Stopping all the stress.

This will be my last post before the big day and by now I hope you have everything under control. Please remember its only a roast dinner with a few extra bits there is really no need to get in a tiz. If the meal comes out of your kitchen 20 minutes late, who really cares?
Anyway, down to foody matters.
Yesterday I braised some red cabbage, it always amazes me how much one gets from a small red cabbage. The cabbage was finely sliced as was an onion and an apple (the variety was "Rudolf" appropriately). The onion was gently fried in too much butter in a casserole until it was just taking a little colour, the apple and the cabbage was then added and all mixed in. Some seasoning and some nutmeg, clove and cinnamon was then added with a big splash of cider vinegar and most of a can of cider. This was then covered and popped in a medium oven for about an hour and a half. After allowing this to cool it was bagged up in two bags and slid into the freezer. It will reheat perfectly in the microwave tomorrow. (see pics below)

One small red cabbage!

Stirring before the oven

While we are on the subject of vegetables:
 The Brussels Sprouts will be blanched off first thing tomorrow and then refreshed under cold water. Just before serving they will be added to some cooked bacon lardons and the other packet of chestnuts. This glorious gang of three will then be rolled around a pan of hot butter until they are ready for the table.
Most celebrity chefs will tell you that you need to "en-robe" your carrots in an emulsion of cummin juice and larks tongue puree. Don't listen to these people, boil them and simply serve them with butte over them (ok, a little garlic salt as well, if you must) This is not the meal for which to produce glazed carrots - too much faffing.
There is a craze for honey glazed parsnips at the moment. I have never understood this. The humble, yet noble parsnip is wonderfully sweet already, just roast it near the meat to bring it to perfection.
Then there's the potatoes. Everyone has a quirk with their spuds. However, if you need flour to make yours crispy then you are trying too hard. Foe most of the UK, tomorrow will be chilly, this is perfect for roasties. Boil your peeled spuds for just 8 to 10 minutes, drain them and return them to the pan. Put this pan outside in the cold for 2 minutes (yes I am being serious) bring it back in and gently giggle the pan. The cold will mean that the outside of the spuds has dried very fast and the giggling roughs up the edges to catch the fat. Now pop these heroes of the roast into the fat near the beast and turn them once (and I mean only once) during their cooking  - quirky enough for you?
As I sit here in Corner Cottage, this little house is filled with the smell of a gammon which is now cooling from its boiling and preparing to be smeared with marmalade and roasted for just half an hour. This will provide cold cuts and nibbly bits for the next five or six days.
Just a final word, whatever you are doing tomorrow please take just a couple of minutes during the day to count your blessings. A couple of minutes thought, a little meditation or a small prayer of thanks (if praying's your thing) will help you remember that we are lucky to be able to feast on this day.
Have a wonderful, peaceful and calm Christmas among those you love and love you.

Fake away supper

The very clever people at Ginger Pig wrote a few blogs a while ago about making, at home, versions of the nations favourite take away meals. I was thus inspired to make tonight's supper from scratch.
I fist made some traditional English Muffins. Taking the sausage meat out of some skins I made neat little patties of meat to fry like a burger. Whilst these were finishing in the oven with some Vintage Cheddar oozing on top of them I fried eggs for the top. I know it is supposed to be a breakfast dish but it served to be a fine supper especially with crinkle cut chips. Now be honest, how long ago did you last have a crinkle cut chip?

Muffins proving, sausages ready to be skinned.

