to be separated more carefully.

And there we have four good jars of confit to tuck away for a rainy day.

but we’re not done there.

We still have the rest of the meat juices in that jar…

this is the reduced meat juices of about 5 hours of cooking of 12 ducks in total. We can’t let that go to waste.

… and we have that bowl of liquid that leached out of the mallard breasts, remember?

That’s got to have some serious flavour…

… and we also happen to have the pan of stock the pheasants for the Coronation Pheasant were poached in:

Pour them all in together and simmer for an hour, strain then reduce down hard to about a quarter of its original volume and there we have a very good rich stock

Look at the colour of that! It is the one on the left. It’s like duck treacle.

The bowl on the right is the first stock I made, using the all the mallard carcasses roasted and the removed bones of the teals.

So, all in all a productive result from the few birds we had in the cupboard to begin with. Two kilos of Coronation Pheasant, four good jars of wild duck confit in two distinct different styles and a couple of litres of two different concentrated stocks.

Posted in Charcuterie, Ducks and Geese, Preserving, Recipes, Uncategorized, Wild Game | 2 Comments

Coronation Pheasant

Posted on January 8, 2012 by admin

This is from a suggestion made by Sue Cooke at the Countryfolk’s Cook Book group.

And it is such a corker I cannot understand why it has never occurred to me before, nor have I seen it anywhere. So thanks, Sue.

Faisan reine Elizabeth, to give it its proper name:

A couple of cock pheasants that were hanging around.

As they are going to be poached rather than roasted there is no need to keep the skin so they can be skinned rather than plucked, which is a lot quicker.

A basic stock to poach the birds in: half a head of celery, carrot, onion, a tablespoon of Marigold

and some herbs: rosemary, bay, thyme, parsley.

The stock boils for half an hour then is reduced to a simmer and in go the birds

25 minutes later, nicely cooked. Turn off the heat and leave it to cool in the liquid.

Once they have cooled, pull off all the flesh.

Meanwhile the dressing…

I confess I do it the easy cheaty way:

A big dollop of Mango chutney,

a dollop of Greek yoghurt (approx 200ml)

about the same amount of mayonnaise (out of a jar, I’m afraid. Bit short on eggs at the moment)

some chopped apricots,

a couple of spoonfuls of curry powder and a good slug of Worcestershire sauce,

And then a bit more chutney for good measure.

The shredded meat is folded through the dressing – it should coat the pieces of pheasant, but they shouldn’t be swimming in it.

And done.

Tastewise it was fantastic. Haveing been poached, the pheasants were really tender and juicy but not too strongly gamey, but nonethless had more depth of flavour than chicken. I find coronation chicken can be a bit anaemic. This was much better.

and greatly enjoyed by young and old alike.

We had the rest the next day in sandwiches and was even better for having rested overnight.

Posted in Recipes, Wild Game | Leave a comment

Festive Feast part 1 – The 13 Bird Roast

Posted on January 7, 2012 by admin

A Very Merry, if belated, Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Gosh it has been an age since I last updated the blog. Apologies for that. Christmas intervened and it was just an endless round of plucking geese, preparing food, plucking geese, making chipolatae by the hundredweight, plucking geese, having the occasional glass of something fortifying, plucking geese… and so on. To say nothing of the Christmas parties and end-of-school nativity plays of my 3 children and my elder son’s birthday and and and…

But I did remember to take some pictures. Well, when I was sober enough, at least, so now we can catch up, and where better to start than with Christmas dinners?

After plucking geese everyday for ten days in the runup to Christmas, we simply did not have the enthusiasm to have one ourselves. Nor did we rear any turkeys this year. So we had to think of something different for Christmas dinner on the 25th (Our first Christmas dinner on the 24th is always fish, but more of that in another post.)

Somehow the idea of a multi-bird roast was floated, and as the big day got closer I hadn’t thought of an alternative. As we had a load of surplus birds hanging in the game cupboard and two freezers filled to bursting with more game birds, it seemed a reasonable plan.

I was forgetting the last time I had done the multi bird roast.

The Multi-Bird Roast of Christmas Past.

The year was 2005 and we were living in a tiny cottage with a small baby and no money. As Christmas loomed, we faced the prospect of a rather Bob Cratchit style Christmas dinner.  There were 3 large hunting estates surrounding us though, and, one way or another, a surprising amount of game found its way to our table while we lived there.

