Sherry Addled Spanish Pigs' Cheeks

Pork and sherry is a fine combination. Especially when the sherry is sweet and the pork falls apart like a sous vide ponzi scheme. The sweetness of the pork is exaggerated and at once tempered by the oleaginous lusciousness of the sherry. And even more so as it reduces with onions and a touch of paprika. It would be lazy to say it tastes of Spain. But maybe Spain tastes of it. It becomes syrupy and, whilst sweet, also savoury and deep. A bit like a grandfather telling a long story full of unnecessary details and the occasional sentimental Catherine wheel of warmth.

So when Cowie and I were planning our main course for our pop up we found that pigs cheeks cooked in sherry was at the top of our list. It needed to be something that could be cooked in advance and reheated. Something where the prep was done way in advance and the flavours could mature. Something luxurious and generous, but not flashy.

In order to feed 60 we ordered 200 pigs’ cheeks from Kimber’s near Wincaton. Their first class farm shop is responsible for us acquiring a chest freezer for our house in London. Whenever we go down to Somerset we always seem to come away with unusual cuts of fabulous meat. We can’t recommend them enough and pretty much live off their pork rissoles have a serious soft spot for their goose skirt and Jacob’s Ladder.

We decided to slow cook the pigs’ cheeks in a mixture of medium dry sherry and Pedro Ximinex sherry along with a large quantity of caremelised onions which had been given a warm bath in sherry as well. Aside from some seasoning and a touch of paprika and garlic all they needed was a good searing and then a long burble in the sherry.

Served on their own, they would be in danger of being a bit too deep, so a gremolata made with lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil and parsley brings them to life. And some toasted almonds bring out the nutty notes of the pork and savory nature of the sherry. They also add a nice bit of crunch.

The secret is to strain off the sherry liquor once the cheeks are cooked and to reduce it to a sticky sauce, brightened up with sherry vinegar as you see fit. Taste it regularly as you reduce it so you balance the acidity and the sweetness. It really is a killer sauce and if you have too much you can use it as a fabulous sauce with game. We had it with some grouse recently and loved it. Likewise it would grace a bavette or a haunch of venison. Guard it. And admire the way it sets to a wobbly dark brown jelly. It’s not looker.

Celeriac mash and some greens is all you need to go with this. Enjoy it. It’s our favourite dish.

Ingredients to feed 4

12 pigs cheeks with the membrane removed (Allow 3 cheeks per person. You just want the nugget of meat that butchers sometimes call the pillow)
Flour to dust cheeks
10 onions
4 cloves of chopped garlic (smoked would be extra nice)
1 bottle of medium dry sherry
200ml of Pedro Ximinez sherry
(Prunes, dried figs and dates are all nice optional extras)
Sherry vinegar to taste
1 celeriac
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
200g potatoes
100g toasted almonds
Courgettes
Salt and pepper

Method

Season the flour and dust the cheeks.

Sear the cheeks in a hot pan with a good slug of olive oil. Do this in batches. And if they catch loosen them with some of the medium dry sherry. Add this to the slow cooker.

Then fry the onions slowly until they caramelise. At this point add the garlic and smoked paprika. Add PX sherry towards the end of the frying. Add this to the slow cooker.

Pour over as much sherry as is needed to cover the pigs cheeks. Add 2 bay leaves. Grind in some pepper.

Leave to slow cook for 3 to 4 hours – or until the cheeks are cooked. You want them to retain their shape and not go mushy.

At this stage, make some celeriac and potato mash, steam some courgettes or greens.

Also, make a gremolata. Zest 2 lemons. Finely chop 100g parsley. Squeeze two lemons into a bowl with the first two ingredients. Add salt. Add pepper. Glug in some olive oil. Stir. Taste. You want it to taste as sharp and clean as a Japanese knife. It should have almost metallic cleanliness to it that sets off the dark, unctuousness of the pork and sherry.

When the cheeks are cooked strain off the liquor. Add it to a large saucepan and reduce aggressively. Stir. And taste frequently. Add a good splash of sherry vinegar to add some acidity and life to the sauce. This stops it getting too heavy.

You will need to reduce for some time. The stickier the sauce is the better. When it is nice and syrupy take it off the heat and put it in a jug.

Serve with the mash, and veg with 3 cheeks covered in sherry sauce. Then slurp over a spoonful of vibrant gremolata and scatter over some toasted almonds.

Pork Neck Cooked in Chai Infused Milk

Sounds weird. And looks even weirder. But trust me. It works. Pork neck is the latest “Forgotten Cut” that I’ve stumbled across not selling very well in Waitrose. I bought a kilo of pork neck for around four quid and got very excited when I found out that some people regard it as a very special cut. It is richly seamed with fat, not unlike a good rib eye or a feather blade which means it is almost impossible to dry out. Like a blade, you can either cook it super fast or nice and slow.