Muffins fresh from the oven

The finished article with onion rings for good measure

Stuffing time

If you haven't bought your chestnuts yet you might as well give up and focus on what you are going to cook for Easter instead.
Today is the day for making stuffing. There are few things more important than getting the stuffing right on the big day. From my perspective, there is little point in actually stuffing the bird of your choice, this does add great flavour but it can really mess up your timings as it will drastically alter the cooking time for the bird. Many people now opt for the stuffing ball approach, this is a trick used by caterers to make presenting a Christmas roast easy for large numbers. I have nothing against stuffing balls but I think we can do a bit better than that don't you?
There is a massive purchasing of sausage meat at this time of year in order to make stuffing. Don't buy any old sausage meat. If there is a particular sausage, made by a particular company or butcher that you like, then buy half a dozen of them and take them out of their skins. This way you will get exactly the flavour you want and no nasty surprises. Just for the record, I used Newitt's Oxfordshire sausage in mine.
So to making the stuffing: I made some breadcrumbs from a nutty, seedy loaf that was almost past its best. To this I added the sausage meat, a packet of chestnuts that I had finely chopped, some sage (from the garden) some egg whites (left over from making Chocolate Brownies for my Tutor group), salt, pepper (lots) and a small, very finely, chopped onion. This was all mixed with the hands to make a perfect sticky stuffing. I placed this in an old pie dish then finally, and this is quite important, I ran over the top with a fork to create little grooves in the surface. This then went in the freezer to be brought out on Christmas Eve to defrost. It will take about an hour to cook in the bottom of the oven (covered for about 40 minutes then open and studded with little bits of butter, nicely browned by the time it's till ready to serve.
The major joy of making stuffing in this way is that it means that it can be carved like a meatloaf on the day and, more importantly, on Boxing day as an extra cold cut.

Ready for the freezer

Preserving for Boxing Day

This weekend, I was left to my own devices as the Beautiful Wife was on a residential course. My usual default position under such circumstances is to by a vast quantity of mussels and cock them with shallots. garlic. white wine and cream. This Friday was no exception and they were quite delicious.
There are, however, much more important things that you need to do before Christmas. Primarily you need to do an audit of all your preserves. You may make your own chutneys, jams and such or you may have been given many jars that have found their way to the back of the cupboard. Now is the time to bring them into the light in preparation for the cold cuts that will inevitably grace your table from Boxing day onward.
My audit revealed several jars that I had forgotten about (much of my marmalade can now wear the tag "Vintage" with pride) several of these jars were chutneys and pickles.

The preserve audit.

It was noticeable that there was one glaring absence - The king of the condiments: Piccalilli.
Having sensed earlier that this may be the case I ordered a "kit" from the team at Abel and Cole. Along with my delivery on Friday there was a second box with all the ingredients necessary to produce this lurid wonder.
On Sunday and set to. The recipe that came with the box was simple and straightforward and all the ingredients were of the usual quality one would expect from such an organisation. In short, everything about this product was first class.
The style of piccalilli was quite rustic with whole cumin and coriander grated ginger and finely chopped garlic. This was coupled with turmeric and mustard to give the shocking colour. One of the aspects of pickling any veg (and this is something that a lot of commercial pickled onion makers get wrong) is that the veg themselves must be salted for a considerable length of time (obviously depending on size) in order to ensure that they maintain their crispness.
When finished. I was left with jars of wonderfully fragrant chutney which will keep for 6 months or more - not that it will last that long. Full marks to Abel and Cole for a great product.

Piccalilli for Boxing day

Don't make me ask about whether you have bought your chestnuts yet, you have been warned!
 

The Others.

Now is the time, ladies and gentlemen to make the difficult phone calls. You need to contact everyone who will be sitting around your table this Christmas and run the menu past them. This is, by no means a resignation that you will be offering them a la carte dinning whilst they are with you, its just useful to know if any of them have allergies or have turned vegetarian in the last 12 months.
There is a wonderful episode of Friends where the gang is forced to stay in New York for Thanksgiving. Monica is to cook the roast. Bit by bit, everyone persuades her to do something particular for the meal. Lies and emotional blackmail are used to ensure that individuals get what they want - do not let this happen to you, but make sure your guests are not likely to grow a second head if they eat Turkey!
Oh, by the way - Have you bought your chestnuts yet?