Fired up with River Cottage enthusiasm, I decided the answer was a five bird roast. I had five birds all lined up.

And then on Christmas Eve I had to pop to the shops at 5PM for something vital we had forgotten and found they had reduced the remaining turkeys to £5 or something absurd, so I grabbed one, and a nice organic chicken also reduced to £3.

Which gave us L-R: Turkey, Goose, Chicken, Pheasant, Partridge, Pigeon, Woodcock. Somehow five birds had become seven, but what the hell? It’s Christmas!

(although there was only two of us and a baby)

So the first order of the day was to bone out the birds. The turkey to start with as this is the foundation upon which the others will be layered. It was at this point things started to go wrong.

Forgive even blurrier than usual photo – I was having trouble focussing for blood loss. In the excitement I managed to sliced off a chunk of my thumb joint. That is the piece I cut off on the end of the knife. May not look huge but in relation to my thumb it was plenty big. And for some reason the scar it has left is like a knife magnet – every year since I have managed to slice the top of it off again.

Just for added macho grossness, I put the gobbet of flesh into the stuffing. Probably more than those Dutch TV presenters ate.

Anyway, we digress.

Looks like a bowl of reindeer poop, but in fact it is the stuffing. In between the layers of birds, this was spread thickly to cement the whole thing together. Cement is an apt word. I have no idea what was in it now. Veal, I feel sure. Breadcrumbs, undoubtedly. Reindeer poop quite possibly.

Next problem was that once all the boned out birds were layered up it was almsot impossible to close the outer turkey layer up again. It was overfull like my wife’s suitcase before a holiday. Getting it shut was like lacing an opera singer into a corset.

Finally done. The Beast!

And the result?

Well, it tasted nice, certainly, but I really couldn’t say it justified the time and effort that went into it. The problem is there are only three main flavours in it – the turkey and chicken taste pretty much the same. The pheasant, partridge and woodcock taste pretty much the same. If you made a 3 bird roast with goose, chicken and partridge you would get almost exactly the same taste result. I vowed never to do it again.

The Multi Bird Roast of Christmas Present.

Fast forward to Christmas 2011 and I have forgotten the tribulations of six years ago.

It will be fine.

Christmas Eve morning I pluck what’s left outside and pull some birds out of the freezer. I am not plucking another bloody goose but we have one of our foie gras ducks in the freezer, which is, if anything, slightly larger than the geese. There are teal and pheasants outside, some snipe and woodcock somewhere in the freezer, chickens, mallards, partridges…

Easy. It will be fine.

Although, as I rummage through the freezer, I discover that quite a lot of the smaller birds are packed in bags of two or three, and there is no sign of the partridges or woodcock.

L-R: Foie Gras Duck, 4 Pigeon breasts, Chicken, 3 Teal, 3 Foies Gras entiers, 2 Mallard, 2 Pheasant, 2 Snipe.

hmm, somehow we now have 13 birds and 3 whole foie gras livers larger than some of the birds, and I still haven’t found the woodcock or partridges. What happened to simple?

At this point I am really questioning if there is any point in finding the woodcock and the partridge. There are only 2 adults and 3 children eating this. There’s going to be 4kg of forcemeat stuffing between these 13 birds… the last thing we want to do is spoil our appetite for the ham we are having for supper.

I made a start on Christmas Eve, by boning out the outer duck while it was still partially frozen. This made it a lot easier to separate the meat from the main body cage.

although ‘easier’ is a relative term.

Then, on Christmas morning, after our traditional fortifying breakfast of three dozen quail’s eggs, a side of smoked salmon, a pot of caviar, blinis and a bottle of champagne, and a bit of present opening, it was simply a matter of dealing with the other birds and assembling the creature.

I had not entirely forgotten the lessons of the previous attempt, however. Principally that boning out all of the birds and layering them resulted in far too much bulk. With 13 birds in the mix that was never going to work this time. So I simply took the breasts off all the birds and put the rest into the gravy pan.  Much quicker. Particularly as I was now using my rather splendid new Global chef’s knife, which I had received as a Christmas present from my very splendid father and stepmother. Thanks Dad, Thanks Anne.

I’ll spare you the pictures of me debreasting all the rest of the birds. Suffice to say it all went very swiftly thanks in no small part to my rather splendid new Global chef’s knife.

And so on until we reached the snipe. The snipe is a bit wee for debreasting.

