Lazy lamb stew

January 23, 2021Leave a comment

Dark days and cold winter nights call for hearty comfort food and this lazy lamb stew steps up and gives you a big cuddle when you need it most.

Lamb neck on the bone is a highly underrated and economical cut of meat, packed full of rich flavour and with enough fat to create an unctuous stew that’s silky and moreish without feeling fatty. Cooked on the bone the lamb is meltingly tender, a real treat for sure.

We are lucky to have a fab butchers just down the lane from the cottage and also a brilliant fruit and veg shop just around the corner. My butchers have come to my rescue many times over the years. They have been working so incredibly hard over the lockdowns and the queues are often long but a visit is always a joy and their dry cured smoked middle bacon is second to none. Make friends with your local butchers, they have a wealth of knowledge and will be happy to give you tips for cooking the lesser well known cuts that are usually much cheaper too.

You can pretty much chuck whatever root veg you have to hand into this stew, likewise add leeks if you fancy or if you are trying to bulk it up then a tin of chickpeas or butter beans would work really well. It makes lots of rich liquid that’s perfect mopped up with some nice crusty homemade bread.

I call this lazy as I pretty much just bung everything in the casserole pot and let the oven do the work. I do recommend that you brown the lamb first though for those lovely Maillard flavours.

Lazy lamb stew

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 rounds of lamb neck on the bone
3 tablespoons oil or fat for frying ( I used leftover goose fat)
one onion, chopped/sliced – whatever your preference
3 handfuls of rainbow Chanternay carrots (or just regular carrots sliced but my veg shop sells these incredible mini rainbow carrots that just taste wonderful)
3 sticks celery, chopped
2 parsnips, peeled and sliced into rounds
a few handfuls of baby new potatoes
3 sprigs fresh rosemary or 1 tablespoon dried
3 bay leaves – I have a bay tree so use them all the time but just leave out if you don’t have any
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
1/2 bottle of full bodied red wine
chicken stock and water to cover (I used powdered chicken bouillon that I buy in bulk from Amazon, 1.2kg for £14.99, it lasts for ages and is lovely as a drink too), I would use Lamb stock if I had it but its expensive and chicken works just fine, plus cooking the lamb on the bone creates a wonderful lamb stock anyway.
salt and pepper

image of veg in the pot being cooked with herbs

Method:

Heat your oven to 160C.
Pop the oil, or goose fat if you have it, into a hot casserole pot then add the lamb in batches and cook until nicely browned on each side then remove and set aside on a plate.
Add the onions, veg, garlic and herbs and cook until the onions are starting to colour.
Add the lamb and red wine and season with salt and pepper. Scrape the bottom of the casserole to dislodge any crusty bits and cook the wine for a few minutes then add in the stock, enough to just cover everything, it may seem like a lot of liquid but you lose a lot in the oven as it simmers away.
Pop the casserole pot in the oven and leave to gently cook for 4 hours. Check on it after 2 hours and add more seasoning if required.

Doritos scotch eggs!

November 11, 2015April 5, 2018Leave a comment

GET IN MY FACE

DORITOS SCOTCH EGGS! Yes they really are as good as they sound too!

Well it was April since I last posted anything as it’s been a rollercoaster of highs and lows here at the cottage. I had a nasty head injury and struggled to work so any recipe development went on paid work for Metro, (see my stuff here) BUT, I’m back again, revamping the site and hoping to put more time and effort now I’m pretty much back to a half functioning adult 🙂

So to kick things off here is a little recipe I did for National Sausage Week the other week, it involves crunchy cheese Doritos, sweet chilli sausage meat and a perfectly runny golden yolk, what’s not to love?

The recipe for these beauties are in this handy little film I made…

Doritos Scotch Eggs

Wild Garlic and Pistachio Pesto Stuffed Roast Pork Belly with Cider

April 19, 2013April 20, 2013Leave a comment

Yes more ace wild garlic praise in the form of this wonderfully easy roast pork belly recipe. Pork belly is probably my favourite cut of meat when it comes to cooking for a crowd as it’s layers of tasty fat keep it moist during cooking and the skin crisps up to crackled piggy perfection.