Shopping lists

The writing of a shopping list is the single most useful method of reducing your shopping bills. If you plan your meals in advance, and plan your shopping accordingly, you will find that you waste almost nothing, don't grab that nice looking pineapple (or whatever) and also cut down on mid week mini shops. Your final shop before the big day simply must be done from a list or you will come home with 7 tins of Quality Street and several vegetables you can't name.
Whilst you are writing your shopping list for this weekend. Remind yourself to look out for special deals (2 for 1, price reductions and such) on Smoked Salmon. Try to find these on the most ethical of the Salmons though, be aware, this is a mine field! Smoked Salmon freezes beautifully and is capable of turning 3 eggs and a bit of bread into a truly heroic breakfast. Incidentally, if you are planning to have Smoked Salmon and scrambled eggs for your breakfast on Christmas or the new year, go the whole way and make you eggs with double cream, I promise you wont regret it.
The reason for having some in the freezer is the fact that it can be brought bout at any time to make a buffet more impressive, add extra numbers to a starter and generally get you "out of jail" free on any number of occasions. If you don't use it, it can stay in the freezer until you feel the need for some luxury in February!
Whilst you are writing your list, research where your nearest Food Bank is and note down when they take donations, add a couple of packets of pasta to your list, along with some pasta sauces, a few tins of soup and some baked beans (no more than £10). At an appropriate time take these items to the Food Bank. You will have ensured that a child did not go to bed hungry on that day. Whilst we are all celebrating Christmas, and we should celebrate, it is fitting to remember that it is a really hard time of year for some in our society to get enough food to feed their families, and this is a national disgrace.

Here we go...

Well the madness has begun. The build up to Christmas is now underway. I have always felt that I didn't like Christmas very much but the truth has only recently become apparent to me - I don't like "Xmas" or, worse than that "Crimbo." The grotesque events of last Friday were ample demonstration of everything that is wrong with a twenty first century Christmas.
The main work of preparing the Christmas Roast usually falls on one person and their day is often far from relaxing; they seem to miss out on the fact that it is a feast day and we should enjoy food and good company on such a day. Over the next few weeks, I shall attempt to write blogs aimed at lessening the load on such people.
So its the 1st December and by now you should have ordered your roast, If you have not, then stop reading now and do it!. The choice of which meat to roast on the day will depend on personal preference, finance and who is coming over on the Big Day (For the record, the Beautiful Wife and I shall be having a duck on the day as there will be only two of us). You also need to by some vacuum packed chestnuts - today. You do not want to be faced with a chestnut crisis on the 24th!
Do not even think about buying cranberry sauce.
Cranberries are a really good foil to most roast meat as the natural acidity cuts through any fat but most commercial sauces are far too sweet and hence, do not offer the acid hit that is required. It could not be simpler than to make your own.

Cranberry Sauce

400gms of Cranberries
Water
250gms of caster sugar

Pop the berries in a pan and add enough water to "cover" (be aware that cranberries float). Boil the berries, they will make a very satisfying soft popping sound as the berries split. You should get it to the point at which you have a sludgy liquid. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve and bring back to the boil. Boil for about 5 minutes, you are not looking to make a jam but you want some thickness. Pot into sterilized jars and put in a safe place to await the big day.
These also make a great present if you are lucky enough to be invited to a Christmas Lunch where you don't have to cook!  

Cranberries and water

Boiling the sauce

Potted and ready

From scratch?

During a conversation over lunch last week (re-heated risotto from the previous night) a colleague of mine asked me "Do you cook from scratch every night then?" to which I replied "Of course." There were many raised eyebrows in the staff room at my assertion, some seemingly in disbelief, some in envy and some looking at me as if I was some kind of domestic hero. Of course none of those reactions get anywhere near the truth, and yes, the Beautiful Wife and I have been known to indulge ourselves with a takeaway, though, in truth this probably only happens about once every 10 weeks or so.

Eggs Benedict, breakfast of half term heroes!

This conversation happened to coincide with my re-reading of the Ginger Pig Farmhouse Cook Book (By Tim Wilson and Fran Warde, published by Mitchell Beazley). For me, cook books tend to fall in to three categories. First is the "Recipe Book", a book full of recipes that can be put together in an ordinary kitchen, by almost anyone. Any of the books by Delia Smith will provide a superb example of this type of book. Then come the books which fall into the food Food Inspiration category, if you want the perfect example of this then there is none better than White Heat by Marco Pierre White, a little outdated now but still a masterpiece of its type. Finally there is the category of cook book which manages to both inspire and provide great recipes. These books are the jewels in any cook's collection. Both of the Ginger Pigs books fall into this category. As I flicked through the Farmhouse Cook Book I stumbled upon a recipe for a Pancetta that required no preserving salt, no salt peter, no nitrates and no nitrites at all. Those of you who have read this blog before will no that I have a dangerous obsession with everything Pork so it simply had to be tried!

