Chicken thighs with garlic and thyme butter with Northern Rock Faith

It is said that we all "stand on the shoulders of giants" and this is never more true than when looking at cooking. Those of us who take ourselves a little too seriously in the kitchen find ourselves looking at the same gods and goddesses of the culinary arts for inspiration. If you are a Brit of a certain age who likes to cook its hard to find yourself going much beyond the genius that is Nigel Slater.

The dish below is very firmly based on one of his earlier acts of genius. This is not a  perfectly produced copy of what Mr Slater wrote but it is so close that I am not taking any credit for its invention.

• Chicken thighs (enough for two each, make sure you have the skin on)
• Butter
• Crushed garlic
• Dried thyme

The first thing to do is to take the bone out of the thighs. This takes a bit of practice but pretty soon one becomes quite good at it! You should now have lovely flat pieces of meat with skin on one side. heat a tiny bit of the butter in a frying pan. When the butter is foaming add the thighs, skin side down. Fry until golden and crisp then turn over. In the mean time, mash up the rest of the butter with the crushed garlic and thyme. Make sure that the chicken is cooked through then pop on a plate smothered in the butter. 

I served it with dauphinoise potatoes and Brussel sprouts with bacon and chestnuts. These will appear in later matches around Christmas and New Year.

The Match

Northern Monk produce great beer. Faith is one of their classic brews. It is a genuine Hazy IPA coming in at 5.4%. It matched the, garlic heavy, dinner beautifully. With a solid malty spine topped off with an American hop finish it made all the ingredients sing a little. Its rich mouthfeel even worked well with the buttery fattiness of the dish.

Just as an aside, Northern Monk produce a superb lower alcohol IPA called Striding Edge (2.8% alcohol). It's perfect for a midweek beer followed by a morning with no consequences.   

Sausages and more.

It was once said that the two things you should never see being made were Sausages and Laws. I'm sure that this dates back to the days when anything that it was impossible for a butcher to sell went into the sausage meat. Though, with the present cynicism about politics I'm equally sure that the second half of the joke rings true today. I am reliably told , by Jim MacKeller of Orchard View Farm that, as a nation we are eating fewer sausages but we are demanding higher quality sausages too. This is indeed heartening news as quality over quantity is without doubt the way forward if we are to make farming in the UK, and the rest of the world sustainable.

Feeding the meat into the casings.

I did a course on Sausage making at Orchard View earlier this year and, with the time made available by a Teacher's Summer Holidays, I decided to make some at home.
I purchased 3 Kg of Pork shoulder (From Orchard View) and minced this. I split this into three equal batches. I had also bought some natural casings and some rusk.
Keeping everything, including the equipment, as cold as I could, I set about making three very different styles of sausage.
First up was a Toulouse inspired sausage. Much garlic (and I mean MUCH) was crushed and mixed into the meat with some cooked smoked pork loin which was finely cubed. This was seasoned, water and rusk added, and then sent through the gadget!

Linked in threes (like knitting with meat!)

Next was an Italian inspired sausage with a little garlic, crushed fennel seeds and some chopped rosemary.
Finally I went to an almost Lincolnshire with sage from the garden of Corner Cottage. I had meant to add some nutmeg or mace but simply forgot!
All three types were cooked and tasted. The Beautiful Wife declared them a success, especially the Toulouse. (Then again, we are both "garlic heads").


I also picked up some Pork Belly and used a commercially available cure (Laycock's) to turn this into bacon. This is being turned and drained daily at the moment so should be ready by the middle of next week. One piece has been simply cured and another has had a little bit of sugar added to the cure.