Paté

You will have guessed by now that I'm getting more and more into things that take a while. Brining and smoking, sloe gin, Reubens all need more than an afternoon to do their stuff. I do want to make a pork pie soon, but first I wanted to have a go at some paté. Not your regular 'smooth' paté, more your pressed together chunks of pork. Again I followed Tim Haywood's recipe, mixing:-

500g pork shoulder
250g back fat
250g pig's liver
2 rashers of unsmoked back bacon

all cut into 2cm chunks. This was put in a freezer bag and marinated in:-

5g fresh parsley
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
3 ground all spice berries
75g sherry
75g white wine
black pepper to taste

To make sure everything was really mixed together it was time to get my hands into the freezer bag with all of the ingredients and scrunch them around. As much air as possible was squeezed out of the bag and then it was put in the fridge for a couple of days.

Two days later I took the bag out of the fridge, drained any excess marinade and then popped it into the food processor. I said earlier on that I wasn't after smooth paté, but 2cm chunks are a bit too big!! A few spins of the blade reduced them a bit, still leaving it chunky.

Taking a loaf tin, first some foil was used to line the tin, and then some clink film and finally 10 rashers of streaky bacon were used to create the 'wrapping' for the paté. An egg and 15g of salt were added to the paté mixture and scrunched around again by hand. Once suitably scrunched this mixture was packed into the loaf tin. Firstly the bacon was wrapped over the top, then the cling film tightly wrapped around and finally the foil. Earlier I had taken a piece of cardboard the size of the loaf tin and wrapped it in foil. This was placed over the top and then I used some string to make sure that the lid stayed on and applied some pressure to the mixture during cooking.

The tin, complete with uncooked paté was placed into a pre-heated oven, 180degree. This is not quite accurate, more it was placed in a roasting tin that was then filled with boiling water that came to the lip of the loaf tin.After 2 1/2 hours the tin was taken out of the oven and weights were put onto the lid. Left on the work surface to cool for a few hours, it was then put into the fridge overnight. This allowed all of the juices and fats to set, holding everything together. It was only at this point that I unwrapped the now cooked paté from its out layers of foil and cling film.

We had some friends around a couple of days later for a bite to eat. The paté was served up with some chilli apple jelly on the side, what a great combo! Suffice to say that there wasn't any paté left at the end of the evening!

Pickling spice

We decided that we needed to get our wotsits into gear and get some brisket in some brine so that we can have a Reuben over the Christmas period. I managed to use up all of our pickling spice last night whilst brining some chicken thighs prior to smoking using hickory today. Therefore I decided to have a go at using some of the spices that we have to hand and see if we could make our own. This is the 'blend'.

3g ground Mace

3g Juniper Berries

3g Allspice Berries

2 fresh finger chillies, chopped (no dried ones in the house)

2 bay leaves

3g pepper corns

3G mustard seeds

When the brisket comes out in 8 days or so then I'll post back to let you know whether or not it worked.

Playing around with brines for smoked haddock

This is the third time that I've smoked some haddock. Each time I've played around with the brine and the time within it. This time the brine was

• 2 litres of water
• 240g of salt
• 40g of brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• Juice of a lemon
• 1 tsp crushed mustard seeds

and left for 2 hours. To make sure that the fish stays fully submerged I put a sieve on the top. Left to dry overnight on a rack in the fridge, it was then cold smoked for 8 hours using whiskey oak.

The smoked haddock and smoked bacon were used to make Smoked Haddock Chowder as per Tim Haywood's recipe. Great taste although a tad rich for my palate; next time I'll use slightly less cream.

Smoked bacon - 1st attempt

Once upon a time I was a vegetarian, fed up with the way that animals were being treated. Eventually I went back to the dark side, tempted all the way by smoked bacon. It's the one thing that I couldn't resist. Many years later and it's time to cure and smoke my own bacon!

In short I dry cured some belly pork for 7 days in the fridge in a freezer bag. Once the curing time was up I wiped off any remaining cure and left it to dry overnight on a rack in the fridge. Drying allows a sticky layer to form on the surface and smoke sticks to it like .... to a blanket.  As fridges circulates air it's a great way to dry meat.

The bacon was then smoked for 8 hours using whiskey oak before being placed back in the fridge for a couple of days inside a freezer bag to 'rest'.

The picture shows the bacon, some cheese that I did for a friend and some haddock.

Hickory smoked cheese

Had to try it as I bought a load of hickory dust the other week!!! I thought that it would be too strong a taste, especially if I left it in there for +6 hours, but hey if you don't try you don't find out.

So a piece of regular mature cheddar and a small piece of Stilton went in for four hours, suitably wrapped in some muslin. Once out, they were left for five hours or so before being rushed to the table - we had some friends round who wanted to try the cheese. I would have preferred to have left it overnight to mellow a bit. But no! 

Outcome? Another one to repeat!

Reuben

Ever had a Reuben? No? Nor me until earlier today. It definitely won't be my last!!

Last weekend I took a piece of brisket and brined it for nine days. The brine composed of two litres of water, 200g of salt, 75g of sugar, 2 roughly chopped garlic cloves and a tbsp of pickling spice. To make sure that everything was suitably dissolved I heated the brining ingredients gently together in a saucepan. Once dissolved it was left to cool to room temperature.

The brisket was put into a freezer bag and then the cooled brine was ladled in. I squeezed out as much air as I could and then zipped it up. To make sure that nothing leaked out, this bag was placed in another freezer bag and the whole package was put into the fridge. Each day I tried to move the brisket within the bag to make sure that everything piece of the brisket got a good soaking.

So today was the day! Some peeled carrots, a bay leaf and a roughly chopped onion were put into a saucepan along with the liberated brisket. Enough water to cover the meat was added and then it was brought to a simmer and left for four hours - hey presto Salt Beef.

Rye doesn't agree with me and we couldn't find any sourdough yesterday so good old white bread had to step into the breach. A layer of 1000 island dressing, a slab of salt beef, a mound of sauerkraut and some emmenthal cheese went between the slices of bread before being toasted. All I can say if you never had a Reuben you're missing an eating experience!

Would I do anything different. It's probably against the rules but I would toast the bread on one side before building the Reuben. Other than that, absolutely nothing else would change.