Bacon from scratch

So, getting back to my original subject, what is "Cooking from scratch"? I suspect for most people cooking from scratch means buying ingredients and putting them together to form a meal for their loved ones. For a rare few, The Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall approach of raising one's own animals is the real cooking from scratch. For me, its somewhere in between. The more food I cook from very basic ingredients the happier, and probably healthier, I am. However, Corner Cottage's garden is barely big enough to sustain three rose bushes let alone livestock so I'll have to make do with butchers meat for now!

Sliced ready for the perfect "Sarnie"

And so to my adventures with Italian bacon. I bought a large piece of pork belly (from the "thick end") and took the bones of, tidying it up to make a nice flat slab of meat. I crushed some pink pepper corns and a few coriander seeds (the recipe suggests juniper berries too, but I had none so coriander was used instead) The spices were then added to quite a lot of sea salt. The meat was rubbed all over with the salt mix and then placed in a tray, covered with a piece of baking parchment and popped in the fridge. I drained it daily and turned it once during its 5 day salting. I then wiped all the salt off and wrapped it in muslin, popping it back in the fridge on a cooling rack to allow the air to circulate a bit. 3 days later I sliced and then fried my first ever, from scratch bacon. It was lovely in flavour though did go grey in the frying pan (no nasty preservatives). I have since used it for breakfasts, (see eggs Benedict pic) and in a very lovely Carbonara sauce. I cannot recommend making your own bacon strongly enough.

Bread making at Homemade in Haddenham

Bread has huge cultural significance. When we eat with others we "break bread", when we talk of "companions" we are talking of those whom we take bread (think french). Most religions have a significant bread somewhere in the core of religious practice. Unleavened bread at Passover in Judaism, the bread and wine at the centre of Christianity to name but two
. I am passionate that this "staff of life" should never be taken for granted. Whenever I can, I bake my own bread. Indeed, as I write, I am enjoying some soup with toast make from my own bread.
Should we really allow something so central to our humanity to be made with the cheapest ingredients, accelerated with unknown additives and wrapped in plastic to sweat on a shelf?

The Cook in mid flow!

A throwaway comment to a friend in a supermarket meant that I found myself demonstrating bread making at Homemade in Haddenham last Saturday. This event highlights the best that is made in "The largest village in England" and is run by the Haddenham in Transition crew whose aim is to drive Haddenham towards a more sustainable future.
It is only when you stand up in from of people and try to explain your passion to people that you realise quite how passionate you are about something.
On Friday night I made three different kneads and this gave me 6 loaves to show off. Then on the day I had prepared some bread at various stages in order to give the appearance of making bread live in the 30 minute slot available to me. With help from the Beautiful Wife who ran to and from the oven we managed to produce perfectly edible bread. I teach for a living, so talking in front of people is not a problem; But when I finished I felt a very strange mix of fatigue, elation, exhaustion and relief. It was also great to know that there are so many others out there fighting for a better loaf!