Feeling inspired by Niamh’s pork loin cooked in milk from the River Café and Moro cookbooks, I decided to extend the idea a bit further. Niamh slow cooked her pork in whole milk with bay and cinnamon which I could almost smell as I read it. But what I was smelling quickly morphed into masala chai which I guzzled by the gallon in Zanzibar. I wondered what would happen if I dropped the bay and instead added cloves, star anise, peppercorns and lots of cardamom to my cinnamon. There was only one way to find out.

Ingredients:

1 pork neck
2 litres of whole milk
4 star anise
10 cardamom pods
1 tablespoon of black peppercorns
2 sticks of cinnamon
8 cloves
Knob of ginger
Salt

Method:

Stage 1. Season the neck fillet and sear until golden.



Stage 2. Place neck in a slow cooker with the spices and milk.



Stage 3. Simmer for 3 hours until the pork is tender.

Stage 4. Transfer pork into an oven dish and blast for 20 minutes to help the milk to caramelise.

Serve with rice and greens.



I wish it looked better. Unfortunately it doesn’t photograph well. So you’ll have to believe me when I tell you that it is delicious. The meat was moist, tender and full of porky flavour. Meanwhile the chai spices gave a very subtle flavour to the sauce with the cardamom leading the way, just as it does in spiced tea. I am now a big pork neck fan and am looking forward to experimenting with it in different recipes. Let me know if you’ve got any cracking ideas for it.

Further reading:

Pork neck with rosemary
Pork neck on the BBQ
Sticky Asian pork neck
Chinese roast pork neck
Grilled pork neck with tamarind dip
Thai pork neck with soft noodles

Pigs Cheek Sausage Rolls & my Dream Pub Food

This is a more fuss free version of the Piggy Cheeky Wellingtons I made.





Cook your pigs cheeks the same way by gently cooking overnight in a low oven. Let them cool then trim them lengthways so they are thinner and more suitable for sausage rolls.





Give them a little smear of mustard and then wrap them in puff pastry. Bake for 15 minutes until the pastry is browned and serve with some mustard and a pint of beer.



The meat melted and the pastry crunched. They are cheap. Delicious. Easy. And divine. Without question, these are the best sausage rolls ever - Ginger Pig included.

Just thinking about pig cheek sausage rolls has made me want to own a pub specialising in serving imaginative bar snacks that use cheap bits of meat. We’d have Scotch eggs on a par with the Harwood Arms, pork pies that make Helen’s look average and pigs cheek sausage rolls that make you wonder why you ever visited the Ginger Pig. And all for a couple of quid.

We’d also make biltong from ox cheek and serve chitterlings to unsuspecting drinkers. Imagine how tasty chicken oysters would be encased in a thin dumpling? And the bliss of tucking into a platter of bourbon glazed short ribs. Ramekins of hare pate would be a doddle. Pork belly confit would be a favourite. Just thinking about deep fried skate knobs makes me feel weak at the knees, ankles and toes.

And what’s wrong with doing a range of larger more tapasy type dishes of pigs cheeks in cider and cream? Or slices of slow cooked ox cheek with smoky mash?

If you’ve got any ideas for imaginative pub bar snacks let me know and we’ll start a pub together!

Cheeky Pig Wellington

After almost tripping over myself in excitement when I first cooked pigs cheeks in a bourbon and mustard glaze, I’ve been gagging to cook with them again. I love their sweet tenderness and strong piggy taste. And the fact that they cost 14 pence each doesn’t hurt either!

Whenever I see them in Waitrose with the little green “Forgotten Cuts” flag in them I always buy the lot. Sorry. I just can’t help myself. This is probably why you rarely find them. It’s because a few annoying gits like me always gazump them.

A dozen or so have been in Cowie’s parents’s freezer for a few months now. And with a whole weekend to play with I decided to do something special with them. Cowie and I have been discussing how to cook them so much that Cowie has been plagued by bad dreams about being attacked by evil cheekless pigs! So when I flipped through a food magazine and saw a recipe for “Beef Wellington” the penny dropped and I started sketching out my recipe. I decided to switch the mushrooms in the traditional duxelle for apricots and then bolster it up with some pig’s liver pate. See below for the recipe. I then did a quick google and didn’t get any direct hits – does that mean this recipe is a world first?

