Lovage Salt

I don't know why you don't find lovage in the shops alongside the likes of parsley, mint and dill. It's very easy to grow, keeps well and has grown in Europe for centuries.

Some friends gave me a cutting of it a few years ago to go in the allotment, it took well and we now have a huge bush of it that requires no looking after at all. I hadn't really known it's flavour much until then as you rarely come across it.

The leaves are used like a herb and you can eat the root too, but I'm yet to dig it up, the seeds can be used too. It's flavour is similar to celery, celeriac and parsley, but I enjoy it more than all of them, slightly more pungent and complex. If you just eat a leave straight off the plant it is pretty intense, it works best in small doses to complement other things.

I love it in a tomato salad, in a leek and parsley soup, in a mayonnaise; it works really well with roast chicken which is how this salt came about, a simple idea but lovely sprinkled over moist roast chicken and it's buttery juices. I have chopped it up and mixed it with crème fraiche before and stuffed it under the skin of a chicken before it goes in the oven where the cream and flavours sink into the meat as it cooks.

I have used it in sweet stuff too, to flavour a panna cotta, and while going through a phase of candying everything last year I candied little sections of the stem. It's delicious as something sweet, a bit like angelica, lovely sweet fennel like flavours

This salt also works well with other herbs; like thyme, sage or dill. Simply chop the herbs finely and mix with an equal quantity of Maldon sea salt. Mix them together and I find it best to put it in the sun and let it dry out over a few days. The water will gradually evaporate and you are left with a delicious flavoured salt that can go on roast meats, salads, soups, bloody mary's, whatever you fancy...

If you want to try this with roast chicken, I would smear it all over with butter, squeeze over the juice of half a lemon, pop the lemon in the cavity and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 15 minutes very hot, about 220˚C, then 40 minutes at 190˚C for a relatively big chicken. When it is done leave it to rest for 15 minutes then carve it into the buttery juices in the tin and sprinkle with lovage salt.

Wild Garlic Harissa

The wild garlic is back in abundance, I looked a few weeks ago and it had just started, a few shoots here and there, but nothing more than a dainty garnish. A little bit of sunshine and suddenly there's a carpet of it. I filled a bin bag full last week and started to think of things I could do that I hadn't tried before...

I've made a lot of wild garlic pesto in the past, it's good in obvious things like pasta or a poached chicken salad. I like it drizzled into soup, particularly a new season nettle soup. I made some in Cook House last year and loved it. I also hadn't known until then that the new young nettle shoots don't sting you, you can just pick them with your bare hands... I'm still quite tentative though...  

Last week I made a form of green harissa for some canapes I was serving; a little fresh cheese and green harissa tart with sumac and pine nuts, they were really pretty tasty. I used coriander, parsley and rocket as the green base, but thought it would be good with wild garlic too. This green harissa is a mild form of Zhoug, a middle eastern green chilli paste.

I used two chillis, deseeded and chopped up, 60g coriander, 60g wild garlic, juice of quarter of a lemon, a pinch of salt, a good grind of black pepper. Then lightly toast half a teaspoon of coriander seeds, half a teaspoon of cumin seeds and half a teaspoon of cardamom seeds, and crush them until they are a fine powder in a pestle and mortar. Add this to your green mix and blitz the whole lot, gradually adding a stream of olive oil until you have a thick paste. It's delicious, a bit like a pesto but it has heat and spice and depth to it. It was delicious with my homemade fresh cheese.

I also added it to a salad of beetroot, feta and green lentils, lovely. A warning not to have it and go straight to a meeting, it tends to stay with you for a little while! Next up I'm trying some wild garlic oil, which you can use to drizzle into soups or salads, but sounds like it might be good to make mayonnaise with too... fried chicken and wild garlic mayo I'm thinking...

Beef Meatballs with Broad Beans, Lemon and Herbs

I spent some time in London last week... It was a flying visit to catch up on what was going on down there in shops, restaurants and galleries. Have a look at some new pop-ups, architecture, interiors, handbags... I was quickly calculating how many meals I could fit into the short time I was there. I loved Upstairs at the Ten Bells, my favourite of the weekend I think, elements of secret dining above a packed Spitalfields boozer, amazing food, lovely people, beautiful cosy dining room... tick.

Other highlights were Ducksoup in Soho, a seat in the window and a glass of red wine saw me in holiday mode pretty quickly. They had a turntable by the door, daily hand written menus and lovely booze list on wipe down white ceramic tiles - octopus with paprika and capers was great, a duck egg you had to peel with mayonnaise and sumac to dip was cute and tasty... Venison with potatoes, olives and aioli at the Canton Arms in Vauxhall hit the spot for lunch, and a piece of morcilla with soft red peppers and a little fried quail's egg at Morito would do me right just about now...