Memories of Devon 2

May 1986 - Dartmoor - Ten Tors!
I went to boarding school in South Wales and loved it. Everything was available for a young man who loved the outdoors, sport, music and drama. They were truly the best years of my life. One of the many adventures that I had during my time there was Ten Tors. For those who don't know Ten Tors is an expedition on Dartmoor that is held every year. Several thousands of young men and women (between 14 and 18) hike various courses, depending on age, across the moor, over two days. During their hike, they have to check in with the armed forces who man many Tors (Hills with granite outcrops) across the moor. Every team has a route, varying from 35 to 55 miles, that visits 10 Tors.
1986 brought the most appalling weather seen for this event in its history to that point. A depression tightened over the moor and created ghastly conditions for people to be as exposed as Dartmoor can be. Very few teams (made up of six individuals) finished, most were washed off the moor by the end of the first day. We did very well and were ahead of target but were advised not to go on as we were approaching the toughest bit of our walk at the height of the storm - it was very good advice, though we were bitterly disappointed. The armed forces got thousands of young people off the moor. The worst injuries were a twisted ankle and a broken arm.
My parents had come down to stay in Devon with the dual purpose of house hunting for their retirement and supporting the team, they were staying at the farm I mentioned in my last post.
When they heard that we had been "crashed out" they swung into action.
My mother headed back to the farm to ask Agnes to open up the cottage for a bunch of hungry, wet, disappointed 17 year olds. My father contacted our Master in charge and at the base camp informed him of the plot! Damp and sullen, we were all thrust into the minibus and driven into the night. I was the only one who knew that it was all going to be fine. The roads got smaller and darker as we thundered through that filthy night. Conversations ended and were not started again as apprehension fell upon the team. Finally, we arrived at the farm and we were all shepherded in.
Things had not been standing still at the farm. Agnes had gone to the butcher's house and informed him that he was to open up as she need some meat. This is at 8 pm on a Saturday! By the time we were all steaming in front of a roaring open fire there was the best stew I have ever tasted being ladled in to bowls for us. Agnes clucked around ensuring that we all had three or four dumplings and plenty of meat. The look on the face of the Master in charge of the trip was one of a man rescued from a dreadful fate. After all, the other alternative was driving 250 miles back to school with tired, cold, wet teenagers in the minibus.
The cottage had been opened and we all slept like logs in the little house where I had spent so many happy summer holidays.
It was in the morning, which incidentally was glorious, that Agnes excelled herself, I'm not sure if I had ever seen so much bacon, sausage, black pudding, eggs, fried bread, mushrooms and tomatoes on one table before. We had regained our spirits and were ready for the journey home.
Agnes, her husband Ernie and her father Mark have long since died and the farm is run by Agnes' grandson from the neighbouring farmhouse. The Farmhouse and cottage are now in different hands but as I drove down the lane, so remote that it has grass growing in the middle. it was clear that they were both inhabited by someone who loves them as much as I did in my childhood. They were newly whitewashed and the garden was full of flowers. There will always be a bit of me left in that living room, with my schoolmates and a bowl of stew born from pure generosity of spirit. A little bit of my heart is still at Madworthy Farm.

Memories of Devon 1

Those of  of us who serve at the chalkboard have now been back at school for three weeks or so and thoughts have turned back to the joy that was the summer holidays. I spent a few days with my mother in Okehampton in Devon chasing up the family tree and this brought back many happy memories.
When I was between the ages of nothing and about 15 we holidayed every summer in a cottage adjacent to a working farm situated in rural central Devon. In my memory the sun always shone and the two weeks of bliss was an eternity of fun. How many eight year old boys today get to drive a tractor during harvest? I know my late father considered those two weeks to be the reason he worked so hard.
My father was an appalling cook. He was blessed with my mother who was a superb family cook so all was well when it came to domestic issues.
The one occasion, during the fortnight we would all, including members of the farm family and my Godfather's family (who often shared the cottage with us), head off the area around Brat Tor on Dartmoor. This tor is special as it has Widgery Cross on top of it. We used to call the area "Black Rock" in a Swallows and Amazons sort of name change.
There was a small river which had been dammed to provide swimming pools and always a climb to the top to touch the cross and wave to our parents far below. I still have no idea how we swam in  the cold of fresh Dartmoor stream water and did not catch our death of cold.
Before we had been there long we would be called for lunch and, of course, we would ambush the adults from a direction they were not expecting.
This was my father's moment. On a twin primus stove he would be doing a "cook out" (his name for it). This was very simple: In two frying pans there would be plenty of proper butcher's sausages, sizzling, spitting, occasionally banging and being generally harassed by Dad. Once cooked, these would be thrust into a folded piece of sliced white bread (probably "Wonderloaf or "Mother's Pride"), smeared with ketchup or brown sauce and wolfed down so fast that they made us pant at the heat. Never in my life since, have I been able to recreate the sheer joy at the taste of those sausages and their pulpy, bread blankets.
My parents retired to Devon some 27 years ago. A few years before he died, my father was able to take my niece and nephew up on to the Moor for a Cook Out, on the same old primus stove, with sausages from the same butcher. I think of those days in the sun often, and they make me smile with happy memories tinged with the fact that I miss my Dad, but I still can't work out how I ever swam in a Dartmoor river and survived.