Wash and pat dry you pigs’ cheeks. Then season them generously with salt and pepper before colouring them in a hot pan. Try to avoid smoking your girlfriend’s parents’ kitchen out at midnight like I did. Then sling them into a roasting dish along with a few sage leaves and whatever booze you have to hand. I used a glass of Argentine Pinot Noir. Then put cover with foil and cook very, very slowly. I put them in the top left oven of the Aga which is normally used for plate warming and let them bubble away overnight. But if you haven’t got an Aga and are worried about leaving the oven on overnight then slow cook them for 3 or 4 hours on a very low setting.





Allow the pigs cheeks to cool and separate them from the juices.



Reduce the liquid to a syrup and add a handful of chopped dried apricots. This will become a sticky brown goo that will form the basis of the “duxelle”. Add 100 grams of pork liver pate to the brown goo and mix so that it becomes a paste. Season to taste.



Then lay a piece of cling film on a chopping board or work surface and line it with three overlapping slices of pancetta. Smear them with the “duxelle” and plop a pigs cheek in the middle. Then wrap them up into smart little parcels.



I then used an extra rasher of pancetta to hold it all together laterally.



Put these in the fridge and chill until you get around to rolling the pastry which must be done at the last possible moment to avoid soggyness.



With 40 minutes to go before you want to eat them, roll out you puff pastry and roll it around the parcels. Place on a greased baking tray and cook in a hot oven until the pastry has browned which will take around 20 minutes.







Serve to impressed guests with mashed potato, broccoli and mustard. The meat was more tender than anything I've ever eaten and the pastry was puffy and crisp. The apricot duxelle gave the pork a playful fruitiness that helped to take your mind off the richness of the pate and unctuous meat.

Who needs fillet of beef that costs and arm and a leg when you can create something that tastes much better and costs a pittance? If beef short ribs were the trendy cheap cut of 2007, lamb shanks in 2008 and pork belly in 2009, then I reckon 2010 is the year of the pig cheek.

Mince Pie and Brandy Butter Sausages

Bonkers. But delicious. The suet from the mincemeat, along with the butterfat make these sausages very moist, whilst the fruit and the brandy give them a sophistication that helps to elevate them out of the novelty category. Given that Santa and his band of merry reindeer have buggered off for the rest of the year, they also make a great way of using up any leftover mincemeat.



Start with a 60/40 mixture of minced belly and shoulder. Add two big spoonfuls of mincemeat and a spoon of brandy butter. Then add a glug of brandy. Mix together with some salt, pepper and breadcrumbs until the consistency feel sausagey.

Then pump into some natural casings and leave to rest overnight. Create mini links and serve to unsuspecting friends as mini mince pie sausages on the end of cocktail sticks.



We ate these after a long walk in the frosty Somerset countryside with a cup of tea. To my delight the idea turned out to be far less hair-brained than I had feared. The sausages were moist, sticky, full of festive flavour and universally approved of. The stewed fruit led Cowie to think they tasted like Devils on Horseback. So if you’re keen to use up your mince meat the last dregs of brandy butter, spare them the pastry treatment and ram them inside some pigs intestine.

Gareth from Bibendum suggests quaffing some rich Alsatian Pinot Gri with these, whereas Fiona thought they’d go down a storm with Tawny Port or off-dry Amontillado.

Top photo is from kyz on Flickr via creative commons.

This is part of a series of posts about experimental sausages and a potential sausage-fest

Homemade Chorizo Sausages

I adore chorizo. I even thought about writing a blog dedicated to the joys of eating it. I don’t know what I see in its smoky, spicy, sweet, fatty, salty flavour profile that makes it impossible for me to resist.

My version of chorizo is a very homemade version. I thought long and hard about whether to even call it chorizo given that it is pretty ersatz. Whilst Brindisa shouldn’t be shaking in their boots, it still tastes pretty good!

Mingle your 60/40 pork belly and shoulder mince in a bowl and season heavily with salt. Then in a frying pan sauté a finely diced onion until it softens. Then add 3 cloves of garlic and 2 dessert spoons of the best picante smoked paprika you can get your hands on. The onions and garlic will instantly turn red and the air will transform into a hellish cacophony of chilli fumes with a hint of tapas bar. One the powder has been assimilated into the onions tip it out into the pork mixture. Then pour a small glass of wine into the pan and deglaze. Add this to the pork.

Next, finely chop as many chillies as you’d like and add them to the mixture. I then added a handful of finely chopped Pepperdew peppers, but this is optional. They add a lovely red colour that lingers throughout cooking as well as a sweet note to combat the abrasive spice.







Add a handful of breadcrumbs and then “sausagify” them. Leave to rest overnight.