Last year I made this for my friend Jess whom I hadn’t seen in 20 years, I basically rocked up with a crate of cooking gear at her gorgeous farmhouse in Dorset and we got hammered on wine, reminisced about our time at school in Colwyn Bay and cooked together, it was heaven. Jess has a big Aga which is perfect for cooking this in, just whack it in the hot oven for 30 minutes or until the skin crisps up then add the cider, cover and move to the gentler oven and leave for about 5 or 6 hours whilst you drink lots of wine. You can pretty much forget about it as it pootles along doing its own thing. I think I cooked for about 12 that night, none apart from Jess I had met before and we had the most fabulous boozy feast that lasted until dawn when Jess accidentally picked up a tube of Veet hair remover cream instead of toothpaste and brushed her teeth, OUCH (you can read more about Jess’s escapades in Dorset in her column for Dorset Life or on her the uncensored versions on her hilarious blog The Dorset Chronicles- Diary of a Farmer’s Wife). The pork however was triumphant, it was an Oxford Sandy & Black pig reared by Jess and her husband Jasper, my god it was without a doubt the best pork I’ve ever eaten, I’ll never forget it.

Tilly, fox, bandit and frog hanging out by the Aga

Everyone gets to hang out by the Aga at Jess’s house, dogs, ponies and foxes…

You could use my recipe for wild garlic, hazelnut and smoky chipotle pesto for this, it would be all kinds of wonderful….

Ingredients: (serves 8)

2kg pork belly (if you buy on the bone then remove the bone and use it as a trivet during cooking)
Sea salt flakes
bottle of good cider

For the Wild Garlic Pistachio Pesto:

100g fresh wild garlic leaves, washed
70g shelled pistachio nuts
3 – 4 tablespoons good olive or rapeseed oil
zest of 1 unwaxed lemon, grated finely on a microplane
freshly ground pepper
100g freshly grated grana padano
few grinds of black pepper
pinch of sea salt flakes

Method:

Preheat your oven to its highest temperature (around 230C). Using a sharp blade score the skin making sure you don’t go right through to the meat as it will cause the meat will dry out during the cooking process. Pour a kettle of boiling water over the skin of your pork belly then dab dry with kitchen roll, rub in a good pinch of sea salt flakes and leave whilst you make your pesto.
For the pesto simply pop everything into your food processor and blend until the pesto has a coarse but well mixed consistency.
Lay your pork belly skin side down then spread your pesto over the meat. Roll and tie tightly using butchers string every 2 inches.
Lay your joint in a roasting tin (on the bone trivet if you have it) and roast for 20-30 minutes to get the crackling nice and crispy then turn your oven down to 150C, pour the cider around the joint, cover with foil and continue to gently cook for a further 3 hours. If your crackling needs crisping up a bit just whack the oven back up to full for the last 20 minutes.
Remove the joint from the oven and allow to rest for 20 minutes. Bubble the pan juices on the hob to reduce and concentrate, season if need be then pour into a jug be served with dinner.

Wild garlic, hazelnut and smoky chipotle “pesto”

April 19, 2013Leave a comment

I don’t think that there is any season that I look forward to more than wild garlic season, and this year’s bitterly cold weather and delayed arrival has made it all the more eagerly awaited and welcomed with pretty much fanatic gusto.

This wild garlic recipe is not only a brilliant way to celebrate it’s arrival but it also freezes really well so I make plenty and divide it between freezer bags and lie them on top of one another in the freezer so I can defrost a portion at a time.

You could add some hard cheese to this if you fancy, a good hard British goat’s cheese finely grated in would be delicious but I like to keep it very simple and then I can always grate some over the finished dish. I had a big bunch of parsley so threw some of that in too, it’s said that eating parsley after garlic kills and bad breath but I happily honked of garlic for the rest of the evening.

