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if you want the perfect example of this then there is none better than White Heat by Marco Pierre White, a little outdated now but still a masterpiece of its type.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.