Category: pork

Categories
gammon orange wine

gammon with a mulled wine glaze

I cannot get through the Christmas season without having a gammon nearby. And most years I come up with a new glaze to finish it off. I’ve blogged about lots of them. This year I wanted mulled wine with my gammon.

it’s very salty and strong, a slightly sweet flavour as well it’s one of my absolute favourites. We call it gammon in the UK: it’s the hind leg of a pork but just the top part so you get that big round of meat. just one of those weird quirks of Butchery that we have a joint called the Gammon which is a basically like bacon but a big joint of bacon or ham. like bacon it’s cured and usually smoked not always but not ready to eat. It needs cooking.

You can roast it in the oven, you’ll get a more intense flavour and it is relatively difficult to keep it tender with this method as all the fat in the joint is on the top – hardly any runs through the meat itself. You can cook it sous vide which I’ve done on this channel before where you have a lot of control over the cooking. Today I am going to cook it in the more traditional method of simmering on the hob with a load of aromatics. This is usually root veg and hardy herbs. The finished gammon is usually juicy and fairly mellow. Some people like to do a quick first simmer before replacing the water to remove impurities, I find this doesn’t seem to be a thing any more.

Mulled wine is a warm, spiced concoction that’s perfect for chilly evenings. It’s a blend of red wine, typically a robust one, infused with spices. Common additions include cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, and citrus zest, to make it rich, warming and aromatic. But to some extent it’s up to you what’s in the mix.

To prepare this comforting drink, you gently heat the wine with the spices, allowing the flavors to come together. Sweeteners like sugar or honey are often added to balance the robustness of the wine and enhance its overall warmth.

It’s perfect for the colder months and as such favoured at Christmas. I confess to also enjoying mulled cider too!

This recipe is very straight forward. Simmer the gammon for a couple of hours, then baste in a reduced mulled wine. It’s dead easy to do – the main thing to watch out for is overreducing the wine and burning your pan.

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mulled wine gammon

Course Main Course
Cuisine English
Keyword ham
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 3 hours
Total Time 3 hours 10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 750 g smoked gammon joint any size will do
  • assorted root veg for the stock onions, carrots, etc
  • 350 ml mulled wine
  • 1 clementine or other small orange citrus
  • 1 heaped tablespoon icing sugar

Instructions

  • Put the gammon in a large pot with any old veg and if you have it, a spoon of black peppercorns and hardy herbs like bay. But no worries if you don't. Cover with water, bring to a simmer and bubble away for about 2 hours. The gammon is cooked when a skewer is inserted and removed easily. Allow it to cool in the broth for 30 minutes.
  • Meanwhile reduce the mulled wine. Add the halved orange and icing sugar and boil really hard. Keep boiling and bubbling until it is sticky.
  • Preheat the oven to 200°C. Transfer the gammon to a rimmed baking dish. Baste the meat in all the wine generously and place in the oven. Every 5 minutes pull the gammon out and spoon on the glaze that has collected in the pan. Keep going for 20-30 minutes until the glaze has hardened and crystallized. Remove from the oven and carve.

Video

Notes

If you don't have any mulled wine, take a full-flavoured or robust red wine and simmer it with cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg and other sweet spices. 
Categories
chicken chorizo food spring onion sweetcorn

chicken, chorizo and sweetcorn pizza

I recently took a trip to Gordon Ramsay’s Street Pizza in St Paul’s. They offer a bottomless pizza option where the pizza is cooked constantly and is then brought round. Grab a slice of what you like!

The pizzas were all great. Even the ham and pineapple was a step above – shredded gammon, strips of pineapple but the fresh pecorino was the finishing touch.

