Category: ham

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food gammon ham peas stock

heston blumenthal’s pea and ham soup

heston blumenthal's pea and ham soup

“You don’t like small food, do you?”

That’s something someone said about my eating habits a few years back. It’s not completely accurate but did draw together a few of my food hates: sweetcorn, baked beans and peas. Baked beans remain the work of the devil, I’m still not really sold on sweetcorn (why does it always end up in tuna?) but over the years I have grown to accept peas. And if any recipe is going to fully convince me of the power of the pea, it’s a Heston one. I was sent this recipe by someone who knows of my Hesotn obsession, and comes from his new book Heston Blumenthal at Home.

It’s refreshingly free of bonkers twists, as long as you discount defrosting frozen peas. Oh yes, frozen peas – I think most chefs now accept frozen is the way to have peas if they’re not straight from your garden. And the peas are barely cooked so they retain their vibrant colour and fresh taste.

The finishing touch, as is so common with Heston recipes (I’m looking at you, vanilla salt), the thing that just makes it. A few drops of mint oil is a crystal clear note among the comforting, meaty flavours.

It’s absolutely delicious. Creamy and fresh, with a round, savoury flavour that is amplified in all directions. Do try it, it’s brilliant.

Heston Blumenthal’s pea and ham soup (serves 4):

1kg gammon joint

1 onion, peeled and sliced

1 carrot, peeled and sliced

1 leek, white part only, rinsed and sliced

8 mint leaves

30ml extra virgin olive oil

900g frozen peas

65g butter, diced

75g shallots, finely diced

1 clove of garlic, minced

160g unsmoked bacon, cut into lardons

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 85°C. Pop the gammon, onion, leek and carrot into a casserole and barely cover with water. Bring to a simmer on the hob, pop a lid on it and transfer to the oven for 5 hours.
  2. While the gammon cooks, put the mint in the oil and leave in a warm place to infuse. Line a baking tray with kitchen roll and layer the frozen peas on this to defrost and absorb excess moisture.
  3. When the gammon is done, let the meat cool in the liquor. Sieve off the solids (Heston then says to discard the veg, but I squeezed out the excess juice and mixed with mash the following day for fab bubble ‘n’ squeak). Then shred 180g of the meat for the soup – the remainder you can keep for another day.
  4. Get a large frying pan over a low heat and add 25g of the butter. Ad the bacon, shallots and garlic and sizzle for five minutes so they soften but do not colour.
  5. Add 750ml of the gammon stock and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes. Add all but 75g of the peas and the rest of the butter and remove from the heat. Liquidize then strain through a sieve, squishing thoroughly to get as much good stuff in the pan as possible. Season to taste and reheat gently.
  6. Use a hand blender to aerate and thicken the soup, then add the reserved gammon and remaining peas. Allow these to warm up and then serve, drizzling with mint oil.
Categories
cloves gammon ham honey

honey-glazed christmas ham

I absolutely adore a ham or gammon at Christmas. My Mum always had one hanging around the house from Christmas Eve onwards, and it’s something I still do every year. I favour twice-cooking, a long boiling followed by a fierce blast in the oven with a sticky sauce dribbled over the top. I spotted Gordon Ramsay’s recipe from this year’s and knew I had to give it a try.

One of the key things that makes or breaks a dish like this is the quality of the meat. Start from a poorly-reared, not-looked-after anonymous pig and you’ll end up with a bland pointless dinner. It’ll probably be watery, tasteless and feel like a massive waste of time. Do you and your family a favour when buying gammon (or any other meat for that matter) – go up a level in the quality of meat you buy. Put the Basics range to one side and get something a little better. More expensive yes, but with a fuller flavour and the peace of mind that your animal had a decent life. Freedom Food, outdoor reared, outdoor bred, free-range or organic – these are the labels to look for.

If you’d like to learn more about pig welfare, please visit the RSPCA’s Think Pig Facebook page.

This recipe, based on Gordon Ramsay’s, was great. The key is to repeat the glazing over and over, every ten minutes or so. This will help deepen the flavour and form a beautifully sweet and tasty crust that’s irresistible. Aside from as a roast dinner, I also ate this with some bubble and squeak, as a sandwich and with some chutney. Then I also got a wicked stock to make a soup from, so although the meat is expensive in the first place it’s a dish that keeps on giving.

Adapted from a recipe by Gordon Ramsay. The original honey glazed ham recipe is here.

