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……………
15 Mar
Bacon Connoisseurs Week
Bacon Connoisseurs week runs from Monday the 21st of March to Sunday the 27th. As everyone loves a bacon sandwich here at the Blue Pig Company we are celebrating by giving away a Free packet of our traditional dry cured back bacon with every order from our online shop placed from the 21-27 March.
If you would like your free packet of bacon you do not have to do anything other than place an order, of any value, in our online store. We will do the rest, no voucher codes to enter or boxes to tick, just sit back and wait for our overnight couriers to deliver the order to your door.
All you have to do is put it under the grill, get a couple of slices of bread, ketchup or HP sauce if desired and tuck into Britain’s favourite food………the bacon sandwich. And remember, there is only one thing better than a bacon sandwich, and that is a FREE bacon sandwich!
01 Mar
Confit Of Belly Pork
Here’s a recipe that is not for the faint hearted! I recommend that you make your last will and testament and have all your affairs in order before attempting this dish. If you are on a diet you may as well stop reading now and go and do some exercises.
For the rest of us this is pork belly, the tastiest cut of pork, slowly cooked in pork or goose fat. That’s right a nice fatty cut of pork cooked in a big hot puddle of lard! It is an adaptation of a recipe by Jim Drohman of Le Pichet bistro Seattle. Enjoy.
- Ingredients
- 1.5 Kg belly pork rind removed and cut into strips 1 inch by 3 inches
- 1 Tbs black pepper
- 1/4 Tbs ground cinnamon
- 1/4 Tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp ground all spice
- 1-2 bay leaves, crumbled
- 5 sprigs fresh thyme
- handful bacon cure salt
- rendered pork or goose fat
Method
- Mix all the spices together in a large bowl along with the curing salt.
- Toss in the strips of pork and coat well with the mixture.
- Wrap the coated pork tightly in cling film and leave in the fridge at least overnight but preferably 24-36 hours to marinade.
- Remove pork from the fridge and lightly rinse off the excess seasoning under the tap and pat dry with kitchen roll.
- Place the pork in a heavy casserole dish on the hob and completely cover with the melted fat of your choice.
- Slowly bring the fat to a simmer and then transfer to a cool oven 120C and leave uncovered for 2-3 hours.
- Remove from the oven and let the pork cool in the fat
Your confit of belly pork is now ready, all that remains is to reheat it. Remove the pieces of pork from the fat and scrape off the excess, reheat by placing in a hot oven for 10 minutes, fry in a dry pan, the coating of fat stops it sticking, or deep fry it for a few minutes until crisp and then drain on kitchen roll. The method you use does not really matter even deep frying is not going to add to the fat content, remember this is not a health food!
Serve with a green salad with a vinaigrette dressing, or with grainy mustard and a chunk of crusty bread. My favourite is to serve it unadorned with a cold beer whilst watching the rugby on the telly!
28 Feb
Arabic Chops
We recently cooked this based on a recipe from Nigel Slater in the Observer. Nigel used pork tenderloin but as you only get 2 per pig its much more practical to use chops. We removed the rind and we also reckon you need much less lemon juice. The original recipe called for the juice of half a lemon but that all rather depends on the size of your lemon. So we reccomend that a couple of teaspoons will do.
Blue Pig Chops 2 to 4
Lemon juice 2 tsps
Fresh Ginger, grated 2 tbsps
Garlic 2 cloves crushed to a paste
Natural Yoghurt 200 ml
Cumin Seeds 2 tsps
Coriander Seeds 2 tsps
Cardomon seeds removed from 10 pods
Cayenne 1 tsp
Ground Turmeric 1 tsp
Onion 1 finely cut into half rings
Method: Mix the lemon juice, ginger and garlic with the yoghurt. Grind the three seeds in a pestle and mortar and add to the yoghurt mixture. Stir in the Turmeric and Cayenne and pour over the chops to marinate, 2 hours but overnight is better.
Fry the onion rings in a little oil till soft and scatter over the chops. Bung the whole lot in a preheated oven on 200c or Gas Mark 6 for 45 to 50 minutes. It will look like chops in curdled custard but it will taste fantastic. Serve it with rice or couscous and something green.
