Jam'on

Last week I took a walk through Leigh Woods on the outskirts of Bristol. There had been some rain about 4 days ago and i stumbled across a few varieties of Ceps but they were all a bit bug eaten or gone over which was a bit disappointing. I think the woods have good potential though so when we hit mushroom season full swing I'll be over there again for a proper days hunting. I did come across this lovely looking mushroom which I identified as being Polyporus badius. The largest was over 20cm wide and although not edible it was a nice mushroom to come across.

After a bit of stumbling we came to an old Iron age fort which was nicely unexpected and the opening in the woods around it held a mountain of tasty looking blackberries. We ate a lot and bagged a bunch for later and also nibbled on a few cobnuts that we found as well. Feeling happy with ourselves and with the prospect of some jam on the cards I rewarded myself with a nice pint overlooking the Clifton suspension bridge. Marvelous.

I was going to post a recipe for Blackberry and Apple jam here, but I'm no jam master and there are a lot of steps and techniques that really need to be understood to do it properly. I'm going to experiment a bit more over the Autumn and am thinking of a large jam post or posts at some point. The time is just not right yet! My Blackberry and Apple jam was delicious however and I have been eating it on a toasted bagel with peanut butter and banana. Good kiddy snack stuff.

I'm off to a music festival this week and am currently curing a ham to eat when i get back. All being well I'll have a great curing recipe to post on my return plus lots of extra hammy goodness in the coming weeks.

Butter Bean Soup with Pancetta

Since the Pancetta has been ready, i've mainly just been hacking off little slabs, frying them up and eating them whole. I love the stuff, but i felt i needed to be a bit more creative with it. I used it as the base for a Lasagne with no other meat in it and it added a real depth of flavour to the dish and then i made this soup for lunch. The soup was tasty and rich and the garnishes added the required crunch and salt hits to take it to the next level.

4 thick slices of Pancetta

300g Dried butter beans

1 litre Chicken stock

1 Medium onion
1 Large Carrot
1 Celery rib
2 Garlic cloves
Thyme
Parsley
Bay leaf
Chives
Butter
Croutons and Bread



First up, soak your butter beans overnight in plenty of cold water. The next day cook the beans until tender. I used a pressure cooker for 4 minutes using the information from this table i found online (4 minutes instead of an hour! I am really starting to see the benefits of this pressure cooker). I cooked my beans in the stock so as not to dilute the flavour of the soup. Anyway, in the meantime fry the slices of pancetta in a little oil until crisp. Quite a bit of fat will render out which is what we are after. Remove the crispy pancetta and reserve then fry off the onions, carrot and celery in the fat. When they are softening up add in the thyme, parsley stalks, garlic and some salt and pepper. Add the tender beans and stock to the onions etc, pop in the bay leaf and cook for a further 5 mins. Remove the bay leaf and blitz the soup with your preferred method, i used a stick blender, stir through the chopped fresh herbs, enrich with a knob of butter then season to taste. The bacon may need quickly crisping again if it has gone soft then throw the croutons and meat on top and serve.

A Little bit of Mushroom Magic

I polished off the rest of the Salt Beef over the next few days. Mainly in the much loved Rubens Sandwich style with sauerkraut, mustard and all the trimmings. This a favourite sandwich of mine and one that seems to be largely lacking from the UK diet. I have never seen it on a sandwich shop menu, but i am from the country! A couple of these sandwiches came with us at the weekend to Blaise Castle in Bristol. We were just having a lazy amble really but I packed my new River Cottage Handbook - Hedgerow and we set off.

The first thing i noticed was that the Blackberries were out. However they were few and far between and I find that these first few are often small and bitter so I decided to wait until the glut hits in a few weeks. We headed off the path and into the undergrowth and ended up getting lost on a criss-cross of muddy footpaths through the woods. Next i spotted a very large and beautiful Parasol Mushroom. A real sight but a bit passed it for the table. Just round the corner were a couple of small but perfectly formed Bay Boletus which i grabbed and then i spotted a bracket fungus which has always held some mystical place in my mind, the Beefsteak Fungus. I was over the moon. It was fresh and un-bugged so i cut it free whilst my mind filled with excitement for the mushroomy/meaty treat to come later. On our way back to civilisation we grabbed another large Parasol Mushroom and then found the path and headed for home.