Use this stirred into pasta, smear all over the inside of a joint of pork belly and roll and roast, stir it through some creme fraiche or mayo for a dip or just eat it with a spoon, this is in your face ace.

wild garlic chipotle homemade pappardelle

Stirred through homemade duck egg pappardelle and garnished with the petals from violas I was dead-heading in the garden

Ingredients:

200g wild garlic leaves, washed
100g parsley (mellows the garlic slightly)
100g hazelnuts
3 chipotle chillies (Edible Ornamentals are British grown and kick ass)
big pinch sea salt flakes
big pinch freshly ground black pepper
enough good oil to get a good consistency (around 100ml ish, I use Cotswold Gold E.V rapeseed oil as it’s wonderfully nutty

Method:

Just put everything in a food processor except the oil and blitz, as the machine goes drizzle in the oil until you are happy with the consistency, taste and adjust seasoning if need be. Allow to sit for at least 30 minutes before using so that the flavours develop.

Vietnamese Pho (almost)

April 15, 2013Leave a comment

After the massive success of my braised beef tendons I was left with the wonderful braising liquor that was flavoured with spices such as cinnamon, star anise, cloves, fennel and garlic and thickened with the deeply flavoured tendons. The Vietnamese noodle dish Pho instantly sprang to mind so I threw together this very quick supper the following night. It’s not a totally authentic version but it was absolutely delicious.

Ingredients: (made 2 big bowls)

300ml Beef tendon stock (approx)
100ml chicken stock (to top up the beef stock but if you have lots of tendon stock left you won’t need it)
glug of fish sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar
3cm piece thinly sliced fresh ginger cut into matchsticks
leftover beef tendon cut into small pieces
flat rice noodles
thinly sliced raw sirloin

To garnish:

thinly sliced red chilli
bean sprouts
mint
coriander
thinly sliced red onion
wedge of lime

Method:

Combine the stocks in a saucepan and simmer, add the ginger, fish sauce, palm sugar and continue to simmer for a few minutes.
Place noodles in a big bowl and top with sliced sirloin and beef tendon, add a handful of bean sprouts then pour over the stock then sprinkle over your garnishes and dive in.

Easy Easter Baking: Chocolate Mini Egg Swirls

March 27, 2013Leave a comment

I love chocolate mini eggs and I REALLY love the fact that Easter means that they’re usually on special offer, I even love them enough to want to get the pastry out and get baking.

If you haven’t bought the book Bread Revolution by Thoughtful Bread yet or borrowed it from the library then I highly recommend it, thanks to that ace book I made the best cinnamon swirls ever which were my inspiration for these little beauties.

Instead of making a dough I just bought a pack of ready made, ready rolled puff pastry, it cost just £1 and was brilliant, life’s too short for making your own puff pastry I reckon.

Ingredients: Makes about 10 swirls.

150g soft brown sugar (I used dark)
100g plain flour
120g unsalted butter, cubed
25g ground almonds
1 x 375g pack ready rolled puff pastry
300g chocolate mini eggs
milk
2 tablespoons vanilla icing sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200C. Combine the sugar, flour, butter and ground almonds in a food processor and blitz until completely mixed and powdery.
Lay out the puff pastry, brush with some milk then cover with the flour mix then dot with the mini eggs.
Roll up the pastry very tightly and brush the ends with more milk to help the seams stick, then using a very sharp knife cut a thick slice (about 3cm thick) then use a second knife to help transfer the slice onto a baking paper covered roasting tray. Repeat leaving about 3cms around each round.

5. Bake for 15minutes on the middle shelf then reduce temp to 180C and continue to cook for about 8-10 minutes or until pastry is lightly golden. My oven is really temperamental so just keep an eye on the first batch. Once cooked transfer onto a cooling rack, dust with vanilla icing sugar whilst hot then once again when cold if you have any swirls that made it that long without being snaffled.