Then serve for breakfast with spicy scrambled eggs as a take on huevos rancheros. You’ll love the way the spicy red oil mingles with the eggs. It’s one of the best ways to start the day I’ve ever come across.





Alternatively, they would also be great in a classic butter bean, charred pepper, chorizo and passata stew, with some crusty bread and a bottle of Malbec or Rioja as suggested by both Gareth and Fiona. Although maybe not for breakfast!

You can see from our cat’s reaction that these are special sausages!



This is part of a series of posts about experimental sausages and a potential sausage-fest

Fennel, chilli and chocolate sausages

Chocolate sausages?! Has Browners gone completely mad?

Pork goes well with chilli...

Pork also goes well with fennel...

Pork and chocolate is a combination that you’ll stumble across throughout Latin and South America...

So why not combine it all together?

The warmth of the chilli, the aniseed flavour of the fennel and all round depth from the chocolate build up to create a sausage that’s up there with my favourites.

Make your sausage meat using the 60/40 belly to shoulder ratios as I’ve mentioned elsewhere. Season liberally with salt. Then grate a generous amount of Willy’s Wonky Cacao into the mince. Then sprinkle with chilli seeds and finely ground fennel seeds. If you’ve got some fresh chillies to hand then finely slice them and add to the mix.

To continue the South American theme, Ancho chillies would work well, but if you wanted a smokier flavour then why not experiment with Chipotle chillies which are hard to get your hands on, but well worth the effort.



Mix it all together with some breadcrumbs and then extrude into some natural casings. Leave to rest in the fridge overnight and then serve for lunch along with some buttery mashed potato, iron rich greens and fennel gratin. The chocolate helps to give them depth, whilst the main sensation comes from the fennel and chilli, both of which are very grown up flavours.

As an adventurous alternative make a Mexican mole and serve with the sausages with some rice.



Gareth from Bibendum recommends drinking a bottle of Primitivo with these bangers, whereas Fiona the Winematcher suggests wolfing them down with some New Wave Tuscan red.

This is part of a series of posts about experimental sausages and a potential sausage-fest

Sichuan Sausages

Earlier in the year I had an inspirational meal at Chilli Cool. Having never had Sichuan food before, I was oblivious to the narcoleptic charms of Sichuan peppercorns which not only set your mouth on fire but numb it at the same time. I left feeling invigorated and keen to dabble with Sichuan pepper.

So I invented my own Sichuan sausage recipe. And would you believe it, the sausages are amazing. Here’s how you make them.

Mince a 60/40 mix of pork belly and pork shoulder. For 6 sausages throw in a handful of breadcrumbs. Then, in a pestle and mortar, grind 3 dessert spoons of Sichuan peppercorns to a fine dust. Add them to the pork. Then slice up a spring onion and add it to the party. Grate a whole thumb of ginger into the pork along with a a couple of cloves of minced garlic. Then sprinkle in a generous amount of chilli seeds and then as much Chinese 5 spice as you think seems right. Season with salt, or for added authenticity some MSG.



Mix the pork and spices together and then feed into sausage casings. Allow the sausage to rest for a few hours before cooking as this will allow the meat to settle and relax after the trauma of the sausage making process.



Amazingly a few wires got tangled up in the Brown kitchen and we landed up serving them with Brussels’ sprouts and carrots! The winter vegetables admirably stuck to their task. It prompted one of the funnier moments over Christmas when my Grandfather, who isn’t a fan of spice, said, “I don’t mind about the chilli because my mouth has gone numb”. There was something deeply surreal about the whole experience. And this odd situation allowed us to concentrate on the flavour of the sausages which whilst taking no prisoners, were a spectacular success.

My plan had been to take inspiration from "Dan Dan Noodles" (see photo above courtesy of scaredy_kat on Flickr via creative commons ) and cook them in a liquor of soy sauce, chillies and stock and then serve them with noodles and pak choi. They would also be great without their casings as meat balls in a Chinese broth. If you’ve got any suggestions about what to serve them with, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

And if you are thinking what wines would go well with a Sichuan sausage, then Gareth from Bibendum suggests drinking Argentine Bonarda and Fiona the Winematcher suggests a New Zealand Pinot Noir.

This is part of a series of posts about experimental sausages and a potential sausage-fest

Christmas Sausage-Fest

The journey towards becoming an accomplished sausage maker is strewn with challenges. For such a humble thing they take a lot of work, not unlike Danni Minogue’s face. But like Danni, the effort is definitely worth it.

After my first sausage post I got some fantastic suggestions for sausage fillings. Many thanks to all of you who chimed in. It was a real thrill to get such great feedback and suggestions. I particularly like the idea of fennel and chilli and another idea which suggested using chocolate.