Could be a Jane’s Addiction album cover. Needs a bit of tidying up, but really the idea of taking the breasts off seems absurd. Normally I like to eat snipe whole on toast. Shorn of head and feet and wings and roasted for about 15 minutes then spread on thick crusty toast. Bones and guts and all. Yummy. With that in mind I think they can go in the  centre whole as a little bonus for anyone with the fortitude to get that far.

There. Doesn’t that look sweet (I cannot bring myself to use the word cute, no matter how much my SEO advisors tell me it will broaden my American appeal)?

It’s Christmas in miniature. I’m glad my daughter didn’t come in at this point or she would have insisted on roasting one as a Barbie Christmas dinner.

Now, we just need to make the stuffing to bind it all together.

To start with, 1kg of pork sausagemeat and 1 kg of mixed game sausagemeat (venison, rabbit, pheasant, mallard)

and 1 kg of bacon, finely chopped (this is only 300g pictured, because that’s how we pack. I won’t bother with the pics of the other pack. You get the idea.)

Breadcrumbs. In fact, bagel crumbs. Happy Hanukkah!

A couple of onions, sweated.

Some chestnuts, roughly chopped with my rather splendid new Global chef’s knife. Is it not a thing of beauty?

Thyme, Parsley, ground Ginger, Cranberries (halved).

fresh sage, a little bit of salt – may look a very small amount but the sausagemeat will have been seasoned already.

and about a third of  bottle of brandy – enough to flavour it, and enough to ensure that when I drink the rest while cooking I will not be too inebriated to serve the damn thing at the end * .

( * This did not work out entirely as planned.)

Ground black pepper! I almost forgot…

Oh, and one of the foie gras entiers went into it at the end as well. I kept the other two aside for fear of it becoming too rich.

Mother of Kitchen Cat was no help at all, snuggled up with her Christmas present.

Right now let’s get to constructing this beast:

Out comes our outer duck layer.

which we spread with a thick layer of the forcemeat/stuffing binder cementy mush stuff. It looks like a heart-shaped Christmas tree decoration. Only bigger. And made of meat.

Then we start building up the centre with the larger breasts – the mallard, chicken and pheasant.

Another layer of mush. Brandy bottle is more or less empty now. Getting blurrier by the minute.

and then the inner layer of breasts of the pigeons and teals, and the two whole snipe in the centre. Something vaguely pornographic about this now.

But wait, we’re not done! There’s still room for the last kilo and a half of the stuffing stuff.

This is getting to be a bit like a festive  Wessex version of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives or that other show -where the guy takes on food challenges… now one man has to eat this in 20 minutes!

No, that would be excessive. Two adults and three children under six are going to eat this in about half an hour.

Now just a simple matter of stitchng. A lot easier this time as all the parts inside are mobile – every few stitches, we give the whole thing a squeeze and a shuffle to redistribute the contents and tighten a bit more.

Primary incision all stitched up.

before we can continue though, there are a few holes we need to stitch up or the filling will just spew out like a Neapolitan dock-worker’s hernia.

another hole… these all need stitching. It is a bit tedious, particularly at this stage when all I want to do is sit down and have a glass of wine, but it needs to be done. The beast is going to split its stitches at some point, but any orifices left open like this will bugger the whole thing from the outset.

Now for the veg to go underneath the creature. Here is the veg bucket. Picked fresh on Christmas morning (by my wife while feeding the chickens and surviving geese). Beats all hell out of queuing in a supermarket for Brussels sprouts imported from Ghana.

and some celery, which I bought in a supermarket. Probably imported by airfreight from Ghana.

Onions, Celery, Carrots -the Holy Trinity forming a trivet in the base of the roasting tin.

The beast is laid atop the veg trivet and draped with a few token slabs of back bacon. Just for good measure.

Then wrapped in a double layer of foil and into the Oven of Doom at 250 for 30 minutes the down to 190 for the remainder. It is quite a weighty creature now and will take a while.

Dad! I’m hungry! When will lunch be ready?

Um, in about nine hours, sweetie. Have a venison mince pie in the meanwhile.

Five hours in. The stitching has given up almost everywhere – the problem is, wherever the stitching  is just through fat, it melts and the stitches burst.

It doesn’t matter now, it has held together long enough to keep its form.

By which time we had already drained off this much fat.