Great to make with kids over Easter

Chilli Cheese Profiteroles with Chicken Fat Porcini Béchamel Filling

March 19, 2013March 22, 20136 Comments

The secret is all in the rendered chicken fat…

Savoury profiteroles are my new friend. Yesterday I picked up a kilo of spring onions from the reduced section of the supermarket for just 65p which suddenly meant I needed to make lots of spring onion recipes. Cheese and onion is one of my favourite pairings and as I was looking along the spines of my cookbooks for inspiration I clocked my Secrets of Eclairs book, eureka! Savoury Choux bites! I spent the entire day making lots of different variations, the base of this recipe I created for my Chilli Cheese Bites recipe for Domestic Sluttery and then tweaked it to make these profiteroles.

Now this filling is rather special. Yesterday I also picked up half a dozen skin-on chicken thighs for a creole curry, on a nod *ahem* to healthy living I put a bit of butter in the base of a deep frying pan added a few caraway seeds then put the seasoned thighs, skin side down into the pan and gently fried them (without moving them at all) so the chicken fat rendered out into the pan. The thighs were then lifted out, the crispy skin promptly scoffed as a cook’s perk (all healthy eating notions go right out of my kitchen window the moment crispy chicken skin is about) and the fat poured into a bowl and set to one side whilst I carried on making the curry. This deeply flavoured, seasoned fat also had the added bonus of a gentle caraway flavour and was to form the basis of a seriously naughty porcini béchamel filling.

These awesome bites are best eaten straight away and cooked in batches as you need them but you can also reheat them gently if you need to by popping them in the oven at 190C for a few minutes and they will go nice and crispy again and the filling will warm and ooze….

Ingredients:

For the smoky chilli choux:

10 spring onions, chopped
1 dried chipotle chilli, mashed into flakes (I get mine in bulk from Edible Ornamentals)
1 tablespoon rendered chicken fat*
70g butter, diced
175ml water
big pinch Halen Môn sea salt flakes
120g plain flour
4 large free range eggs, beaten
100g extra mature cheddar cheese, grated
25g grana padano cheese, freshly grated
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons garlic granules
pinch freshly grated nutmeg
freshly ground black pepper

For the filling

About 100ml rendered chicken fat* (with caraway)
plain flour (enough to make a roux, approx 1 mug-ish)
milk (as much as it needs to get the right consistency)
2 heaped tablespoons of porcini powder (blitz dried porcini in a coffee grinder)
1 teaspoon powdered veg stock (I use Essential Cuisine)
50g grated extra mature cheese
sea salt and white pepper

*how to make the rendered chicken fat is described in the introduction

Method:

Preheat oven to 220C. Gently fry the spring onions and chipotle in a tablespoon of the chicken fat for about 2 minutes to soften the onions then put to one side to cool.
Put the butter, water and salt in a saucepan and bring to the boil, remove from heat and dump all the flour in at once, stir vigorously to mix and return to a medium heat mixing constantly for about 2 minutes, the choux will have come away from the sides of the pan and be all glossy. Put the choux into a big cold mixing bowl and leave to cool for a few minutes.
Use an electric whisk to beat the choux mix whist adding the eggs about a tablespoon at a time whist continually beating until all the mixture is combined and smooth.
Add the cheeses, spring onion, grated nutmeg, garlic, thyme and seasoning.
Line a roasting tin with some baking parchment that you have greased with a bit of chicken fat then using a piping bag with a 1cm plain nozzle pipe balls of choux about the size of a cherry tomato all over the tray leaving about 3cm around each one as they will expand during cooking.
Make the filling by heating the fat then adding the flour and stirring for a few minutes to cook out the flour, add the milk gradually until you get a nice thick sauce mixture then add the remaining ingredients, if it gets too thick just stir in more milk.
Bake the choux balls for 10mins at 220C (top shelf in my oven) so they puff up then reduce temp to 190C and continue to bake for about 7 minutes or until they are golden and crispy (don’t open the oven door for the first 10 minutes to avoid them collapsing).
Once cooked use another piping bag to pipe in your filling to the hollow centre or alternatively just slice and fill.