So here we go, as promised: the second installment of my adventures with pork belly.
First and foremost the left over rolled roast formed a lunch the day after. The left over veg was turned into a wonderful bubble and squeak. The cold cuts were then sliced, much thinner than the hot roast, and a little salad on the side with leftover gravy re-heated made for a splendid lunch.

If you cast your mind back (or alternatively you can look back at the previous entry) when I made this roast I took a handful of ribs and of cuts from the underside of the belly. These bones and bits actually contain a surprising amount of very tasty meat. These were all popped in a pan with stock a chopped chili, a bashed garlic clove and some chopped ginger. This was brought to the boil, covered and then allowed to simmer for a couple hours.
This was then strained (reserving he liquid) and, after cooling, all the bits of bone were picked and chopped, producing a nice little pile of delicious meat. I had kept the stalks of a couple of broccoli heads, these were now pealed and finely shredded. A carrot was given the same treatment as was an onion and a couple of left over mushrooms were sliced. Sometimes a cook must stand back from their toils and enjoy looking at ingredients, all poised and ready for action.

I cooked off some noodles and allowed them to cool. Then, with all my ducks were in line I began.
A little garlic, ginger and chili and oil were popped into a smoking hot pan; these were swiftly joined by onion. carrot and the broccoli stem. A period of mad stir frying then ensued and then  the mushrooms and meat were added. After a quick spin of the pan, the noodles were added with a ladle of the reserved stock mix, soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil. this was then thickened with cornflour (if its ok for Ken Hom its ok for me) and another meal was created.
From a single slab of belly, six heart main courses were produced. In fact, if push came to shove, I reckon that I could have stretched it even further. Now get to the pork belly before its too late and you need to take out a second mortgage to buy any.

On a very serious note, I dread to think how much cooked meat is wasted. As I write it is early Sunday evening and I can only imagine all those Sunday roasts being sent straight to the recycling or, suffering the indignity of languishing in the back of the fridge till it starts to smell bad. It is vital, both to our pockets and environmentally, that we eat all the meat we buy. it is far too expensive (in many ways) and precious (in even more ways) to throw away.

A little about frugality and a lot about pork.

The Easter break, for those of us who work at the chalkface, is a welcome respite from the rigours of preparing youngsters for public exams. It provides me with a chance to plan meals with a little more order and organisation. This inevitable leads to making much more from the food that I buy, grow or earn. I spent a couple of days with the Kitchen Gardener over the break and so feel I have had my "hands in the soil" as well.
So, on to the pork.
I am a little loath to tell you about my adventures with pork belly for one very good reason. From almost nowhere, over the past three or four years, the whole chefy world has begun to talk more and more about the less expensive cuts of meat and how they provide great flavour and value.
The first to fall foul of this was the Lamb Shank. Those of us who cared knew that this was probably the best tasting piece of the beast and that it was very inexpensive. Then some celebrity chef slapped it on their menu, probably using words like "unctuous" or expressions like "fall off the bone" and then the price rocketed to beyond the spending power of Midas! The beautiful wife referred to this as the "Lamb Shank redemption": it now turns up on the tables of the hottest restaurants and Gastro pubs in the country.
I am pretty sure that this has now happened with chicken thighs as their price is starting to climb and I am very worried that my beloved belly pork will soon go the same way. Rumour has it that there have been sightings on some Michelin Stared tables already.
Anyway, back to the cooking. I purchased a 2Kg piece of belly from Newitts in Thame. I always ask for a bit from the Thick End if given a choice, this means that you will have some rib bones attached. Buying from a proper butcher also means that you can score the skin yourself or ask the expert behind the counter to do it for you. I then headed home to Corner Cottage with my prize.
A word about Crackling. For those who did not grow up in this green and pleasant land, most of the UK is obsessed with pork skin. Many a mother's ability to produce crackling with roast pork is the reason their children never leave home.
I have my own "never fails" way of producing great crackling (don't we all?) Mine is, however quite controversial. I remove the skin from the roast, score in shallow thin strips and the throw a handful of sea salt on top of it. After an hour or so I brush this off and repeat the process. This dries out the skin and helps it to be wonderfully crunchy. I then roast it on a baking tray before I even consider putting the main meat in the oven.

