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

Apple and Bourbon Sausages

Ever since I cooked bourbon glazed pigs cheeks I’ve been gagging to explore the unchartered waters of cooking with bourbon. It seems swine and bourbon have a natural affinity. So much so that a bar called PDT in New York even make a cocktail with bacon and bourbon!



This sausage recipe is very simple. Take your 60/40 mixture of minced belly pork and shoulder and add some salt and a few turns of freshly ground pepper. Then add a finely chopped apple such as a Cox. Then add a double measure of bourbon. I used Maker’s Mark, but you could use Jim Beam. Given that I work with the nice folk at Beam Global, there’s normally a drop or two floating around in the office. To finish the mix add a handful of breadcrumbs and a dollop of mustard. Since making these Londoneating has made the inspired suggestion of adding a touch of maple syrup. It seems a dose of sugar is quite a common technique in sausage making. Apparently it helps the sausages to caramelise.



Then set the gears in motion and fill your casings. Leave them to rest overnight in the fridge. These sausages are wonderfully comforting. They are great cooked in a glaze made from soy, mustard, honey and bourbon and served with a giant pillow of celeriac mash, some buttered spinach and lashing of left over marinade-cum-gravy. Just like the pigs cheeks below.



Or if you are feeling more patriotic, do something more British, such as a toad in the hole with a bourbon based gravy. Cowie's Mum, who is an expert at making all things battery and British, whipped this up without a recipe. But if you need one, why not sneak a peak at Delia. The key thing is to get your dripping nice and hot before hand and get ready to eat it as soon as it comes out of the oven, otherwise it might flop.



Grog-wise, Gareth from Bibendum suggests slucing these down with a bottle of New World chardonnay whereas Fiona thinks a medium cider would do the job as it links back to the apples.

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!

Home Cured Gravadlax

Whenever I pick up HF-W’s Fish book, I’m always drawn, as if by osmosis, towards the smoking and curing section. Hugh gets very excited about Gravadmax, but given that we had a beautiful salmon it would have been a crime not to do the proper version. Ever since we had some amazing gravadlax at the Dorchester Grill, I’ve wanted to make it myself.



Apparently gravadlax started in Scandinavia as a way of preserving the seasonal glut of salmon. They buried the fish in the sand at the high tide mark with dill, salt, pine needles and an array of other locally prevalent herbs and then removed it days, weeks or months later after it had fermented. The technique has since evolved away from pine needles and fermentation towards a more elegant solution involving pressure, salt, sugar and dill. Loosely translated the "grav" bit means to bury in a grave and the "lax" means salmon. Luckily "gravadlax" sounds a lot better than "decayed salmon".

Season your salmon on both sides with copious amounts of good quality salt. Then sprinkle with a few spoons of sugar. Then empty an entire jar of dill into the equation and cover the whole fish like a crazed Viking (shamefully we didn’t have any fresh dill). Say a couple of prayers to Thor and then slip the fish into a freezer bag. Pop this in a flat bottomed ceramic dish and then stack your heaviest cooking books on top to squish it down.



Pop it in your larder, or failing that, fridge and turn the fish over every 12 hours or so. Some juice should leach out and after 3 days you’ll be rewarded with some sensationally cured fish. You can leave it for longer if you like a stronger cure.

I cast my mind back to our meal at the Dorchester Grill and remembered the way our charming waiter had carved the gravadlax at our table side.



Inspired by him, I sliced the fish on a slight angle with a super sharp knife and presented it in a rosette with a cup of mustard and dill spiked crème fraiche.





With a glass of shimmering Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc it was every bit as good as the tea smoked salmon we devoured the day before. And even if I do say so myself, as good as the Dorchester.

Smoking is Good For You: Orange PeokoeTea Smoked Salmon

Don’t tell Cowie, but I love smoked salmon. I get it from my grandfather who grumpily protests like Father Jack when the meal starts without a few slithers of tulip pink, oily smoked fish, anointed with a drop of lemon and befriended by a slice or two of buttered brown bread. Sadly, we’re all banned from the joy of freshly ground pepper in his presence because it makes him sneeze.

So in the interests of experimentation and as a sneaky way of getting around the need for pepper, I decided to have a blast at hot smoking my own salmon over some tea leaves as the opening gambit to our Christmas day feast. Luckily Mum had picked up a quiveringly fresh side of salmon from the fishmonger, so my task was an exciting one. I decided to smoke half of it and make gravadlax with the other.

For someone who doesn’t smoke, I’ve done a fair amount of smoking. Albeit of the edible variety. Cowie gave me a smoker as a present a couple of years ago, so I’ve had a bit of practice. Our main successes have been with smoked trout and with tea smoked duck. Both dishes employ the hot smoking method which not only cooks the food in the heat, but also cures it with the mysteriously alchemic qualities of the wafty smoke. When done right you are left with moist flesh and the irresistible flavour of fire.

Whilst everyone was watching soporific Christmas Eve telly, I got busy with the salmon. First heavily season the fish on both sides and remove any pin bones. Some people suggest brining, but I found it works fine if you skip this step. Place the fish on a pyrex dish that will fit inside the dish that is going to act as your smoker. Then line your mother’s finest Le Creuset casserole dish with two layers of thick foil. Cover the foil in tea leaves. I used Orange Pekoe which I had brought back from India, but I suspect any old tea leaves will do. Then throw in a couple of spoonfuls of rice, a sprinkling of sugar and a blob of honey. This will get the smoke kicked off.

Next it’s time for some Blue Peter improvisation. Scrunch up three balls of foil and position them in the bottom of the pan to act as supports for the plate or pyrex bowl that your salmon is sitting on. You need the gap between the base of the pan and the pyrex dish to allow the smoke to billow.

Then place your smoking vessel on the hob and get the tea leaves smoking. Once the feathers of smoke are smoldering consistently place the pyrex dish on the three foil feet and whack on the lid. If it doesn’t fit perfectly then you’re in trouble. So have some kit handy to improvise.



Keep the heat high for the first 10 minutes and then turn the heat down and smoke for a further 15 minutes. This is all quite trial and error so you might want to have a peak after 20 minutes has elapsed and then take a call on how much further your want to take it. My preference is for the fish to still be moist and rare in the middle, but I imagine some would get squeamish about it.

One precaution you should take is to make sure you’ve closed all the doors leading out of your kitchen to the rest of the house and opened all the windows to mitigate against smoking the rest of the family out. When the big moment came to check on the salmon, I decided to take it outside into snow and was delighted to see that the smoke had worked its magic.







The flesh was translucently moist yet cooked. I let out an embarrassing fist pump in triumph, which was sadly witnessed by my sister, before popping it in the fridge and collapsed in front of the telly.

On Christmas Day, I simply whipped up a crème fraiche and lemon dressing and served it in rosy pink wedges with a small salad and a glass of top class Grüner Veltliner.





It was a wonderful start to our meal and one of the most satisfying things I’ve done this year. The highlight was the way the fish teased apart like the indented divisions in a posh dictionary and the support from the dazzlingly alive wine had us all purring as loudly as our rather talkative Siamese cat.

For a more in depth guide to hot and cold smoking get your hands on Hugh F-W's brilliant Fish book or have a butchers at this site.