However the one I loved was chicken and chorizo, with a sweetcorn puree base. It was a perfect combo! So much so, I had to make it myself:

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chicken, chorizo and sweetcorn pizza

Course Main Course
Prep Time 2 hours
Cook Time 5 minutes
Servings 23 people

Equipment

  • pizza stone

Ingredients

  • 400 g strong flour
  • 1 teaspoon dried yeast
  • 2 teaspoons sea salt
  • 250 ml lukewarm water
  • 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

For the sweetcorn puree:

  • 198 g tin sweetcorn
  • 2 teaspoons creme fraiche
  • lemon juice

Other toppings:

  • 50 g mozzarella
  • 100 g shredded cooked chicken
  • 5-6 slices chorizo
  • 2 spring onions
  • coriander or parsley to garnish

Instructions

  • To make the pizza dough, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and then turn out on to a worktop. Knead thoroughly for 10 minutes until stretchy and elastic. Form into 2-3 balls and put into an oiled bowl. Cover with a teatowel and leave to rise in a warm place for 90 minutes.
  • Meanwhile make the puree. Blitz all the ingredients together and season with salt and pepper. Push through a sieve to remove the skins and keep refrigerated until needed.
  • After 90 minutes, preheat the oven as high as it will go with a pizza stone in. Roll out the dough on a floured surface. Add the sweetcorn puree and add the other toppings to taste. Cook for 4-5 minutes until golden and risen. Serve immediately.

Video

Categories
butter beans chorizo food tomato

chorizo and butter bean stew

Popped round a friend’s for dinner. It was supposed to be out for tapas – but it turns out that restaurant was closed. On a Saturday! Don’t worry they said, we have just the recipe. And this is it!

Originally this comes from a Waitrose magazine, but as recipes do they get twisted and transformed along the way until they are just the way you like it. Meaty chorizo gives it bags of flavour, tomatoes are sweet/sour and butter beans are soft and comforting.

It also keeps great in the fridge or freezer, scales up well for a crowd – it’s a keeper! For posterity, I asked for a copy and stashing it here on the blog so I have a copy always on hand. Thanks for the recipe!

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chorizo and butter bean stew

This tasty stew suits any time of year, but especially the tail end of summer when you're clinging on the last of the warmth.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Spanish
Keyword tapas
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings 4
Calories 369kcal

Ingredients

  • 250 g chorizo sliced
  • 1 onion finely chopped
  • 2 sticks celery finely chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic crushed
  • 1 courgette sliced
  • 150 ml dry white wine
  • 400 g tinned tomatoes
  • 1 tin butter beans drained

Instructions

  • Fry the chorizo in a large, non-stick frying pan until it releases its oil. Add the onion, celery and courgette and cook until softened. Add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds to spread the garlicky flavour around.
  • Turn up the heat and add the wine. Bubble away until there's a thick syrup at the bottom. Add tomatoes to the pan and reduce the heat, simmering for 15 minutes. Stir occasionally to break up the tomatoes, until the sauce has thickened.
  • Stir in the butter beans and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Check seasoning, then garnish with chopped flat leaf parsley and serve with a tomato salad, and crusty bread to mop up the juices.

Notes

Very easy to swap out the beans for any beans or pulses you have that need using up. Puy lentils or chickpeas would be great. This also serves well alongside many things like a jacket potato, rice or tortillas. Serve in smaller amounts with other dishes for a great tapas.
Categories
bacon egg food ice cream milk

heston blumenthal’s egg and bacon ice cream

Heston Blumenthal was born in West London in 1966. His childhood fed many of his culinary fantasies he was to later draw upon and revisit: from fish and chips at Norman’s Plaice, to ice cream at the Regent Snack Bar. Breakfast and ice cream recur throughout his career, and the confluence of those is one I’m going to look at and cook today: egg and bacon ice cream.

This recipe, like so many of Heston’s, was born out of obsession and one of the first foods he investigated in depth at The Fat Duck restaurant. He wanted to find the perfect creamy mixture, with bold flavours, and yet not tasting too eggy. Not every ice cream recipe needs eggs but egg is an emulsifier that suspends butterfat particles and creates richer, creamier ice cream that stores really well. Searching for the perfect ice cream he began to experiment with all the variables, tweaking egg volume, freezing time, sugar content. After pushing received wisdom that custard bases should be cooked no higher than 85°c, his pastry chef Jocky Petrie commented that the overheated result “looked just like scrambled egg”. This eureka moment sent Heston off in a breakfast direction, remembering how much egg and bacon was a special treat growing up. After some refinement the dish first appeared on the menu at the Fat Duck restaurant in 2000.

The original plating in 2000

It might surprise you that this recipe uses milk powder. Heston has long favoured ice cream recipes with a low sugar content. Not for dietary reasons, but to create a denser texture and heightened flavours. Because of reduced fat and sugar, this recipe is high in egg yolks. The skimmed milk powder stops the ice cream from crystallising to create richness yet light and clean.

