St Georges Day - Spears and such.

Today is the Day of the Patron Saint of England. In Wales, on St David's day they hold eisteddfods (a Welsh cultural festival involving music drams and especially Poetry) in schools and give the kids a half day, everyone wears a daffodil or a leek showing their Welshness, In Scotland on St Andrew's day you can't move for tartan and the Saltire painted on faces. I'm sure I don't need to explain the joyous chaos of St Patrick's day. However, in England the Day of St George passes almost without comment. It might be that much of the imagery has be hijacked by racist thugs, or it might be that there is a sense of English reserve but whatever the cause, we English don't really shout about it.
Nature does not keep a diary, after millenniums of adaptation, crops appear when their genes tell them there is the greatest chance of success and not on a certain date. Part of being human is feeling the need to codify, explain, organise and hold fast to structure which is why we like to "have dates in the diary".
The English Asparagus season runs from St Georges Day (23rd April) to Midsummer's day (21st June) which has a certain poetry about it, but in our hearts we know that the new years spears might arrive a little bit early or late and, indeed the crop may be finished before the longest day.
I make no secret of my love for asparagus. For me it is the final curtain being drawn on the, so called Hungry Gap where, historically, fresh food was scarce and we all survived on preserved foods and cabbage. Asparagus is clearly a vegetable of early Summer whereas the joy that is purple sprouting broccoli clearly belongs to late winter or, at best, early spring.
My fascination with seasonal foods and, if necessary, the preserving of them, grows from my parents' allotment in the 1980s. Picking vegetables at the right time was something my late father took great pride in. He would joke that it would be better to bring the boiling water to the runner beans rather than let them deteriorate on the 10 minute cycle home.
To this day I struggle with the idea of strawberries at Christmas, or parsnips in June. This is not born from sense of pious duty to the seasons its just that I have always been a person who looks forward to things and last week when I saw the first Herefordshire asparagus on sale my heart jumped.
There has been a enormous amount written about how to cook asparagus and I'm sure there is a degree of Michelin Stared perfection to be gained in some of those methods, but really, we are just making supper. Having snapped them to ensure the tender stems are eaten drop them in boiling water for a few minutes and serve, it is the exemplar of fast food. Serve it piping hot with butter (no substitutes will do) and a fried egg on top (Duck eggs are especially good in this regard). Above all keep it simple.
Incidentally, I keep the woody hard stems in the tiny ice box at the top of my fridge and build up the quantity as the season progresses. When I have a bagful, I boil then in a little light vegetable stock, whizz then in a liquidizer add some cream, season and serve with freshly baked bread and enjoy.
Please do not be very English about the amount of Asparagus you eat, you have about eight or nine weeks so go a little bit mad (in a very English way, of course) and feast.
Finally, I wish you a very happy Asparagus season, the cold glory of brussels sprouts and parsnip is dead, long live the spears of summer!


 

A Year in Preserving - Saucisson Sec

I have mentioned many times on this blog that I have a great love for all things porcine. My love is never more true than when dealing with the craft and art of the sausage. When trying out a new butcher I always try their basic traditional sausage first, if this is up to scratch then the rest of their meat is likely to be good too. This simple system has stood me in good stead for many years.
I have also expressed my love of books in the past and in my quest to preserve more meats, the Beautiful Wife bought me and American book called simply Charcuterie. This book is written by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn and mine is signed by Mr Ruhlman. It has a forward by the great Thomas Keller (if its good enough for him....). I have dipped into this book often and last month decided to take the plunge and make one of the recipes. I choose the Saucisson Sec recipe as I have some experience of making sausages and it is one of my favourite preserved meats. The results were very pleasing indeed and we have slowly worked our way through the batch I made. Interestingly when I started to see if anyone one else online had used this recipe, I found Charcuterie all over the place, from blogs to twitter posts, this book appears to be everyone in the States' "go to" preserved meat bible.
Saucisson Sec is one of the memories I brought back from France as a teenager, as I was too scared to bring back the product itself. The chewy, garlicy, pokiness is one of the great treats of the sausage world and that tastes was one of the ways I new I was on holiday.
As ever, I bought my pork from Orchard View Farm in Buckinghamshire (www.orchardviewfarm.co.uk) and my Prague powder #2 from The Coldsmoking Cookery School, just north of Milton Keynes (coldsmoking.co.uk). The recipe below is based on the version in Charcuterie and I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Saucisson Sec
5lbs Pork (about 15% Fat)
50 gms Sea salt
1 tblsp Ground black pepper
15 gms sugar
7 gms #2 Prague powder
25 gms minced
1 hog cassing

The pork was ground through a 5 mm plate in a hand mixer (going up to 8 mm wouldn't be a problem). This was mixed with all the other ingredients (except the casing) until it was all fully amalgamated.

The mix, nicely amalgamated.

This mix was then stuffed into the casings and made into 15 cm links.

Linked up and ready to dry.

The links were stabbed all over with a sterile pin in order that any air might escape and the product might mature evenly. (Please do not do this if you are making traditional English Bangers or you will be left with a sad, dry digit for your breakfast as all the fat will have drained away).

Drying in my "cellar"

The sausages were then weighed and hung in my cellar (a re-purposed 6 bottle wine cooler)at 15 degrees c for three weeks.
When they had lost 30% of their weight they were tried for quality. They should be stable at room temperature now but I've kept them at 15 degrees with no apparent lowering of quality.

Skinned and ready to eat

The only problem which occurred was a slight stickiness of the skins. This may well have been caused by being a little too clean and my cellar not allowing the "good", white, powdery bacteria to grow on the outside of the sausage. No bacteria grew there!
There are any number of uses for this; from a simple snack to a tasty addition to any kind of braise or rice dish (thin Paella or Risotto, though neither of these are French). Myself and the Beautiful Wife tend to sit down with a glass of beer (sometimes English, sometimes Belgium, sometimes American), some Cheese (often a proper Cheddar, perhaps a piece of Brie, migrating across the board) and some of last year's Pickled Onions (So English that its almost too much!). Bon Appetit! and Happy St George's day tomorrow!