Pork

A recent raid on our freezer turned up a 1Kg pack of pig cheeks that we had completely forgotten about.  Well time to correct this omission immediately!  I really think that pig cheeks are an overlooked resource so often just turned into pork mince.  They…

The first thing we bought from our local butcher after the first batch of pandemic ‘lockdowns’ was a good piece of belly pork.  This is something we have never really managed to find in our supermarket deliveries as they are just too thin and lean!…

Great food does not need to be complicated.  This is a simple twist on the classic ‘Croque Monsieur’. Croque Monsieur literally means ‘Mr Crunch’ – and that is what we are going to build.  The classic dish is made with smoked ham, Gruyère and a…

This is the second of the series of making more of your food – this way we waste less and go to the supermarket less frequently! We have some pasta which we brought back from holiday last year and a couple of jars of pesto.…

This is the first of the blogs we are trying at this difficult time outlining how we are trying to make our food go a little bit further and so reduce the pressure we are putting on our food suppliers – especially the supermarkets. So…

I do wonder why we tend to reserve so many lovely things for Christmas eating when they are so good for other times too!  Whilst this one was chosen as our Christmas terrine it would work really well throughout the whole of the ‘game season’…

This is a very short follow up on the Autumn Pork and Chestnut Terrine blog from a few weeks ago which you can find here.  This was largely the same recipe and so we will not repeat that here.  The differences were simple and largely…

We were in holiday in Tuscany in the late summer and early autumn in 2019.  This is later in the year than we had normally gone and it certainly felt different.  Gone was the searing summer heat and in this agricultural part of Italy everything…

There are almost as many ways of sautéing potatoes as there are varieties of potatoes, but this is one we have used with quite a lot of dishes recently.  It makes a great tapas dish or a side for other main centre pieces.  We were…

We seem to have had a spate of ridiculously cheap pork on offer at our local supermarket recently.  We buy most of our meat from one of a couple of very fine butchers we have locally.  Nevertheless, even when you are not looking to buy…

Slow cooked belly pork is a real joy!  But is has become difficult to find good “fatty’ belly pork to allow the release of that beautiful ‘porky goodness’.  Understandably there has been a trend to produce less fatty pork for health reasons – and the…

I tend not to buy meat from supermarkets very often but when you see boned pork shoulder at £2 per Kg it is difficult to walk past without dropping 5Kg or so into the basket.  I have to say it wasn’t the most beautifully butchered…

For some years now we have visited a delightful restaurant in Tuscany called La Scottiglia in the village of Pescina on the side on Monte Amiata.  We have always been looked after exceedingly well there and it is a place we frequently recommend. They do…

We were having a bit of a wander around Hexham’s excellent Farmers’ market on a Saturday morning in March and came across what looks like quite a find.  Wrapped up against a bitter wind we met Lee Scrimgeour and his colleague from Stonehouse Smokery in…

The simple answer is of course once it is cooked it is then referred to as a “Ham”.  What ever we call them this is a delicious  way of eating pork and in the UK is always associated with the Christmas period – but it…

We had fun making terrines on the Big Green Egg over the summer when on holiday in Tuscany.  So now it was time to put some of that experience together as we get ready for Christmas.  

The opportunity for little innovations are part of the pleasure of cooking for me!  This weekend produced a perfect example.  We were doing a slow cooked Pork and Pulled Pork Ragù (more of that later) and we also had a small cured ham to prepare…

This is a ‘super simple’ dish to do on the Big Green Egg or indeed most BBQs that have a lid you can close.  It is an ideal dish for mid week when you want to cook something fresh, ideal for eating outside in the…

This is a very short blog (and modified recipe) about our second attempt at the Tuscan Terrine (see the first version here). The recipe remains largely the same.  In an attempt to have a slightly drier mix, only the gin was used as a liquid…

Making terrines is something of a lost art in the UK and we are venturing into this area quite tentatively.  I have to say most of our experience has been in the indoor kitchen and not in the BGE.  As I have found a very…

This is a title that will polarise people – some will rush to what is actually a lovely winter recipe, and I can already see others “screwing up their faces”!  If you like ‘pulled pork’ and you like slow cooked winter casseroles you will love…

Pulled pork is a BBQ classic with its origins in the US.  There is lots of “folklore” attached but in essence it is a very simple dish to cook.  It needs to be cooked slowly, ideally over charcoal with a little dry wood to add…

We had really enjoyed our “Vitello Tonnato” when we were in Italy and wanted to try something similar now we were in France, but on this occasion we couldn’t find any veal.  So ‘necessity being the mother of invention’

After a lovely break in Tuscany we had driven into France, to the Rhône-Alpes to meet part of our “French family”.  

When is a sausage not a sausage? When it is a Salsiccia! Tuscan sausage looks a little like a shorter and fatter British banger – it too is made primarily of pork but the flavouring is a little different, garlic, coriander and cayenne pepper rather…