Before stuffing myself silly in London I had been immersing myself in Ottolenghi's book Jerusalem, much like every other food blog I read it seems. But these meatballs were just a bit too lovely to not tell you about for the sake of being different... Delicious fresh, lemony and herby, a nice contrast to my usual lamb meatballs, cooked in a lovely fragrant broth with broad beans, garlic and spring onions. Definitely my best Jerusalem experiment so far...

 

These amounts will serve 4 people. Start with the meat ball mix; 300g of minced beef and 150g of minced lamb, I got mine from Charlotte's Butchers, a cute little butchers newly opened in Gosforth. Add the mince to a bowl with a finely diced medium onion, 120g of breadcrumbs, 2 tablespoons each of chopped parsley, mint, dill and coriander. Add 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic, 1 tablespoon of ground cumin, 2 teaspoons of chopped capers, 1 beaten egg and 1 tablespoon on Baharat spice mix. You can buy this or you can make it...

 

I made myself a little jar by bashing together a mix of spices in a pestle and mortar: 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns, 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds, 1 small cinnamon stick, ½ teaspoon of cloves, ½ teaspoon of ground allspice, 2 teaspoons of cumins seeds, 1 teaspoon of cardamom seeds and ½ a teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Grind it all to a powder...

Roll the mix into meatballs the size of a ping pong ball and then fry them in batches in hot olive oil, until they are brown all over. I did mine in 2 batches for about 5 minutes each. Then remove them all from the pan and wipe it clean and add 2 tablespoons of fresh olive oil. Then sauté 4 sprigs of thyme, 6 cloves of garlic sliced and 8 spring onions cut into 2cm pieces for about 3 minutes. The recipe calls for 350g of blanched broad beans, half shelled and half unshelled, I couldn’t get any so added a tin of broad beans at this point. Also add 1 ½ tablespoons of lemon juice, 80ml of chicken stock, ¼ teaspoon of salt and lots of black pepper and cook for ten minutes on a low heat.

 

Return the meatballs to the pan and add another 420ml of chicken stock and simmer for 25 minutes. I found the meatballs soaked up a lot of the sauce so don’t worry if it seems a lot. You can also cook them to this point and reheat them later if needs be. Just before you serve them add a handful of chopped mint, dill, parsley and coriander, a tablespoon of lemon juice and a handful of fresh blanched peeled broad beans if you have them.

I served the meatballs with some steamed rice, they are delicious and sticky with a fresh tasty broth full of lemon and herbs. It is a lot of ingredients as Ottolenghi recipes often are, but is definitely worth the time and effort, I'll be making them again asap.

 

Tomato, Feta and Tarragon Salad with Sumac Dressing

The sun is shining and I am starting to feel a touch of Spring in the air. I have just been to the allotment and have begun to get excited about what to plant this year... I think I had forgotten I had an allotment in truth, I haven’t been for months. I definitely need to be a bit more committed to it this year. I constantly feel like I should be there more often... Little and often is my gardening motto this year... A gardening motto? What I have become?!... 

It was lovely and peaceful and sunny today, with people pottering around tidying their plots. I really enjoy being there, even just for half an hour, it's a little spot of calm and beauty. Ours is looking ok, probably bottom half of the table if there was a league, but certainly not relegation zone. A bit of work on the paths, some digging and a bit of work on the 'wild flower area' (total wilderness of brambles) at the back, should see it right in no time...

 

I'd forgotten how lovely a crisp sunny winters day is, as it's been grey for as long as I can remember. There's nothing like a spot of sunshine and a slightly lighter night to start you thinking about salads and summer. I served this salad as part of my first ever Supperclub, last summer at Carruthers and Kent wine shop in Gosforth. Upstairs in their tasting room we held a Middle Eastern meal for twenty with matching wines, this dish formed part of the salad course, alongside a Broad Bean, Pomegranate, Radish and Mint salad. 

Last weekend saw a return to the same theme with a Middle Eastern meat free themed Supperclub at Ouse Street Arts Club. I announced tickets a few weeks ago and they sold out in minutes, so I enthusiastically decided to add another night and run it two nights in a row... It was a huge amount of work, but an incredibly enjoyable weekend. Full of filo pastries, harissa dips, lentil koftas, spiced stews, honey vegetables, rosewater stuffed dates and almond milk puddings. There were some great people at both evenings and I had a lovely time meeting them and putting the menu together. I'm planning the next one already...

To start this salad you need some nice tomatoes, choose some that smell strongly of tomatoes, if they smell of nothing, they will taste of nothing, so start sniffing... I chose some cherry tomatoes on the vine that were pretty tasty... Pull them apart with your hands to get a nice rough texture to the salad, each one into 2 or 3 pieces, and lay them onto a plate. Crumble over half a block of creamy feta cheese, about 100g, and very thinly slice a shallot and scatter that over too.

