A quick post, unlike the time this beauty takes to cook. I love pork belly and it's still a great value cut over in these parts. So normally have one in the fridge or freezer.

The last time I did this I wasn't quite happy with my playing with timings and temps, so this time I had a bit more of a play. It was decided (and after a quick chat with Alex @esenses) that I was going to give this piece a go at 22hrs at 75c and 30 minutes at 200c at the end to crisp it up.

I trimmed and marinated the belly the day before, here's what I used:

2 cinnamon sticks,

3 star anise,

2 garlic cloves,

fennel seeds,

salt,

olive oil,

Crushed up and rubbed all over and sealed and fridged for 24hrs.

I then cleaned off the hard spices (cinnamon & star anise) from the belly, but kept these to one side. Placed the pork belly on a wire rack in a baking dish and filled underneath with a good couple of inches of water. Placed the cinnamon and star anise in the water, followed by another stick of cinnamon and a couple more star anise.

Now, I want to seal the belly in using foil, so created a little house with my foil over the top of the belly, making sure it was all sealed (so no steam would escape) and also making sure that the foil wasn't touching the belly.

Preheated the oven to 75c and in it went.

Left this for 22hrs and off I went. Slight concern leaving it there while I was out, but you know, it's not my flat, I rent it. I'm sure it's insured. It was fine no less.

Next you have to take the belly out of the oven and remove the foil. Make sure you don't scold yourself on steam. Dab off the skin and fat to dry it out as well as you can, then salt with some good rock salt while the oven reaches 200c.

Leave the foil off and place the belly back in the oven for 30mins. In this one for me, I didn't dry and salt the skin enough, but was in a rush. Hey ho. Next time I'll follow my own advice more carefully.

Serve with whatever takes your fancy. It will be a delicious, spiced, gorgeous piece, I assure you.

The Swine Kopf

So I saw this in the German supermarket and thought, why not. For those who haven’t worked out the basic (and my limit) German, it was a pig head. Or half of one to be exact.

For the expensive price of 1.68 euros, I thought I’d give it a little try. So picked up a couple of these and thought I’d see what I could find on them. To be honest, I couldn’t find a lot online about good head recipes other than brawn. The main one I could find was by Fergus Henderson at St John’s in London, whose mantra is very much, nose to tail eating.

I adapted this slightly to fit around what I had and what I thought would be nice, and so here is the

recipe:

1 half pig head (mine was small, as in, not quite half a head, a bigger would be needed for a couple of people).

2 onions (sliced).

5 cloves of garlic (sliced).

1 pack of smoked lardons.

Glug of cider vinegar.

Glass of white wine.

1.5L of good stock (may need more, depends on size of pigs head)

Sprinkle of sugar (it’s a good measurement, I know.)

2 leeks (chopped).

2 potatoes (thinly sliced or mandolin’d).

Knob of butter.

Salt / pepper.

Rosemary & thyme sprigs (couple will do).

Method:

Preheat your oven device to 180c. Slice your onions and garlic and chuck in your baking tray, on a hob on the top. Slosh in some olive oil and your lardons and cook until soft. Don’t brown them though.

Now place your piggy friend on top of the bed you’ve made him. (Percy, the mrs called him). Season him and pour in your cider vinegar and wine. Leave your wine out the fridge a bit, when it’s fridge cold it takes longer to bring up to temp. Same with your stock too, then pour this in as well. Season and add your sugar and herbs. You should not cover the entire head with liquid, but ½ to 2/3 up the head.

Pop it in the oven for 2hrs. If you have quite a big head (or the pig does, my head is massive, the pig’s wasn’t) cover the ears in foil as you don’t want these to burn. Mine had no ears, so I didn’t.

After 2 hours in, add the leeks and potatoes, the butter and then top up with some more stock to keep the liquid levels enough to cook the potatoes. You don’t need to cover them, but enough to allow them to cook. If you have foiled your ears, take the foil off at this point to allow them to crisp up.

This should be in about another 30minutes and then you are ready to serve.

Hearty meal there for you with some tasty crackling and juicy meat!

Inspiration for this was from Fergus Henderson’s recipe, which can be found here: http://russelleverett.blogspot.com/2010/01/pot-roast-half-pigs-head.html

In this blog, I didn’t have to shave my pig, it was already cleaned and ready. Be wary, you may have to!