Vegan Soup Mix “Sushi”

March 17, 2013Leave a comment

Yes, yes I know this isn’t sushi, sushi means vinegared rice and this recipe contains neither but it seems the easiest way to kind of describe the dish to non Japanese speakers….

I bought a packet of “soup mix” the other day, it contained various dried grains, lentils, peas etc and cost about 60p for 500g. A friend had been urban foraging and generously given me a beautiful large crown prince pumpkin so these were to form the basis for that night’s dinner. As I cooked the soup mix I kept tasting bits, I wanted it so it was still pretty firm in texture yet soft enough to eat and once it reached that exact moment the idea for this dish was born. Obviously you need to make sure that the mix you use doesn’t contain any ingredients that need pre-soaking or can be harmful if eaten al-dente.

Ingredients:

200g Morrisons own brand soup mix grains and pulses
1 tablespoon dark brown miso
1 crown prince pumpkin, peeled, seeds removed and thickly slices
1 tblsp Cotswold Gold rapeseed oil (or other nutty oil)
tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp garlic granules
1 tsp nigella
salt and pepper
red onion, thinly sliced
diced cucumber
small stick celery, chopped
lollo rosso leaves, torn into pieces
nori sheets
tamari
wasabi paste

Method:

Combine the pumpkin, oil, cumin, garlic, nigella, salt and pepper and roast in a hot oven until the pumpkin is soft, set aside to cool.
Cook the soup mix in water that has the miso dissolved in it, cook for about half the packet recommended cooking time, the pulses should still have a good nutty texture to them, drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process.
Add the onion, cucumber, celery and lollo rosso to the soup mix and combine well.
Make a potent dip by combining some tamari with a generous dollop of fiery wasabi and mix well.
Lay out a sheet of nori, spoon over a layer of soup mix/salad and top with a slice of pumpkin, roll then immediately dip in the sauce and eat. Make each one as you go otherwise the seaweed will go soggy.

Comforting Barley and Sherry Soup

March 17, 2013March 17, 2013Leave a comment

When it comes to quick and easy comfort food to brighten up yet another snowy day there are few things that beat a filling barley soup. It’s basically the soup that keeps on giving as the next day (if you’ve any left) the grains will have swollen and soaked up more of the soothing liquid and transformed it into a rib sticking stew.

If you are familiar with this blog you will already know my love for using a rich, full bodied cream sherry in my dishes, it’s much cheaper than Marsala which I also adore using and kept nice and chilled in the fridge makes for a nice little cook’s tot as the soup gently simmers.

There’s a lot of snobbery about sherry, especially when it comes to cream sherries, I’ve never understood this, it’s often from people who care more about what their food looks like and who made it rather than what it actually tastes like. To those people I say embrace ingredients, ditch the wanky food snobbery and fill your bellies with this really cheap and ace soup/stew/bowl of comfort 🙂

Ingredients:

knob of butter
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 tsp dried fennel seeds (plus extra to serve)
2 carrots, diced
2 mugs of dried pearl barley
750ml- 1L stock approx (I use a mixture of chicken and veg from Essential Cuisine)
1 tsp garlic granules
2 bayleaves
1 tsp dried thyme
1 courgette, diced
75ml cream sherry (ish)
celery salt and white pepper
handful of chopped fresh carrot tops

Method:

Melt the butter in a big saucepan, add the carrots, onion, garlic, fennel seeds and cook for a couple of minutes whilst stirring.
Add the barley, thyme, bay leaves, garlic granules and stock. Bring to a boil then simmer for about 15 minutes, add more water if needed.
Add the diced courgette and sherry, continue to cook until barley is cooked then season with celery salt and pepper and stir in most of the carrot tops.
Serve topped with a few fennel seeds and carrot leaves

Psychedelic Meat Treat – Ham Hock, Beetroot and Horseradish Terrine

March 2, 2013March 2, 20134 Comments

I love making terrines, you can take a few really cheap ingredients and turn them into something pretty impressive looking that tastes ace and feeds loads of people with very little effort.

