24 Oct

Smoked Collar Joint

Posted By Anthony @ 5:45 pm in Bacon, Blue Pig, Gammon

Chefs will tell you that the front end of any animal is the best eating. The shoulder of pig does more work than a hind leg as its a little known fact that they carry more of their weight at the front than the back. This means that the shoulder has lots more muscle groups and more areas for fat marbling. So imagine the tastiest bit of pork, dry cured and then smoked over oak. I know my mouth is watering writing about it.

We have a smoked collar joint which is essentially a boned and rolled shoulder, cured and smoked like our other bacons. However if you take it in the piece rather than sliced you can treat it like a gammon. Soak it over night covered, in cold water, then boil in fresh water or bake just like you would with a gammon. You can cook it with the skin on for the crackling or remove the skin and glaze with treacle for the last few minutes of baking. Eat it hot with baked potatoes and cabbage or cold with crusty bread and pickles. Good with cold beer, wine, mulled or otherwise. On Halloween, Bonfire night or….. or…. is it too early……christmas?

Quite simply in flavour terms the best eating you can get and in value terms unsurpassable.

12 Sep

Harebells

Posted By Anthony @ 7:35 pm in Uncategorized

Photo0002

We thought you might like to see this. In some of the hilly bits of our farm we always get Harebells growing in late summer. This year there seems to have been a profusion of them for some reason. We would liked to have taken a long distance view of their drifts but the colour is such a pale and delicate blue it defeated the camera. This close up shows just how pale the blue is but in the flesh, as it were, they seemed to shimmer across the top of the grass.

SALSA

Posted By Anthony @ 7:09 pm in Blue Pig

No we are not talking about either the dance or the relish. Although that might be more interesting. In this case SALSA stands for Safe And Local Supplier Approval. We have recently been “approved” by the SALSA scheme.

Essentially we now have a paper trail that shows how our production systems are safe and fully traceable. We can literally trace a sausage or slice of bacon right back to the pig they came from. We can show how we control all the risks that can occur during the production of the food we make. We know you can have death by acronym but the heart of it all are HACCPs – Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. These describe in minute detail not only how we make things but also how we make them safe and wholesome. We also have full ingredient and allergen declarations.

This scheme is like an assurance scheme for business who would like to retail our products. But for us its more than that. It also shows we have gone the extra mile to make sure all Blue Pig products are are safe and wholesome for all our customers. Thats pretty fundamental for a food business and we believe it matters that we can show we care enough to be better than bog standard.

06 Sep

Kirkstall Deli Market

Posted By Andrew @ 3:31 pm in Markets

Having been of the first 12 stalls at the new Kirkstall Deli Market in Leeds I thought blog readers might be interested to hear about how it’s progressed over the past four months.

The first market was held in May this year in a little courtyard down the side of the Abbey itself.

Since that first market it has grown to be a true deli market. It’s interestingly different from the usual farmers markets with food to eat there and then and lots of food you can taken home too. Held a little later than a usual farmers market, from 12noon to 3pm it means people come to relax, eat and meet friends. It has a convivial atmosphere and feels like there are people there for an afternoon out, especially families who come to explore and play in the ruins of the Abbey as part of their visit.

Rather then tell you how the market has developed here are a few photos taken at the first market in May and then some taken at August’s market:

Kirkstall Deli Market on 28th May 2011

Kirkstall Deli Market on 28th May 2011 2

And a couple photos from last week’s market. You can see how it’s grown and we’ve moved inside the Abbey walls too which gives the market a fairly impressive backdrop.

Kirkstall Deli Market on 27th August 2011 1

Kirkstall Deli Market on 27th August 2011

Kirkstall Deli Market is held on the last Saturday of every month from 12 noon to 3pm at Kirkstall Abbey
You can follow them on Twitter at @kirkstalldeli.

If you’ve been to the market we’d be interested to know what you thought in the comment below and don’t forget if you want us to bring your order with us just let us know via email or tweet @bluepigcompany and we’ll bring it along for you.