Meanwhile, all the carcasses had been roasted in batches,

and slowly simmered down

then all the detritus strained out.

What was left in the pan after an hour of reducing.

reduced a bit more, down to a scant pint. This will be the base for our gravy. Bisto? I think not.

That looks about done. Leave it to rest for half an hour.

I did take some pictures of the potatoes in goose fat but unfortunately around this point I felt (having finished the cooking brandy) it was time for

Wine!

And so further photography was rather curtailed.

Suffice to say there was plenty to eat for everyone. We had potatoes tossed in semolina roasted in goose fat, Brussels sprouts, buttered Savoy cabbage, carrots in ornage juice and cumin, peas and onion sauce. We were all replete.

Merry Christmas!

 

Posted in Butchering, Chicken, Ducks and Geese, Recipes | 4 Comments

Sheep Part 7: Roast Sheep’s Head

Posted on December 14, 2011 by admin

And so we reach the other end of of our ovine odyssey. In reverse of the ‘nose to tail’ approach, we started with the testes, if not the tail, and now we come to the nose. And the head as a whole, in fact.

If you are of a sensitive disposition or faint of stomach, what the hell are you doing reading this blog? No, even some omnivores may find this one a little challenging, so look away now if you think the idea of whole roast sheep’s head is going to be too much for you.

If not, here we go.

So, all we had left of the sheep was the head. Seems a shame to waste it though.

We eat pig’s head a lot, either roasted or as brawn, so why not a sheep’s head? I’ll confess it’s not something I’ve tried cooking before, and my intial thoughts about methods tended towards the North African. I seem to recall having steamed sheep’s head in Morocco once, but that approach didn’t really appeal. Also I wanted something pretty straightforward and quick as my wife and children were out of the house and, much as they eat most things I make, I suspect whole sheep’s head might be a step too far for them.

So I decided just to roast it. First of all, though it needed skinning. The smell of singing wool is not the most appetising.

Skinning heads is never easy, because the skin is so close to the bone in a lot of places. Skinning a head with great big horns attached to it proved to be even more of a challenge, but once I got the hang of it, it went fairly smoothly.

before anyone says anything (you know who you are), yes I know that hole is not quite dead centre, but it did the job.

The Kitchen Cat is looking at me as if I have gone completely bonkers at this moment. He may be right. We shall see.

ready to go in the Oven of Doom. Didn’t do much to it. just a bit of seasoning. Didn’t seem that much point in doing anything too fancy, as most of what is accessible is skull and the bits we are going to eat (the Royal “we” here) are mainly inside.

In it goes at a high heat for 45 minutes.

and done!

I’m pretty sure I had a Dennis Wheatley book, or possibly a Pan Book of Horror, with this on the cover back in the 70′s.

Note that foamy stuff on the forehead. I can only assume that is what is left of the brain bubbling out of the bullethole. Mmmm. Not sure I’m going to sample that bit.

So what was it like?

Well, a little underwhelming to tell the truth. there was very little meat to be had from it. Apart from the cheeks, which were surprisingly small in rleation to the skull size, considering how much time a sheep spends chewing, and a little pocket of meat behind the eye sockets, it was fairly slim pickings. The tongue was good, but I would have prefer to have confited it in all honesty. The Kitchen Cat overcame his misgivings and tucked in with gusto to whatever bits I gave him, while his mother and the Senior Cat came in and watched proceedings with great disdain, turning their noses up at any tidbits they were offered.

Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Next time I shall try a different method. Norwegian Smalahove, perhaps (thanks for the suggestion, Eli).

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Butchering, Recipes, Sheep | 3 Comments

Sheep Part 6: Mutton Ham

Posted on December 14, 2011 by admin

So in Part 1 of this ovine epic we dealt with the Kill, now we come to the Cure.

Mutton ham is something of a rarity these days. As discussed in the previous episode, mutton itself is far from commonplace, but mutton ham is on the verge of extinction. I confess I had never heard of it myself until a few years ago, and never tasted it until I sought some out, having decided to try my hand at making it. I now make it every opportunity I get. It is super stuff.

Ham #1: Classic Mutton Ham

Mutton Ham in its traditional sense is eaten as a cooked ham – once cured, smoked and dried it will be boiled and can be eaten either hot or cold. In Scotland it is eaten cold with breakfast. Proper Scots cuisine has a lot going for it, from haggis to herrings, porrage to Partan bree. I seem to recall it was a Scots regiment in India that married haddock with curry to create Kedgeree, and yet all we ever hear is jokes about deep-fried Mars Bars. I can think of few better ways of breaking one’s fast on a cold winter morning than a big bowl of porrage followed by a plate of haggis and mutton ham.