Normally I make a pig head terrine with edible flowers one but I fancied something a bit different so picked up a lovely gammon hock from my butchers, Derek Jones (Just £1.38), and a few trotters and I was good to go. Unlike most people’s versions I always like to include quite a bit of the jelly in the terrine as it’s packed full of flavour and when spread over hot toast it makes the perfect butter substitute as it instantly melts into loveliness in a way that butter just can’t live up to.

Ingredients:

2 x gammon hocks
few sticks celery
1 red onion, halved
few carrots
4 cloves garlic
bouquet garni (few bits from the garden: bay, thyme, sage etc)
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
few peppercorns
3 pigs trotters
200g cornichons, chopped
1/2 beetroot, peeled and V-sliced into matchsticks
2 tablespoon grated horseradish (I used a Polish horseradish and chilli mix that has no cream)
handful chopped parsley

Method:

Put your hocks, trotter, carrots, celery, onions, garlic and herbs (except parsley) into a big pot. Cover with cold water, add the fennel and peppercorns and bring to s simmer, and cook very gently for about 2 1/2 hours or until the meat is falling away from the bones when gently pulled.
Remove the meat and reduce the stock by about half and strain.
Pick the meat from the hocks and trotters and allow to cool.
Ina big bowl combine the meat, chopped cornichons, parsley, horseradish, beetroot and plenty of pepper, taste and see if it needs a bit more horseradish.
Put the mix in your moulds, I used a big silicon loaf tin and silicon cupcake tray.
Pour over the reduced stock and chill in the fridge overnight.

*Any excess stock you can just pop in a jar and keep in the fridge, spread it on toast, add it to risottos, soups, stews,gravies, whatever takes your fancy. It’s packed full of flavour and is just absolute kitchen gold.

ham hock beetroot and horseradish terrine

Slice and look how pretty it is

Jasmine Braised Chinese Beef Ribs

August 27, 20124 Comments

Bank holiday Monday morning and I found myself rummaging through the freezer for some meat to cook. It’s always at this point that I get annoyed with myself for hardly ever writing on the brown paper packages at least some form of hint as to their contents. There’s mostly guess work involved trying to figure out if that roundish looking parcel is ox liver or cheek just by feeling the frozen bumps and texture through the paper. I really should use up some more of that beef tallow that I’ve got stored in there as it’s just annoying the hell out of me now, new rule: nothing goes in the freezer that I can’t eat or drink.

Anyway, I pulled out a bag of beef ribs that I had actually remembered to write on with a Sharpie. I have no potatoes or pasta in the house today so rice was going to be my carbs, therefore a Chinese inspired dish for this grey, windy holiday was in order.

If I took all the jars out of my fridge at the moment there would just be milk and a bit of Grana Padano cheese left staring back at me. Many of these jars are Chinese preserved and fermented vegetables that can turn what looks like a few sad vegetables lying in the salad drawer into a quick and tasty dinner in under 15 minutes.

I defrosted the ribs and set about making my marinade for them. I would need a bit of braising sauce for their long cook in the oven and as I had no sherry I decided to use jasmine tea as a base. It turned out that it really worked well with the dense beef, it was subtle but you could definitely tell it was there (although I did sex it up with a bit of lapsang souchong for a touch of smokiness).

Defrosting, marinading and after 4 1/2 hrs slow braise under foil

Ingredients:

Beef ribs
lime (to serve)
rice

For the marinade:

1 heaped teaspoon Chinese 5 Spice
3 balls preserved stem ginger, chopped
1 tablespoon dried garlic slivers
1 teaspoon dried ginger
1 heaped teaspoon hot fermented black bean paste
1 heaped teaspoon Hong You Dou Ban (hot broadbean paste)
3 tablespoons syrupy blackberry vinegar

For the braising liquid:

3 Jasmine teabags
1 cup water
1 teaspoon good lapsang souchong tea strands
1 teaspoon Essential Cuisine powdered beef stock

Method:

Combine the marinade ingredients then cover the ribs and leave for about an hour. Put a bit of oil in a roasting pan and heat it on the hob, add your ribs and turn every now and again until all the sides are caramelised then add your braising liquid, cover tightly with foil and put in an oven preheated to 170C. Cook for about 4 hours, basting every now and again. Serve with steamed rice and spoon over the incredible pan juices. A squeeze of lime over the top will cut through the richness perfectly (unless you have calamansi then use that).