22 Feb
Boston Beans
Rather sadly we were reading an article about baked beans. You know the sort that comes in a tin and induces a certain windiness. Apparently they derive from a Native American recipe with beans and venison and treacle. This was adopted by the European settlers who substituted pork for the venison. Heinz used to put pork into their “baked beans” until rationing in the Second World War brought that to an end. So here is the link to Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall,s recipe for Boston Beans. Its sure to taste great with some Blue Pig belly pork. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/bostonbakedbeans_10471
16 Feb
Five ways with sausages? Cassoulet
We have had an idea we should suggest more ways to enjoy sausages and the challenge was to find 5 different ways. We could just go for breakfast, hot dog, BBQ, bangers and mash or chipolatas but that would be cheating really. So with our imaginative hat on here is one suggestion that gets eaten often at Blue Pig Towers.
- Blue Pig Toulouse Sausages
- Blue Pig Pancetta or smoked streaky bacon say 2 rashers in lardons
- Onion finely chopped
- Carrot and Celery coarsely chopped
- Cannelini beans: tin of
- Tin of chopped tomatoes
- Chicken or Aldershot stock
- Herbs – what ever you have about
Fry the onion and bacon with a little oil in a casserole or large pan, till the onions are soft and the bacon is starting to crisp. Chuck in the carrots and celery and stir to coat in the oil and bacon fat. Add sausages and let them get a little colour. Then add drained beans and the tomatoes. Add stock to cover and what ever herbs you might have, fresh Basil in the summer is good or a little dried Sage. Bring to the boil and then turn down, cover and let it simmer till every thing is cooked. About an hour at most. Ideally leave overnight and then reheat as the flavours somehow blend if it is left alone for a bit.
The best bit about this recipe is that you can change any or all of the ingredients and it will still work. Change the sausages, change the beans, change the veg, change the herbs just as you like. We might even have got our 5 ways with the one dish then.
The best bit about Pork?
We have found this article on the Guardian newspaper website today and thought all Blue Pigonistas should have alook too. Please check out the midle of the article which describes how healthy lard really is! Free range rare breed pigs like ours are all of that and more. No guilt about fatty crackling, the best roast potatoes, a spread for toast, the crispest pastry. What more needs to be said.
Do follow the link it has made our day.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/feb/15/consider-lard
16 Jan
Sheep Scanning
With “tupping time” over we are on the countdown to lambing time. So the scanning man, Robert, arrived on Saturday morning in order for us to find out if the tups had successfully carried out their duties.
Scanning sheep is the same technology as is used for humans ie: ultra sound. The sheep are sent down a race, that’s like a sheep corridor, till they are next to the scanning equipment. They are held in place between two gates and the scanner is run over their abdomen to show a picture on the monitor. On Saturday it felt like Robert had the easy bit. He was sat on a recycled car seat in the dry, whilst we were outside sending sheep forward in the pouring rain. There was so much rain it outwitted modern waterproofs quite easily.
We were quite pleased with the scanning results. Out of 401 sheep 51 are having singles, 222 twins, 117 triplets, 2 quads and only 9 are empty. My maths is poor but Robert says that is 212%. Ideally we would rather have had less triplets but some will get adopted by sheep with singles or those who give birth to a dead lamb. But now we know which sheep are having twins and triplets they can have some TLC which means their feed will have more calories, especially the triplet carrying ewes. We achieve this by feeding the sheep some cereal based feed that is more energy dense than grass or silage. This is really crucial as lambs will increase their weight by 70% in the last 6 to 8 weeks of pregnancy and that’s a lot of calories.
Anyway at least we know the tups were up to the mark.
19 Dec
Christmas Deliveries
Due to the recent weather conditions our couriers are experiencing delays in some parts of the country. We will endeavor to deliver orders on the day requested but we are at the mercy of the weather. As well as delays some orders may arrive sooner than requested if the advice of the couriers is to dispatch early to avoid severe weather forecast.
We will do our very best to get all orders out for Christmas and we appreciate the understanding of our customers who have experienced delays, wishing you all a very happy Christmas.
Andrew
08 Dec
Deadline for Christmas orders
With Christmas nearly upon us we are fast approaching our deadline for Christmas orders. We can guarantee delivery before Christmas for all orders placed up to and including Tuesday 14th of December. You can request a delivery date from Tuesday-Friday up to Thursday the 23rd of December, we are unable to deliver on Christmas eve.
We will endeavor to deliver orders received after the 14th, before Christmas, but it will be dependant on stocks of produce. Please ring or email to check availability. Finally everyone at the Blue Pig Company would like to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.