There are two published versions of the recipe: the uber-recipe from The Fat Duck Cookbook is an unsurprisingly complex and multi-layered affair, with tea jellies and tomato compotes. But there’s also the comparatively laid back version in Heston at Home, which is what I’ve emulated here: with the ice cream served with an egg-soaked bread and candied bacon. Much more approachable and likely more crowd pleasing.

The original recipe requires dry ice. I wasn’t willing to stretch to this – I can’t find it for under £37 – but instead used my ice cream maker for the final step. It may not be truly authentic but at least it’s Heston’s own endorsed model?

The result is a surprising and playful dessert that combines sweet, creamy ice cream with the savoury and smoky flavours of bacon. The Egg and Bacon Ice Cream reflects Blumenthal’s signature style of molecular gastronomy, where he combines unexpected ingredients and techniques to create unconventional but delicious dishes.

It is terrific. Really, super tasty. If you like dishes that combine sweet and salty flavours this is the one for you. The ice cream has a sweet but smoky flavour with a slightly ‘chunky’ texture and is a real winner. But the pain perdu / french toast / eggy bread is stunning. With a glass-like finish and sweet, chewy middle it’s sensational and worth having with other desserts.

Here’s a variation on the recipe served in egg shells.

And here’s Aldo’s version from BigFatUndertaking.

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egg and bacon ice cream

Heston Blumenthal's ice cream inspired dessert is french toast with a twist of sweet / savoury ice cream.
Course Dessert
Cuisine British
Keyword savoury, sweet
Servings 2 people
Calories 609kcal

Equipment

  • Ice cream machine

Ingredients

For the ice cream base:

  • 66 g sweet-cured smoked back bacon
  • 166 g full-cream milk
  • 5 g semi-skimmed milk powder
  • 4 large egg yolks
  • 20 g caster sugar

For the pain perdu:

  • clarified butter
  • 2 slices brioche stale (refrigerate overnight in a container to speed this up)
  • 100 g milk
  • 1 egg
  • 10 g golden caster sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

For the caramelised bacon:

  • 2 slices smoked bacon
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar

Instructions

For the ice cream base and caramelised bacon:

  • To start the ice-cream base, preheat the grill to high. Lay the bacon slices on a baking tray lined with baking paper and place under the grill for 5-7 minutes or until crisp.
  • At the same time mix the syrup, salt and sugar together and then brush on two more bacon slices and grill with the other bacon. When this is cooked refrigerate until needed.
  • When the initial bacon is cooked, drain on kitchen paper and cut it into strips. Place in a bowl, pour over the milk then refrigerate to infuse overnight.
  • The next day, put the milk and bacon into a saucepan and add the milk powder. Place over a medium-low heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Remove from the heat and strain off the bacon.
  • In the meantime, blitz the egg yolks and sugar together using a hand blender. Combine the egg mixture with the warm milk and return the pan to the heat. Warm the liquid until it just reaches 90ºC.
  • Once this temperature has been reached, remove the pan from the heat and pass the ice-cream base through a fine sieve into a clean container over iced water, pushing the custard through with the back of a spoon. Transfer to an ice cream machine and churn until done. Freeze until needed.

For the pain perdu:

  • Mix the egg, milk, vanilla and sugar together. Dunk the bread in to soak for 20 minutes. After this time remove the bread to a rack to drain for a couple of minutes.
  • Melt a tablespoon of clarified butter in a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Add the bread and fry on all sides, remove and place on paper towel to absorb any excess fat.
  • Wipe the pan out then place it over a medium-high heat. Add enough sugar to cover the bottom of the pan and allow to melt.
  • Once the sugar has completely melted and caramelised, add the bread and cover every side. Once coated on all sides, remove the bread from the pan, place on a silicone mat and allow to cool.
  • To serve, scoop the ice cream into a serving bowl (I used an egg cup). Place a slice of crystallised bacon on top and serve with pain perdu on the side.

Video

Notes

If you don't have an ice cream machine, you probably don't have dry ice either. This can be also made by placing into a freezer, and breaking up every 30 minutes but the results won't be a smooth.
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