Bringing home the bacon

Some weeks ago now I reported on the pancetta I was making from the wild pigs caught on Highfield.
I also had a good deal of pork frozen in the freezer - a  gift from a neighbour. The other day I decided to thaw some out - a piece of belly I think - and try my hand at another form of pork preservation, this time bacon.

While searching for  a recipe for nitrate-free bacon ( I simply cannot buy the stuff even if I wanted to use it), I came across Food Domination and a recipe for French-style nitrate-free bacon. The author - Chef Paul does a great rant about why nitrate-free meat is a good thing that you can read if you are interested and provides his recipe. I have followed it almost exactly just amending for the fact that I had 2 kgs of meat where as he had 4 pounds and I used fresh rosemary and thyme from the garden*.

I wont repeat the recipe here cause you can see it on Paul's site. Suffice to say that the meat is cured with a combination of these herbs and spices:

• pepper
• bay
• rosemary* 
• thyme*
• caraway seeds
• fennel seeds
• paprika - I used smoked paprika
• garlic

 added to brown sugar, maple syrup and salt of course -  sounds good doesn't it?

Basically you crunch up the spices and the herbs, mix with the sugar and maple syrup and salt and rub it into the meat.

Then pop it in the fridge for 2 weeks, turning the meat each day. There is of course more to the recipe past this stage to make it into bacon or a French-style lardon, but I will report on that when I get to it. I think I am going to spend a lot more time looking at Paul's site....

In the meantime the pancetta I am making is coming along beautifully and this will also become the subject of a future post.

Have you ever made your own bacon? How did it turn out?

Making Pancetta

Last week we were fortunate to successfully trap three wild pigs. In the post Mid-Winter Bounty I reported that we took advantage of the trapping and harvested as much meat as our ability and fridge space allowed.
In that post I mentioned that we were preserving the meat bounty by making pancetta and smoked hams.Well, many of you asked that I post on the processes and in this post I document how I am making  our own pancetta.

Making pancetta
I referred to the book Gourmet Farmer Deli Book  to make the pancetta - thank you lads.

The recipe required a 2kg piece of pork belly - we were able to harvest a 1.8kg piece. The pig was incredibly lean and so I am certain that the piece of pork belly we used was much leaner than is usually the case when making pancetta. Whether that will make any difference will I guess be seen in time.

Pancetta is essentially un-cooked and un-smoked piece of pork which is cured in salt and herbs and left to mature. The process goes like this (* indicates that the ingredient is from Highfield):

Pound 10 sage leaves*, 1 sprig of rosemary* and 10 black peppercorns with a half a teaspoon of salt. The resultant mix is a wonderfully green dryish rub. The recipe called for a grated nutmeg as well but unfortunately I didn't have any available (and I live in the bush so no quick trip to the shop!) and left the nutmeg out. I hope that it doesn't matter!

Add this to 200gms medium grained salt and rub into the pork belly*. Place the meat in a non-reactive dish and leave to cure in the fridge for three days. I am sorry, I didn't take a photo at this stage.

After three days it looks like this - the liquid has been drawn from the meat and the meat has darkened.

Rinse off the salt and  grind up another batch of sage, rosemary and peppercorns with another half a teaspoon of salt. Rub into the non-skin side of the meat. The texture of the meat has changed incredibly - it is dryer and harder.

At this point the recipe again calls for grated nutmeg...but, I didn't get to the shops.

Then, the scary bit - leave it to hang for 4 weeks but 6 weeks is said to be preferable. Hanging is supposed to happen in a cool and airy (but not breezy)  place at about 12 degrees C. In winter here is is generally a little warmer than that outside, so I decided to hang the meat inside. Our very basic house in winter is currently un-heated and un-insulated (that will change)... so generally quite cool and stable in temperature. I decided to hang the pancetta in the laundry.

You need to push some cotton twine thru the meat with a skewer to hang the meat.

Some flies from summer have survived in our house and are over-wintering here (despite our attempts to eradicate them!) so I ruled out hanging without some covering. I decided a loose-fitting protective covering of calico was the go. Here is the appropriately laundry-themed result.

So that's the story so far, at least until 4 weeks have elapsed. I am, hoping that it will look like pancetta and not be some slimy, horrible, smelly monster. Let's see.

In the meantime, have you preserved meat in some way? How?

Sharing the bounty

Autumn is a time of bounty here it seems. In the last week or so we have been the very grateful recipients of the bounty of various neighbours.

First there was a huge plastic bag full of comfrey plants from digger man  'Brush' and his lovely Play School-named sister. These has been planted up into pots for the time being until I work out the best place in the beds for these fantastic plants. I can't wait to use their leaves for composting and mulching and capturing nutrients from way underground.

Then, a short time later, the same pair turned up armed with a huge and warty pumpkin,

and a bag of enormous crisp Granny Smith apples.

'Brush' and his sister live up the hills a little in Batlow -  place of apples.

Then, last night when all was dark and quiet came a set of headlights up the drive. We wondered who might be visiting at such an hour - most of our farmer neighbours are well and truly inside and snug by this time of evening. Out of the dark came a familiar voice, it was 'Heron', saying, "I thought you might like some meat, I just killed me pigs".

'Heron' came inside and handed over two large bags of bounty. One contained about 12 pork chops, a pork rib roast and a shoulder of pork, all with a lovely dark hue to the meat, totally different to the pale meat of supermarket pork.

The other bag contained 2 rabbits, beautifully dressed - 'Heron' does a great job of dressing rabbits.

One day when I have more produce of my own, I will be able to offer some in return. Have you received bounty from neighbours and friends recently? What's come over the fence to you? What's your favourite pork recipe?