Back to Basel after New Year in the mountains and Christmas with the family, it's a bit strange being in a flat on my own. (Violins at dawn, I know, you bastards).

Anyway, got back and decided it would be nice to have some good playing time with food this week, so I am. Some more experimental than others, but none the less some good old feasts.

Last night I checked what was the first meat to be past it's best, which was the cheap lamb cuts I picked up. (My aim is to see what I can do with these "cheap cuts" that you can pick up many of, not compromising the taste!)

Lamb Tagine.

You might not agree with the recipe, but it's mine and it’s tasty.

Lamb. (As mentioned I used some cheap cuts, can’t tell you what exactly, they’re in French and French meat cuts I don’t know enough about. Any lamb cuts will do though. Go cheap, you’re slow cooking.)

Plain flour (seasoned with salt and pepper for dusting meat)

3 cloves of garlic peeled and chopped.

2 small red onions or 1 large (diced).

1 carrot (diced).

2 celery sticks (diced).

1 tbsp coriander.

1 heaped tsp cumin.

2 bay leaves.

2 cinnamon sticks.

1 sprig rosemary.

1 tsp sugar.

2 tsp tomato puree.

1L of stock (fresh if you can, I took out soup rather than stock from the freezer so had to use non fresh. I know. Shocking).

1 courgette.

2 peppers (I had fancy ones).

Chilies. (I used some dry and a fresh scotch bonnet, just in there and not chopped for flavour not heat).

Method:

This is your simple ragu style method. Firstly brown your meat (covered in a dusting of seasoned flour) in a pan with olive oil. Once browned, set the meat to one side on a plate. Add in the cumin, chilies and coriander and allow to cook off slightly in the oil. Soften the garlic, celery, onion and carrot in some more olive oil. Now, with your veg all soft, add in your tomato puree and mix through well. Add your stock and return your meat to the pot. Throw in your cinnamon, rosemary, bay leaves and season with the sugar, salt and pepper. Now add the courgette and peppers. Simmer this slowly (I added a cartouche over the top) and leave for about 2hrs.

Serve.

I did this last night but it will be for the weekend and some for the freezer. It tasted and smelt fantastic though.

Give it a bash.

I went to cook a bourguinon the other week but came home and realised I had no red wine. I know. Shock.

So last night on the way home I went and grabbed a couple of the bits I needed for the recipe and ended up having a great conversation in French with the man at the meat counter. He gave me a couple of bone marrow pieces to throw in to make it extra flavoursome. Score. This is my adoption of the recipe, you might do it differently but this is what I do.

You will need:

Beef, cut in to chunks (can be a cheap more "tough" cut, as I cook it very slowly) - 5-700g should be OK.

Bone marrow (optional)

Lardons, smoked (I got some nice very smokey stuff chopped it up) - 150g ish

1 onion (diced)

2 carrots (diced)

3 garlic cloves (crushed and diced)

Chestnut mushrooms, (halved) - handful, or depending on how much you like mushrooms

5 shallots, (halved)

1tbsp Tomato puree

500ml beef stock

750ml good red wine (dry)

Plain flour for seasoning meat

Olive oil (glug)

Thyme sprigs

Bay leaves

Salt and Pepper

Prepare all your ingredients as above and then get some of your oil on and in a heavy based pan, get it hot and fry off your lardons, pancetta etc. Once these are done, take out and put in a bowl. Now, flour and season your beef ensuring it is dry too and brown in the pan. This should take about 5-8 minutes.

Once all evenly coloured remove and add these to the bowl of pork bits. Add the diced carrot and onion to the pan and add another glug of oil. Cook these until they start to go clear with the onions and soften.

At this point, a lot of people add congac, deglaze and burn off the alcohol, but I didn't have any handy so I added my tomato puree, mixed in with the veg for a couple of minutes and then deglaze with a couple of splashes of red wine.

Add the meat back to the pan with the beef stock, red wine herbs and shallots and bring to the boil. You want to cook out as much of the alcohol as possible, which you can usually tell you have done by smell, and taste. Once you have got to this point, add the mushrooms and lower the heat. Cover the top with a cartouche. Make sure the heat isn't too low or too high, you want some small activity going on.

Cook. I left mine overnight on a low low heat for 12hrs.

Serve that tastiness up.