Egg Wash Tips

When next choosing a pastry brush, consider a traditional brush, one made with goose feathers.
A conventional pastry brush made with synthetic bristles can become irritating when they become brittle through constant washing and drying, for they loose their bristles and often over your pastry.

A pastry brush made with goose feathers however, is naturally born to withstand getting wet and dry on a daily basis.

A goose feathered brush will never loose its fibres, it will give you a perfect covering of egg wash each and everytime.

Lastly remember when egg washing your pastry to add a few drops of cold water to your egg wash, this will help breakdown the enzymes in the white of the egg. Having done so, you can then apply the egg wash evenly and without any snail trails of the egg white covering your delicate pastries.

If you would like to purchase a goose feathered pastry brush, then contact me and I'll put you in touch with the lady who makes them.

By the way those sausage rolls above tasted scrummy!

Coppa Ham

Coppa Ham is Italian and as it's name translates and suggests it is made from the neck (nape) muscle of the pig. Above we can see some Coppa wrapped in ox-casings this offers protection to the ham by allowing the meat inside to remain supple without being over air-dried.

Coppa ham air-drying alongside some salami and saucisson sec.

Here is Maria Elia at the infamous cookery school "Thyme at Southrop" demonstrating the butchery of a pork shoulder and how to find the nape muscle to cure as a Coppa ham.

Maria explains not only the butchery but also shares a cure recipe and some tips on how to make your own Coppa.

Place your nape muscle in a plastic bag and add 30g of curing salts per kilo of meat along with some added Italian flavours; fennel seeds, crushed juniper berries, celery salt, thyme and vanilla salt. Massage in all the ingredients ensuring all the nooks and crannies are in touch with the cure, expel as much air as you can from the bag and tie/seal the opening the best you can.

Place in your fridge for 3 weeks turning daily, thereafter pat dry the ham and hang to air-dry for at least 3 weeks before slicing thinly and serving. Aim for a 25% - 35% weight loss as this will indicate when it is ready.

Adding sugar to cured meats will counter balance the nitrates thus stopping the meat becoming too firm, so if you wish to have a sweet tasting cured meat but still of a firm texture then Maria suggests using vanilla salt. You make vanilla salt as you would vanilla sugar by placing your discarded vanilla pods into a jar of curing salt, when applied as part of your cure mix it will impart a sweet flavour to your ham.

Have a go yourself, you know it makes sense!

Checkout http://www.thymeatsouthrop.co.uk/ for charcuterie courses.

Checkout http://www.thisismariaelia.com for she is a unique talent.

Ham, Bacon or Gammon ?

Did you know? Regardless of where on the pig, if you apply salt to the pork it is then known as ham, bacon or gammon. Confusing right? Myself I try to simplify the terminology by applying this method, follow me and see if you agree.

Imagine a pig laid out in front of you, cut off it's head, now cut away the shoulder & hand after the fifth rib, cut away the pig middle from the leg. We now have 4 pieces of pork, with me so far?

If I was to salt the head, I would then refer to it as a cured pigs head.

The shoulder & hand I would probally seperate into two pieces and if I salted these I would refer to them as collared bacon for the shoulder and a cured hand of pork.

The pig middle as a whole piece salted, I would refer to as whole or middle bacon, if I were to seperate the belly pork from the loin and salt these individually, then I would refer to them as streaky bacon (belly) and shortback bacon (loin).

The leg of pork can be called a ham, but I prefer to call it a leg of pork, when salted it is then I refer to it as a ham. If I were to break it down into smaller joints, I would refer to them being gammon joints or smaller still as gammon steaks.

Do you agree with me in this explanation?

When to Stuff a Bird

Well its approaching Christmas now and most of us will be eating a bird of some kind or another, the question I'm asked most often is; do I stuff my bird and if so with what?



Excuse me a moment whilst I go and quieten my closest friends! "Keep quiet you lot! I'm trying to be serious here for my food blog followers".

Sorry about that! Right where was I? Oh yes, the answer to the question is; you should always stuff your bird if cooking it whole as this will aid in keeping the breast meat moist.

If you cook a whole bird with its cavity empty, then the heat will circulate in the chamber and it will rise and dry out the breast meat.

You can if you so wish just place some vegetables inside the cavity, vegetables with moisture are best like potatoes, carrots, leeks, onion or better still citrus fruits like lemons. These will not only help keep the breast meat moist but they will offer aromatics to the flavour of your meat.

Don't forget to remove the wishbone before stuffing your bird from both ends, I use an oyster shucker to do this as it avoids any cuts to your hands.

If using breadcrumb based stuffings, whether homemade or shop bought, then cook them first before placing inside the cavity. The reason for this is simple, an oven roasted bird will cook from the outside inwards and if it has to reach and cook the stuffing aswell then the meat is at risk of drying out. However if the stuffing is already cooked then the bird only needs to be cooked through and the cooked stuffing will look after itself.

For the best results, brine your bird overnight before using as this will enhance the flavours, use 30g of salt to each litre of water used and add any herbs and spices to your liking, avoid using any metallic containers. Make sure you thoroughly dry your bird off before cooking.

Bon Appetite!

Thinking of fish this Christmas?

Are you fed up with turkey for Christmas, if you are, then consider fish and support your local fishmonger or maybe visit your local smokery. I hope the following pictures inspire you to try something different.

Thank's for looking, I'm off to Jacksons now to get myself some salmon, which I'll cure and smoke myself.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Herrings

Think of Herrings or Kippers and few places come to mind, for me the Manx kipper is a forerunner, but that is of no surprise given I spent most of my childhood in Lancashire. The next most famous place for these Silver Darlings as they are known locally is Clovelly in north Devon.
You may of heard of this small pretty village, for it also boasts of being a village with no vehicle access, no holiday homes are allowed only full time residents, the road surface is made up of beach pebbles, donkeys are used to move materials and personal shopping around the village.

Once a year and that happened to be today, the village celebrates the herring by holding a festival, with shanty bands, local producers of great food & drink and much more.

Once you have carfully negotiated the pebble streets, you eventually reach the small harbour along with all the small stallholders and one interesting stallholder was the "Kipperman" complete with his portable smokehouse (Kipper House).

The Kipperman being Mike Smylie. A man who proudly shares information on the history of the herring and the recipes that can be applied using this silver darling.

Here you can see that Mike has his smokehouse full of Bloaters, which are being hot smoked, these being whole herring complete with guts.

Mike is not a resident of Clovelly, for he travels extensively promoting this delicacy, so if you wish to book him for your fish festival then check him out at www.kipperman.co.uk

As you can see for yourself, Mike was having a brisk trade!

Mind you, it would please Mike more if you learnt how to smoke your own fish!

If you do visit Clovelly, then don't forget to checkout the cave behind the waterfall, which incidentally is only yards away from the lifeboat jetty, why? well it is reputed that the Wizard Merlin was born in this cave.

I'll remember this wonderful village each time I make the following;

Kipperman's Kipper Pate

4 Craster kippers (or simila quality)

3oz Butter

Juice of 2 lemons

1 Clove of garlic

Olive oil

Ground pepper

Shot of Metaxa or similar

Rough chop garlic and add to olive oil.

Blend using hand mixer.

Remove flesh from kippers and add to bowl with lemon juice, pepper, butter and Metaxa.

Blend well and chill in fridge before serving on oatcakes.