But maybe that’s just me. Mutton Ham is also traditional in Wales, unsurprisingly, but I have certainly never seen it there, either in butchers shops or on menus.

Anyway, I will discuss the taste and texture and culinary uses of the mutton ham at a later date, when we come to cook this wee beastie. For the moment all we are concerned with is the method of making it.

And that method couldn’t be simpler:

These are the hind legs of the ram we having been dealing with all this time. Trimmed to shape a bit and any extraneous straggly bits removed, but otherwise left pretty much intact. If this were ham from a pig I would trim it a lot more, but really, here we want to keep as much of that lovely fat intact as possible and not get too precious about making it look pretty.

Also, if it were pork, or even a larger breed of sheep we were dealing with, I would bone it out, but given its size, I think it would fall apart if we tried that here. For the second ham, I am fairly confident we are not going to encounter any of the air pockets along the bone that are a danger with pigs. This is a tightly muscled animal.

The cure is:

200g soft brown sugar

200g sea salt

clockwise from top left, equal amounts – about a tablespoon – of mace, black pepper, ginger and ground cloves

We rub the cure into the leg of mutton, making sure to work it well in to all the little cracks and crevices. Leave it half an hour and then rub it all in again. This has only used about half of the cure but we will be reapplying as we go along through the curing process, as I find sweet dry cures tend to liquify a lot more than purely salt-based ones.

This goes into the curing chamber for about ten days to a fortnight. We will be taking it out and rubbing in the cure every day or two and adding more as required, and we may or may not smoke it thereafter, depending on how I feel at the time – it works well either way – but for now it is goodbye to Ham #1 and hello to…

Ham #2:  Mutton Prosciutto.

This is a new one for me and a bit of an experiment to a certain extent. There is, of course, no reason why you should not make prosciutto from the leg of any animal, really (except endangered species, unless they are roadkill). Jason Molinari has one on his webiste made from a leg of kid (goat, not human child), so I am quite confident it will work with mutton.

I am still very perplexed by the disappearance of the venison prosciutto, but that is not going to put me off. I shall just make a point of remembering where I have put this one, and putting it somewhere safe from thieves.

The cure this time:

200g sea salt (look above at the previous recipe if you have forgotten what salt looks like)

white pepper, ground juniper berries, mustard powder and  rosemary

and that’s it. We apply it to the leg in the same way and it goes in the curing chamber, probably for a bit longer than the cooking ham – around 18-21 days I would think. As we turn and rub it every couple of days we will be able to gauge how much it is firming up and thus when it is ready to come out.

Update:

Well, that was actually two days ago that I did that stage, but was so exhausted by posting the haggis episode that I didn’t get round to this one. I have just been out to turn and rub the two hams and took a picture of each to illustrate my earlier point about the liquification rate of the sweet cure vs the pure salt…

This is Ham #2, the prosciutto with the pure salt cure. It is already drawing a good amount of moisture out of the mutton, as you can see. The cure is a moist paste by this stage. But not anywhere in the same league as…

Ham #1, in the sweet cure corner, which is positively swimming in its own juices. It has been basted and rubbed and turned in the liquid that has leached off, but you can see why we have kept back a quantity of the cure for reapplication.

Both of them smell quite mouth-watering already. It is as much as I can do not to lick my hands clean of the cure after each rubbing. Time will pass very slowly until they are ready, although it occurs to me that Ham #1 should be done in time for my birthday, which would make a nice birthday treat. Keep watching this space…

 

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Sheep Part 5: Roast Rack of Mutton with Haggis Risotto

Posted on December 14, 2011 by admin

Lamb chops: everyone loves lambchops, right? Except perhaps vegans. But there are a few undeniable problems that plague the humble lambchop:

1.) They are tiny, and hideously expensive. Go to the butchers (or God forbid, the supermarket) and buy lamb chops for supper just for yourself and you will be spending an obscene amount of money and end up with a couple of pieces of meat slightly larger than a postage stamp. You will not be satisfied. Even as a starter they will be insufficient. Perhaps as an amuse-bouche, but then what? You have eaten a tenner’s worth of meat and now you want dinner. Buy lambchops for a whole family and you are walking home because you have had to sell your car to pay for it. Absurd money, absurdly small meat, angry family bashing their cutlery on the table demanding MORE! And don’t think you can get away with bulking out the plate with loads of potato and vegetables because they have got the smell of the lamb juices in their nostrils and will not be fobbed off with starches and any five-a-day malarkey.