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24 Apr

Butterflied Leg – or shoulder – of pork

Posted By Anthony @ 6:55 am in Blue Pig, Pork Cuts, Recipies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/24/jeremy-lee-easter-recipes

We think we love the Guardian newspaper group as they have another pork recipe in the Observer. This time from Jeremy Lee. He calls for a butterflied leg, but we are sure shoulder would work too. Butterflied is to simply remove the skin, split the joint and remove the bone. We can do that for you if you wish. Jeremy also recommends the use of rare breed pig too – so more brownie points. The recipe cooks the joint on a griddle but we reckon you could equally manage in the oven. Once the pork is opened out and cooking it is dead simple really. Fry a few onions and assemble some herbs, mix with olive oil and anoint ( to use a very Guardian word ).

Jeremy says; “The delicacy of a thin slice of a fine piece of thoughtfully cooked meat is truly special.”

What more needs to be said?

23 Apr

Roast Shoulder of Pork from Hugh F-W

Posted By Anthony @ 7:18 am in Blue Pig, Pork Cuts, Recipies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/23/easter-recipes-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall

We reckon the Guardian newspaper must be picking up our vibes as they have another pork recipe this week. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall welcomes the late Easter as it will be warmer and you can have a little tipple outside. We would say he is a bit late as  our sprogs have already been on 2 picnics and been paddling in the river. Thats despite our spring being 3 or 4 weeks later than the gentle climes of rural Dorset. Hugh even complains about the weather in March but the usual driving rain stinging your face is one of life’s natural tonics. Too much time in front of a TV camera and not enough outside we say.

               All joshing aside this is a great recipe ( link at the top ) for a much underated part of the pig. The front end of the animal does the most work and is laced with fat to naturally keep the meat juicy. Naturally it is best done with rare breed, free range pork.

16 Apr

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Bacon

Posted By Anthony @ 6:34 am in Bacon, Blue Pig, Pork Cuts, Recipies

If you are a lover of all  salty pork things there are three recipes here from the Saturday Guardian’s resident contributor. There is a bit of a theme at this particular newspaper group as Jay Raynor the Observers restaurant critic believes there is nothing that cannot be improved by the addition of some pig. We,of course, agree. We are not entirely sure though, that some one with a double barrelled name living the “good life” in soft Dorset is entirely a natural bedfellow for grumpy Yorkshire farmers. But hey ho perhaps bacon is the ultimate classless food.        http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/16/bacon-recipes-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall

15 Apr

The Dales

Posted By Anthony @ 6:02 am in Blue Pig, The Farm

Adrian Edmondson in The Dales

      Its always with slight trepidation that we watch anything on the telly about The Dales or farming. It seems that producers can miss what we locals think are really important facts. We are even made to look a bit dim – but that might be true for some of us – mentioning no names. Any way Ade Edmondson is from Bradford so he is nearly local and if you have been watching his show on ITV about the Dales, the landscape looks as stunning as we know it to be. The programme has made the point that the Dales landscape is almost entirely man made especially by farmers.

          Nearly everyone has heard of the Settle to Carlisle Railway – even though it starts at Mearbeck – and everyone admires the network of drystone walls. Ade showed how the walls were there to keep the sheep at home and not just to look pretty for the tourists. So we hope you have enjoyed the show and that you too can “eat the view” here at The Blue Pig Company.

08 Apr

Is it too early for a BBQ?

Posted By Anthony @ 4:30 pm in Blue Pig, Pork Cuts, Recipies

http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2011/04/chinese_marinated_pork_ribs.php#more

A Chinese recipe on a French food website and with the sun  shining perhaps the BBQ is being dusted off and wheeled out for another summer. The recipe in the link above is actually written to be oven baked but they could be done the day before and put on the BBQ to reheat. We have done a similar recipe for events and its always a hit. We reckon no one ever gets tired of sticky pork and gnawing at bones and if it rains you can just use the oven and eat indoors anyway.

30 Mar

A kiss from Elaine Lemm

Posted By Anthony @ 7:27 pm in Bacon, Blue Pig, Recipies, Sausages

 http://britishfood.about.com/od/adrecipes/r/Coddle-Dublin-Coddle-Recipe.htm                                                                                                                                                          We found this on the site of the great supporter of Yorkshire food Elaine Lemm. A recipe with both sausages and bacon in has to be good news. The cooking liquor suggested is beef stock but, as we write this, the thought occurs that as this recipe comes form Ireland perhaps some stout would not go amiss. It would certainly be ideal to wash it down. The continental amongst you might prefer a glass of wine and a sharp salad. But the thought of sausages and Guinness mmmmmmmmm……………

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