The other comment that got me thinking was about the fat content. Our first round of sausages had been moist and juicy, but they could have held onto their fat better. Some of the girls out there probably think lean sausages is a good thing. But they’re wrong. Much of the flavour is held within the fat itself, so when it leaks out the sausages become bland and too meaty. The way to remedy this I discovered is to use a balanced combination of better breadcrumbs and using a higher ratio of pork belly to lean shoulder.

The other way to ensure you don’t waste the fat that leaks out is to surround the sausages with things like tomatoes and mushrooms which are brilliant at absorbing the “juices” and becoming incredible flavour bombs. Our breakfast sausages are a case in point.



Having subsequently read a bit more about sausages in Country Life magazine, I’ve discovered that the best way to cook sausages is to gently fry them. Charles Campion suggests that this allows them to cook through evenly and helps them to retain their moisture. When you’ve gone to such effort making your sausages, you’ll feel very protective over how they are cooked.

Inspired by everyone’s suggestions I spent the festive period experimenting with a range of interesting flavour combinations which I will post over the next week or so. The highlights include:



Sichuan pork with Chinese Five Spice, ginger, garlic, spring onions and chilli



Fennel, chilli and chocolate sausages



Chorizo



Apple and bourbon sausages



Mince pie and brandy butter sausages

They all worked out brilliantly, but I was especially pleased with the mince pie and brandy butter sausages which could have been a complete disaster. I will never tire of sausages, but I got the impression that another enforced week of experimental sausage consumption wouldn’t have gone down that well. I will post the recipes for each sausage type and the best things to eat them with over the next week or so...

But in the meantime, if you are keen on a “sausage fest” where we experiment with making different flavoured sausages and have any ideas of venues etc. leave a comment. It would be great to host a sausage party!

X Rated Sausage Making

“Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” Otto von Bismarck

Good old Otto. Being a German he knew a thing or two about making sausages. Enough to know that sausage making is one of the most graphic things to do in the kitchen. It’s a sure fire way to push someone over the edge from being a happy go lucky meat eater to a raving vegetarian. And I'm sure there is a gag in there featuring Bill Clinton, but I haven't found a way to squeeze it in.

Cowie gave me an amazing sausage making machine for Christmas two years ago. But until recently it remained in its box collecting dust. I lugged it from London to Bedford in its wrapping paper, before opening it up, driving it to Somerset and then meandering it back to London. Once in London it moved between 3 houses as I played musical beds and has now travelled full circle back to my parents’ house. I could start a new blog, charting its progress, called Around Britain with a Sausage Maker and write it in the style of Chaucer. Or maybe not.

I spent a fantastic weekend back at home with Oli and Ed where we were supposed to build a pizza oven but got sidetracked by the weather. So we decided to make sausages. We went to our amazing local butcher called Browns of Stagsden and bought a pound of pork belly, the same amount of pork shoulder as well as a length of natural casings.

"Sausage making expert Oli" (in MasterChef voice over), convinced us to keep our sausages fairly straight forward with a pinch of sage, a smattering of apple and a damn good seasoning with a double handful of dried breadcrumbs to soak up the fat and stop them drying out. It proved to be very wise advice.

First of all, discard the instructions. They’re probably written in German anyway. Then assemble your sausage making apparatus taking care not to use the biscuit making function. (Whoops!). Grind your pork into a beautiful pink mince.



Finely dice your apple and shred your sage.





Then combine the lot, including the breadcrumbs and season the hell out of it. And then give it some more seasoning. A good way of checking the flavours are well balanced is to form a mini pattie from your minced pork concoction and fry it as if it was a burger. Then give it a taste and adjust the flavours and seasoning accordingly.

Then switch the apparatus so that the blade is removed in favour of a funnel. I challenge anyone to not burst out laughing as they perform the next task of attaching the sausage casing to the funnel. It’s like you’ve suddenly become a medieval prostitute engaged in some sort of bizarre futuristic fetish. Ed managed with aplomb.







Tie a knot in the end of the casing and get pumping. Moderate the speed of the machine to stop it turning into some sort of Disney cartoon disaster featuring a burly dog and a guy in a butcher’s apron. Twist the meat into links and voila. Perfect sausages. Otto would have been proud.



We left the sausages in the fridge overnight to rest and then devoured them with a poached egg for one of the most memorable breakfasts I’ve had in years.



I’m now planning to make a batch of sausages on Christmas Eve and then give them to friends and family as presents. I’m keen to experiment with some interesting flavour combinations. So if anyone has any suggestions please let me know. Sichuan pepper sausages is top of my list at the moment.

If you want to find out more about making sausages check out www.sausagemaking.org