Pancetta with a twist

I was hoping to write a post here about Ham curing. As i mentioned in my last post, I put a piece of pork in brine before heading of to the the simply fantastic Shambala festival a couple of weeks ago. However, in the wake of the festival my camera managed to travel home with a friend and I find a blog without pictures a bit like cheese without crackers. My camera is back with me now but the ham is long gone, a bit like my Pancetta which has also nearly run out. I have been using my previous and first piece of Pancetta all the time and don't really want to be without it in the kitchen se here instead is a guide to making your own Pancetta at home. You won't need any specialist equipment and the only non-houshold ingredient required in a specialist curing salt called pink salt, Cure #1 or even Prague Powder #1. In the UK, this is available from http://www.sausagemaking.org/ For reference, I'm going to call it Cure #1 and I suggest that you do a bit of reading about this chemical if you have not come into contact with it before as used incorrectly Cure #1 is potentially harmful. For ease of use, I have listed the cure ingredients per kilogram of meat. I used a piece of belly Pork with a weight of 1.25kg.

Per Kilo of meat:

23g Salt

5g   Cure #1

12g Sugar

18g Black pepper

5g Juniper berries

5g Smoked Paprika

3g Caraway seeds

2g Ground mace

2 Bay leaves

The Smoked Paprika and Caraway are my addition to this Pancetta. I don't have a home cold smoker (yet!) so I'm hoping that some of the smokiness from the Paprika will transfer to the meat. I added the Caraway to balance the smokiness with their almost sweet, aromatic aniseed flavour. So now simply rub the cure into the meat ensuring you get into all the nooks and crannies of the meat and making sure you use all the cure as it is measured specifically. I've got high hopes for this recipe but as I'm certainly no expert, we shall see. The meat is currently curing in a Tupperware box in the bottom of the fridge and will be ready for the next stage in 7-10 days. I'll be rubbing the cure into the meat to redistribute it occaisonaly during this time.

I used the leftover cola broth from my ham to make Boston Baked Beans. They were delicious. Reminiscent of the well known canned variety but with so much more depth of flavour it really was another level. I'll be cooking them again and will post up a recipe at some point. Of foraging this weekend so hopefully some mushroom based posts on the cards.....

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.