2.) They are made of lamb. Yes, I know the clue is in the name, and I am not suggesting you should have a pork chop instead, it’s just that lamb always seems to deliver less to the mouth than the idea of lamb and the smell of lamb cooking promises to the brain and nose. It lacks depth of flavour, and the texture presents little in the way of interest either. The current popularity of lamb seems to me part of the overall drift towards the bland and unchallenging in the same way as pappy white plastic bread, pumped-up watery bacon and, those whippy ice-creams that are extruded from a machine.

As a consequence, we eat lambchops seldom to the point of never. Which is a shame because, as previously mentioned, everyone loves lambchops. In principle.

So today I sought to remedy that situation and provide my poor hungry children with some yummy chops before they faded away entirely.

Working in reverse order through the issues: Mutton instead of lamb.

I never understand why mutton is not more popular. Mutton is everything lamb is not. It is rich, deep in flavour and colour, much more robust in its cooking potential and, when you can find it, generally much cheaper. Few butchers seem to stock mutton these days, due to lack of demand, no doubt. If you live in a city with a Halal butchers then you are fortunate indeed. When we lived near a large city the Asda and Costco had a Halal section, but what is on offer in supermarkets tends to be meat from old cull ewes that are worn-out and knackered as opposed to having been reared specifically for their meat. Still better than supermarket lamb IMO, but proper purpose reared mutton is a world apart. Proper mutton is delicious.

But mutton is tough and chewy, I hear you cry! Oh grow up. That’s what you have teeth for. Meat is supposed to be chewed. Food is supposed to be chewed. Otherwise it would be soup. And if the meat on your plate is tough that just means you didn’t cook it right.

And, of course, we happen to have a mutton ram at our disposal today.

And so to the size issue: generally, of course, a mutton will be considerably larger than a lamb. In this instance however, what we have to work with is a Ouessant, which is a very small primitive breed of sheep. Quite delicious, but the chops are still not going to be very big.

The solution? Let’s have a whole rack of chops.

In fact, let’s have both  racks of chops. Indeed let’s go the whole hogget and just roast the  centre section of the animal in one piece…

That looks better. Not much to do in terms of preparation. Slathered it inside and out with anchovy paste as a nod to Mario Batali, studded the back with some sprig-ettes of rosemary and slivers of garlic, and seasoned it.

Into the Oven of Doom at high heat for 25 minutes and job done…

Meanwhile, just in case there are complaints from hungry children, and because one can’t quite live by meat alone, we should have some kind of starchy carbohydrate on the side, and perhaps a hint of vegetable.

So I have made a plain but creamy risotto. We still have the liquor that the haggis were cooked in from yesterday, so I am using that as the stock for the risotto, and all the little bits of the haggis that exploded have been drained out and are tossed into the risotto towards the end, along with some peas.

Serendipitously, the time it takes to make the risotto is almost exactly the same as the time the mutton needs in the oven.

This is looking and smelling quite fantastic. Cats are hovering all around the kitchen. Children keep coming in asking if it is ready yet.Wife even keeps finding excuses to enter the cook’s domain. The prudent chef stands in front of the meat with a big knife to ward off greedy paws and hands.

A good knob of butter and an even better chunk of finely grated parmesan  into the risotto and let them both rest for five minutes. Not bad for a meal in under half an hour.

We tore the carcass apart with our fingers and got good and greasy munching it up. The children managed a rib for each year of their age (oh for a sheep large enough for me to do the same) and demanded seconds of the risotto. Everyone left the table quite replete.

The risotto was particularly good, actually. The stock, in which both the haggis meats and the haggis themselves had been cooked, gave a surprisingly light and ungreasy result. Some stocks can overpower a risotto, I find, but this was very good indeed.  The little chunks of haggis flecked throughout were perfect. If ever you had wondered about pairing parmesan with lung and liver, wonder no more. Scots-Italian fusion at its finest.

 

Posted in Butchering, Recipes, Sheep, Stock | 1 Comment