Back at HQ i quickly discovered the Parasol was past it and was fit only for the compost. So i made do with a nouveau cuisine sized portion of the Ceps on what was basically a crostini. Tasty but hardly filling. After reading up on the Beefsteak Fungus i discovered i would be waiting a couple of hours whilst the sliced 'steak' soaked in milk to remove a slight bitter taste. No Problem. I'd waited years to try this beast so a couple more hours was no bother. The sliced fungus looked amazing. Reminiscent of meat and oozing it's own 'mushroom blood' into the milk and making a sort of foul/sour/insipid milkshake which i just had to try and never would again! So after 2 hours of patient waiting i decided to fry a piece on it's own and get a feeling for the pure and unadulterated taste. Hmmm, on the first bite i wasn't sure. There was still a near bitter taste there, undefinable really but i liked the texture. On the second tasting i was convinced - It's horrible. I still have it in the fridge and maybe i just cooked it wrong but I'm not sure it should really be eaten. Next on the list of disappointing mushrooms, Chicken of the Woods!

Feeling a bit blown out by this experience i chose to raise my spirits and cut into my Pancetta a few days early. It had felt nice and firm and i was hungry. I fried a slice till slightly brown, WOW, Seriously tasty. Strong flavours of herbs, nice salt level and a pleasing chewy and soft texture on the inside. Nothing like the Pancetta I've bought pre-sliced wafer thin. This is far far superior. Coming soon, a whole load of Pancetta recipes...

Salt Beef Bonanza!

I've been waiting patiently for my Pancetta to mature, twiddling my thumbs and checking every 5 minutes for any signs of spoilage. As expected it is very frustrating! I got so agitated by waiting that i decided to have a pop at something a bit quicker - Salt Beef. I've made it before and i loved the flavour and texture of the meat. It seemed the perfect way to get my cured meat fix ASAP.

I got myself a decent looking piece of Brisket from the butchers that weighed around 2kg and after scouring my books and the web for recipe suggestions i decided to basically have a go at making a cure with what i had in the house (It was raining!). So here is the brine recipe i came up with:

3 Litres of Water

500g Sea Salt

300g Dark Brown Sugar

1 tbs Black Pepper, crushed

1 tbs Corriander seed

10 Allspice berries

3 Bay leaves

5 Garlic cloves

A sprig of Thyme

You may note that there is no curing salt or saltpeter in the recipe. From what i have read it's not absolutely necessary and i didn't have anything apart from Prague powder #2 available which i didn't think was the right thing to use.

The rest was easy, I simply boiled all the cure ingredients together, let the brine cool, popped the meat and brine in a large plastic tub and submerged it with a plate and a stone which i had cleaned earlier. There it easy swimming about in the brine - great. The next step was very important. I made some space in the fringe for the plastic tub and went away for the weekend.

I had a grat time, and when i came back the Beef was ready to be cooked. It had 4 days swimming around in the cure, it's colour had changed and it smelt seasoned and tasty. I decided to cook the Salt Beef in a pressure cooker to save time and energy. It took about an hour until it started to become a bit flakey on the thinner parts although it definately would have taken less if I wasn't constantly releasing the pressure and checking it. At this point I took out a bit of the cooking liquor for sauce and threw in some spuds, carrots, onions and cabbage. Whiulst it was back on the hob for 10 minutes i made a quick white sauce, half milk and half cooking liquor and added a good spoon of Horseradish sauce and a small handfull of finely chopped parsley. All that was left was to put it together on the plate. It was so good we ate it all before i remebered to take a photo for my blog! Salt Beef really does have a distinctive flavour and I love the flavour the stock imparts on the vegetables. A real winner. In the future I would cure a few more cuts at the same time as it's quite an effort for a single meal. Having said that, there was enough cold bits left for me to have a decent supper the day after which i did remember to take a pic of......

Right then.......

So. For some time now I have been in love with food, and by 'some time' I mean ever since I can remember. I love the stuff, a lot, and quite frankly I wouldn't eat anything else.

Lately I've been fascinated by all things foraged and the ancient art of Charcuterie. I've read up on the subject and had the occaisonal experiment, but i'm keen to step things up a gear. Now, I thought that creating a blog might help to keep me focused. I have a short attention span most of the time so i'm hoping this will work. It might also let me get in touch with other like minded souls, share ideas and such like. I think it's worth a try......

So what have i been doing. Well, not as much as i'd like really. At the moment i've got a 2kg piece of Pancetta maturing in the bottom of the fridge. I've previously made salt Beef, fresh Sausages, Jerky and a few other bits but I am in the true sense of the word a novice.

In heindseight, I probably should have started this blog when I started the Pancetta as that would have been a sensible beginning. However, i didn't. For the Pancetta, I followed the basic recipe from the excellent blog http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/ and read up on the process in the book Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polycyn. Both these sources have been invaluable in providing the information I needed to get into the curing business. There's about 2 weeks left before the Pancetta is ready to be eaten (if all goes well!) which is going to be frustrating as i'm quite excited.