Honey-glazed Christmas ham:

2.5kg unsmoked gammon joint

4 carrots, roughly chopped

2 celery sticks, roughly chopped

1 onion, quartered

4 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

1 cinnamon stick

3 bay leaves

A handful of cloves

For the glaze:

100g golden caster sugar

50ml Marsala

25ml sherry vinegar

125g honey

  1. Put the gammon in a large pot along with the veg, peppercorns, coriander, cinnamon and bay. Barely cover with water, bring to the boil and leave to simmer for about 3 hours, or until you can easily sink a knife into it. Every so often skim and scum that floats to the surface. Allow the meat to rest in the liquor for at least half an hour, but any more or less wouldn’t hurt.
  2. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Melt the glaze ingredients together gently in a saucepan.
  3. Remove the skin from the gammon and score the fat in a pretty diamond pattern. Stud each diamond with a clove. Very gently trickle some glaze over the meat. Take your time and make sure the whole surface is covered. Pop in the oven.
  4. After 10 minutes take the ham out and repeat the glaze, again gently. Do this every 10 minutes until the gammon has cooked for 40 minutes, when the joint is a gorgeous golden brown. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before carving. It’s amazing, and brilliant cold too.
Categories
cheese ham rice

smoked cheddar and ham risotto

I’ve just got back from a trip to Suffolk. I managed to sample some great food in the area; the Queen’s Head in Woodbridge, the Old Mill House in Saxtead Green, and I fell in love with the mini Brighton-esque seaside town of Aldeburgh. A particular highlight was Lawson’s Delicatessen, a gorgeous shop stacked with olives, coffee ground to order, home-made pies and cakes, olive oil literally on tap, more cheeses than I can name and more besides. Brilliant, especially when caped off with local-caught cod and chips on the seafront.

The in-laws had advised me of a cracking deli, Emmett’s of Peasenhall. It’s been featured in Rick Stein’s Food Heroes, Delia Smith goes gaga over it, and it’s been around for 190 years. It’s a beautiful shop, bowling you over straight away with a tasting table where you can sample some of their bestsellers. Then you can peruse their pickled veg, the usual suspects of olives, chillis and artichokes. Then on to the confectioneries, where you can browse the chocolate-covered ginger, huge shards of chocolate studded with hazelnuts and many more.

Then there’s the glory: the cold meats counter. They smoke and cure their own meats onsite and take an awful lot of pride in their work. Something I went back for a couple of times was their Suffolk Black ham, all treacley and rich with a powerful cure flavour. Absolutely divine and worth a detour for. To take home with me I grabbed a couple of things: smoked Montgomery cheddar and ham offcuts. Contrary to the picture you get a great chunk of leftover bacon for just £1. So good.

I could just snack on both of these, but I wanted to do something that would celebrate both of these princely ingredients. So I settled on risotto, and boy did it do them justice: a smoky and rich risotto, packing a punch every mouthful. Great stuff.

If you ever find yourself passing through this area, pop in. You’ll be at least £50 worse off but you’ll take home a clutch of great stuff for the larder.

Smoked cheddar and bacon risotto:

200g smoked bacon lardons

1 onion, diced

200ml white wine

1 sprig of rosemary

4 handfuls of arborio risotto rice

500ml vegetable stock

50g smoked Montgomery cheddar, grated

½ teaspoon sesame oil

  1. Get the stock on to boil in a small pan. Fry the bacon in a little oil until coloured on all sides. Remove to one side for later.
  2. In the same pan as the bacon add the onion and fry over a gentle heat with the rosemary until the onion has softened.
  3. Add the rice and turn the heat right up. Keep tossing the rice around to get a lovely toasted edge to it. After a minute, add the wine and bubble away until the liquid has disappeared.
  4. Turn the heat down to medium and add a ladleful of stock. Push the rice around until the liquid is absorbed. Keeping adding a ladleful of stock at a time, allowing it to reduce until the rice has a lovely al dente texture. Discard the rosemary.
  5. Add the bacon back to the pan and stir the cheese through. Check for seasoning – probably won’t need any! – and serve with a swirl of sesame oil (not too much), grating a little extra cheese over.
Categories
artichoke cheese food ham olives sandwich

muffuletta

muffuletta wedge

Gor blimey I luv a sarnie. And the Americans really know how to do it. This Scooby snack of a sandwich is a New Orleans specialty, supposed to be a big enormous circular loaf that lasts a working man all day. The olive mix is the base of this, the rest is essentially a deli in a bun. As you sink your teeth through the bread you get all sorts of wonderful flavours popping through, pickled veg, smoked cheese, salty ham, sweet tomato… a real treat. The recipe listed below is a suggestion, nothing more. Add or delete as your cupboard and deli provide.

I first saw this sandwich back in 1998, back on the inspiring and pornographic Nigel Slater’s Real Food, where calm Kiwi cook Peter Gordon pressed layer upon layer of ingredient on to this bap. I salivated over it at the time then promptly never made it. Fastforward 11 years, I finally get round to it. If you want to see it, as with much of Channel 4’s content, it can now be seen on Youtube.

Muffuletta:

1 large round loaf, about 30cm across (focaccia works well)

Mixed olives

Sundried tomatoes

Sliced fresh tomato

Sliced artichoke

Parsley, chopped

Spring onions, sliced

Pancetta, grilled

Gruyere cheese, thinly sliced

  1. Slice the loaf horizontally and drizzle olive oil on both sides.
  2. Layer the ingredients as generously as you can. Season the fresh tomatoes when you get there. It’s also a good idea to dribble a little extra oil near the top layers to allow the flavours to be drawn down.
  3. Put the lid back on, cover with clingfilm and press down with tins and other heavy things. Leave for a couple of hours if possible.
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