Pig’s head terrine with edible flowers and crispy pig’s ear scratchings

May 31, 2012August 16, 2012Leave a comment

Whilst the process of making pig’s head terrine (also known as brawn or head cheese) may not be for the squeamish, sometimes in order to make something beautiful you have to get your hands dirty.

The idea of combining pig face with flowers is not simply a visual one. Although using the violets does make it look very pretty I wanted to use the flowers of herbs such as sage, thyme, chives and parsley to create little bursts of intense herbal notes through the dish.

I had a look online for various recipes, but none of them really worked for me in terms of flavour so I turned to Fergus Henderson‘s Nose To Tail Eating as a rough guide and decided to make it up as I went along using whatever I had to hand in the veg rack and garden. £3.30 worth of meat from the butcher made 2 big terrines. Bargain.

Washed thoroughly and in the pot ready to go

My butcher provided me with 1 split pig’s head (£3) and 2 trotters (30p).

Ingredients: Makes 2 terrines

Stock pot:

1 pig head
2 trotters
3 carrots, peeled
1 leek, cut in thirds
3 celery sticks
2 onions, quatered
2 bulbs garlic, halved
handful of fennel seeds
tablespoon coriander seeds
6 sage leaves
stems from a bunch of parsley
1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
handful dried sliced garlic
1 tablespoon lapsang souchong strands

Then:

bunch of chopped chives
chopped parsley
chopped fennel fronds
saffron strands
chive flowers
sage flowers
thyme flowers
parsley flowers
violets
Halen Môn salt flakes
freshly ground pepper

Method:

1: Rinse the head and trotters thoroughly and remove the ears (if you are making the crispy pigs ear scratchings) and clean the wax out (I have a little brush that’s only reason for existing in my kitchen is to clean the wax out of severed pigs’ ears) then put in a massive pot, cover with cold water and bring to a boil, lots of scum will rise to the surface. Drain of water, refill pot with fresh water, add the rest of the stock pot ingredients and bring to a simmer.

Head, ears and trotters at the bottom then veg and spices added

2: After about 2 hours remove the 2 ears and set aside to dry thoroughly. Continue to simmer the head and trotters for about another 2-3 hours or until the flesh is starting to fall away from the skull.

3: Remove the head and trotters and set aside. Strain the stock through a sieve ( I usually do it a few times) to remove all bits and return to the pot and reduce by about two thirds. Taste and add salt and saffron.

4: Remove meat from the head. How much of the head you use is entirely up to you. I only had 2 terrines to fill so used the meat and skinned the tongue and used this too but some use the snout and fat also.Chop your meat and combine with chopped herbs and black pepper.

5: Line your terrines with cling film and place a few violets and chives on the bottom. This will of course become the top, it makes it look pretty. Add your meat then fill with reduced stock. Bang the filled dish against the worktop a couple of times to get rid of any bubbles and make sure your stock gets to the bottom. Cover with cling film and chill overnight to set.

6: The following day just gently turn it out, admire your amazingness then make some toast, slather it in butter and top with your terrine.

Pig Face and Flowers version 1 with less flowers

Crispy Pig’s Ear Scratchings:

These are seriously good! Once the ears were cooked in the stock I just treated them as I would when making regular pork scratchings. Just whack the oven on full, make sure the ears are completely dry (they will be really sticky though) then using sharp kitchen scissors cut them into strips and put on a grill tray over a roasting tin, sprinkle with Halen Môn salt, cook until crispy and serve with a kickass dip.

Next time I make them I will probably braise the ears in a chinese broth first if I’m not making a terrine at the same time.

Dip: