Jambon persille with piment d'Espelette

I realised in doing this that the approach of throwing water away after the initial boil serves both to reduce the saltiness of the poaching liquid, but also to avoid having to skim off loads of scum.  This terrine makes a dang good sandwich.

Ingredients

1 ham hock, smoked or not
Water
Stock vegetables, herbs and spices (onion, celery, carrot, bay leaf, thyme etc)
Piment d'Espelette or paprika (mild or hot)
Finely chopped garlic and parsley

Technique

Place the ham in a large saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a simmer, hold it there for 5 minutes then pour into a colander. Run cold water over the ham to wash off any clinging scum.  Likewise clean out the saucepan.  Now return ham to pan, add more water and stock veg, and bring again to a simmer. 

Skim off any scum that does arise, adjust the heat, or coveredness of the pan, over the course of half an hour so that only a gentle stream of bubbles is occurring.  Hold at this point for circa 1.5 hours.

Fish the ham and vegetables out.  If there is a lot of fat on the surface of the liquid, lift it off with kitchen paper.  Now reduce the liquid until it is lightly syrupy and very salty, but not unbearably so.

Flake the meat.  Brush the inside of a terrine with oil and line with cling film (optional). Layer up the meat with piment, garlic and parsley between layers.  Pour over the reduced liquid slowly, to fill the terrine. 

Improvise some kind of compression platform, for example using cardboard wrapped in tin foil.  Place this on top of the meat in the terrine and place a light weight on top e.g. a full tin can or two.  Leave like this in the fridge overnight and then it's ready.  The weight can be removed and the flavour will improve over several days.

Slow roast pork

I reckon this is my new standard way of slow roasting a joint of pork such as shoulder, belly or hock.  Bone-in shoulder seems very exciting to me (e.g. https://thegingerpig.co.uk/products/bone-in-pork-shoulder).

Ingredients

Joint of pork
Salt
Pepper
Vegetable oil
Onions
Garlic
Bay leaf
Thyme
Cider, wine or water

Technique

Score the pork fat deeply with a Stanley or other sharp knife, without cutting through to the flesh beneath.  Season well with salt and pepper.  Wrap in a tea towel and leave in the fridge overnight.

The day you wish to cook it, bring it out of the fridge as early as you can so it can come to room temperature.

Massage lightly with 1 tbsp of veg oil and place in a tray with the fat upwards.  Season again.  To the tray, add 2 onions, washed and quartered but skin left on and a few whole peeled garlic cloves.

Place straight into a low oven at say 160C.  The length of time to cook it is very flexible, but for a 3kg shoulder of pork I would want to give it probably 3 hours at this temperature.

After half an hour to 1 hour, spoon off excess fat from the tray and add the liquid and herbs.  During these initial slow roasting hours, you need to check every now and then that the liquid does not dry up.  Basting is optional.

After the initial hours phase, remove it from the oven and turn your oven up to max temperature. Add plenty of liquid to the tray because you can always reduce it later and you really don't want your lovely gravy to burn.

Add the pork back and roast at this high temperature to allow the cracking to fully form.  This may take another 20-40 minutes.

Rest the meat for 20 minutes minimum and job is done.

I guess what I am getting at is, pouring boiling water over the fat the day before is not a vital step.

Beef in beer with mushrooms and onions

Serves 3

2 short ribs of beef
300g piece of a stewing cut of beef (I used a very well marbled bit of flank)
3 firm medium onions
1 450g btl of 'best' type bitter ale
Vegetable oil
Butter
2 tsp Worcester sauce
1 bay leaf
100g mushrooms
Salt, pepper, 1 clove head

Heat two frying pans.  Add oil and butter to each.  Slice onions finely and evenly across the grain and brown them in the larger of the pans, without seasoning, over a high heat, until crisply darkened.  Stir regularly so they don't burn.

In the smaller pan (add less butter) brown the meat well.  Once the meat is browned, add both meat and onions to a small casserole dish and pour the ale into the beef frying pan.  Scrape the residues of caramelisation into the liquid as it bubbles over the heat, then pour into the casserole.  Don't season.  Top up with water if required to almost cover the meat.

Bring up to a simmer.  Skim off any scum that arises.  Place a circle of greaseproof paper or tin foil over the contents of the casserole, place on the lid and simmer very gently for at least 3 hours.

Slice and saute the mushrooms over a high heat until liquid is released and almost evaporated.  Add to the casserole.  Season well including crushing the clove head.  Skim off excess fat with a spoon.  Remove the bay leaf.  Remove the bones, slice the beef, Simmer uncovered for a further 20mins to reduce the sauce.

Individual-portion brioche bread and butter puddings

Serves 7 - need dariole moulds

100g raisins
zest + juice of 1 orange

1/2 vanilla pod
300ml milk
Pinch salt
200ml dbl cream
100g unsalted butter

3 eggs
125g caster sugar

200g brioche bread slices, ex-crust, in 1cm cubes - they now sell such loaves in a petrol station I know

Soak the raisins in the orange juice with the zest overnight.

Warm and infuse the second batch of ingredients together for 1hr min.

Whisk the eggs with the sugar just until well combined and smooth, then combine with the cooled milk etc.

Then combine all ingredients together in a large bowl and mix gently but well.

Brush the dariole moulds inside with oil, then line with cling film.  Fill with the brioche mixture and fold the cling film over.

Place in a deep tray, place tray in oven, pour in boiling water to around 1/2 the height of the moulds, then bake at 160C for around 30 mins.

Allow to cool slightly before turning out onto small plates.  Serve with cold double cream poured over and a few toasted almonds, icing sugar and potentially cinnamon as well.

Pan-fried salmon with white beans, cherry tomatoes and basil

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 skin-on, scaled portions of salmon
veg oil and butter to fry

2tbps extra virgin olive oil
Handful cherry toms, quartered
Pinch chilli flakes
Salt
Small glass white wine
1/2 large jar of white beans (I used 'Navarro' brand)
Handful mixed pitted olives, halved
5 basil leaves
1/2 clove garlic, very finely chopped

In a saucepan, gently saute the tomatoes with the chilli flakes and a little salt.  After 3 minutes add the white wine and simmer gently for less than a minute.  Add the white beans and olives.  Wash half the beans but add the rest straight from the jar.  Cook gently until beans are warmed through.  Pile the basil leaves together, roll into a cigar-shape then slice finely into a chiffonade.  Finish the stew at the last minute with the basil and garlic.

To cook the salmon, pre-heat the pan well and add generous veg oil and a knob of butter.  Season the salmon and cook almost all the time skin down.  Once in pan push down to ensure contact between skin and pan and eliminate air bubbles.  Then leave it to crisp up.  At the point of turning the fish you should be able to switch the heat off and let the fish rest and finish cooking in the pan.  It benefits from being slightly underdone.

A nice vegetable side dish (fennel, peas and lettuce)

Serves 1 or 2

1 small bulb fennel

1/2 small iceberg lettuce

1 glass frozen peas

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

Salt and pepper

Trim, wash, quarter, de-core and thinly slice (~2-3 mm) the fennel.

Do a similar thing to the lettuce slicing into 1cm widths.

Add all ingredients to a frying pan with a lid along with 1/2 small glass of water.

Bring rapidly up to a simmer.  Cook with lid on for circa 5 minutes.  Remove lid.  

Stir well then boil and stir uncovered until liquid is reduced and absorbed.

Octopus on the barbie

Some Youtube videos were very helpful in showing how to prepare the octopus, particularly this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXdswwXjjr4

The octopus used here was frozen, and had been partly prepared before being frozen which I think helped with regards to sucker removal and cleaning.  So this was v easy in the event.

Prepare octopus as per above video.  Cut into individual tentacles if large.  Cut head into pieces and score with shallow diagonal cuts.

Place in a large saucepan with 1 onion, halved, 1 whole clove garlic, generous olive oil, 2 springs rosemary (or other), 1 glass white wine, no salt, and a bare minimum of water, if required.  It will release quite a lot of water as it cooks.

Bring very slowly to a simmer, then braise very gently indeed for 1.5 hrs.  Adjust the heat and how ajar the lid is as required.

Remove from liquid.  Allow to dry briefly.  Marinate in orange juice, olive oil and chopped rosemary.  Grill on BBQ.  Season before serving.