Scoring the skin for great crackling

The crackling is then allowed to cool and broken up to be served as a garnish to the roast (and its a super cheeky snack for the person who is taking all the trouble to make dinner!)
Then we move onto the meat itself. The first thing I did was separate the bones from the main slab of the meat. Do not worry if bits of the meat comes away with the bones, it will be fine, I promise you.
I was then left a reasonably square piece of meat with alternate layers of fat and lean. A handful of Fennel seeds were bashed up in a pestle and motor and several cloves of garlic sliced thinly. This fennel and garlic mix was then strewn over one side of the pork with ample seasoning.

Garlic and Fennel, Salt and Pepper

I then rolled the pork and tied it with three lengths of string. I used the butchers knot taught to me by the guys at Ginger Pig but any knot that holds it tight will do.
The next Job I did was to split the ribs into individual bones. This is very easy, I simply slid a knife between the ribs and, when I met resistance pushed through it. If you hit bone whilst doing this, just change the angle and it should slide though the connective tissue. I was then left with a board of rolled belly, bits of bones, and a sheet of skin!

The board ready for cooking.

This time I roasted the crackling and belly, in separate trays at the same time, keeping an eye on the crackling to ensure it didn't burn too much!
I roasted potatoes, boiled carrots and made a gravy using the ample juices flowing from the roast. After resting the belly was carved and served with a garnish of crackling.

Garnish or cook's treat? You decide!

The pork carved like a dream, into nice thick slices, the fat on the outside had formed a soft crisp, delicious and salty.If you wish to find out what happened to the leftovers and the bones, tune in next time......

Carved and steaming

Ready to eat?

Sorry....

Primarily I must apologise for the lack of posts over the past few months. The truth is that I have simply been far too busy to even turn around twice in a day and my ranting about food has had to take a back seat. However, I am back and a little bit cross.
A few weeks ago I was driving home to a pile of marking when, on the radio there was a report on the quality of Hospital food.
Hospital food, like Airline food has been the butt of jokes for generations and I understand that an NHS Hospital is not an hotel but there can be no excuse for feeding people who are poorly or recovering from operations poor food.
Just to reiterate, here's the logic path: People in hospitals are in need of care and cost the country a great deal of money. So, it is in everyone's interest (especially the patient's) that they get well quickly. So, in order to help this healing they should be fed high quality and appropriate nutrition. So, we should be supplying hospitals with fantastic cooks, producing great meals. So, the patient spends a shorter period of time in hospital. So, each patient is less costly to the exchequer.
To me this seems like the simplest equation in the world, though there are those who I am sure have much "bigger" brains than I who just do not see it. Several celebrity chefs have tried to make a difference in this area and whilst their efforts are to be applauded, the overall effect seems to be small.
Here comes the sadness - Most of the food production in hospitals is done by large. highly diversified companies who also tender for the cleaning contract, the waste disposal contract and other services to the hospital trust. Often these are rolled into one contract so supplying the nutrition to people who are trying to get better very quickly becomes a set of sums on a proposal (probably based on cost reduction) rather that a drive to improve the "wellness" of individuals.
If I were a senior medical professional I would probably be pulling out the last remnants of my hair at the fact that I was providing (by and large) first class healthcare with the handicap of poor nutrition.
It is high time that we stopped racing to the lowest cost with these issues and climbed our way to the highest benefit.