To make the dressing add a teaspoon of sumac to a bowl and pour over 50ml of hot water, leave to infuse for 10 minutes. Then add 100ml of extra virgin olive oil, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of caster sugar, a splash of pomegranate molasses, a pinch of salt, some black pepper, the leaves from a sprig of thyme and half a clove of crush garlic. Whisk everything together and leave to get to know each other for 20 minutes. This is far more dressing than you will need, but is good on any salad and keeps for a month or more in a sealed jar in the fridge.

Finally chop some fresh tarragon over top of the salad, about 2 tablespoons full, and then pour over about 50ml of the dressing. The tasty tomatoes and creamy feta are delicious with the sharp, sweet, herby, lemony dressing and rich aniseed tarragon. I'm really looking forward to the start of Spring, more salads and a bit of outdoor dining. I'm perhaps getting carried away as the sun has only just shown its face, but it's a start...

 

Pan Fried Red Mullet with Butter and Bay

A couple of weeks ago I drove South over the river to meet Ailsa and Rob Latimer of Latimer's fish shop in Whitburn. We sat in their lovely café over looking the sea and chatted markets and food events. I tried my best to talk while eating a giant crab sandwich and eyeing the huge fish counter. Their range of fish is amazing, beautifully fresh fish caught that morning, every shellfish I can think of and others I don't know yet, hot smoked salmon that they smoke themselves, dressed crab, huge prawns... I came home with a bag of little squid, hot smoked salmon, some really fresh langoustine, some little red mullet and a John Dory... not the prettiest of fellas, but a very tasty one...

I haven’t eaten red mullet that often I don't think, but these were my favourite of all the guys I brought home. So fresh and red and pretty. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall refers to them as the woodcock of the sea owing to the French way of eating them whole with the guts still inside, the flesh has a light almost gamey flavour to it. They are good in terms of sustainability too, they grow quickly and mature young in UK waters and are not overfished here like they are in the Mediterranean.

The red mullet were simply pan fried in some melted butter with a bay leaf and some sliced garlic inside the fish, 7 minutes on each side. The flavour that comes out of them is amazing, the butter turns a deep orangey red and they have a spice and flavour to them as if you've added paprika, totally delicious. The little John Dory was baked in the oven for 20 minutes wrapped in foil with some butter garlic and parsley, simple but again delicious.

I'm so often cooking new recipes and experimenting with things that I forget sometimes how delicious a piece of fish can be with just a salad and some bread or new potatoes, this was such a feast, for barely any effort. My usual go to when I want something quick and simple is something on toast, eggs, lemony courgettes, broad beans and bacon or a simple cheese omelette; but really a piece of grilled fish and salad is as easy as it gets and so tasty. We are very lucky to have such a wealth of fresh fish right on our doorstep.

Green Bean and Chickpea Herb Salad

I'm having a salad week. Especially salads that are easy; so when I get back from Ikea and town shopping hell there isn't further stress inside the house. I am also fearing the perpetual state of festive fullness that is fast approaching, I'm preparing with a light salady week as best I can... Christmas eating can be somewhat overwhelming, it's best to be prepared...

Start by boiling about 150g of green beans in some salted water until they are cooked but still have a bit of bite. Then simply chop half a red onion and add to a bowl with a drained and rinsed can of chickpeas. Add a handful of parsley and a handful of coriander both roughly chopped. Then heat a splash of olive oil in a pan and add a chopped clove of garlic, when it is hot toss the drained green beans in the garlic oil and fry for a few minutes.

Finally dress the chickpea mixture with a splash of extra virgin olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar and some salt and pepper, mix everything up and add the warm green beans and their garlicky oil. Serve as a light lunch with salad leaves or as a side dish. The warm garlicky beans with creamy chickpeas, herbs and tangy onions were delicious as I slowly calmed down from my Christmas shopping ordeal...

Red Peppers stuffed with Rice, Raisins and Pine Nuts

We had some lovely friends visiting from London this weekend so a little get together was in order, some friends, some food, some wine... I even printed out little menus for everyone. It took a while to settle on a menu as the little blonde is a vegetarian and the Twinings hunk doesn't eat dairy... but Claudia Roden had the answers, as she often does...

A Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Caramelised Onions and Chestnuts, some Turkish Stuffed Peppers full of herby spiced rice, pine nuts and raisins and some buttery couscous with toasted almonds. Something for everyone I hoped, they looked like they enjoyed it anyway...

We started with little Leek Fritters with a herby yoghurt dip and some Cannellini Bean Hummus with Toasted Cumin and pittas to dip. It was lovely to catch up, chatting in the kitchen while I threw toasted almonds around and served food later than planned as ever...

We finished with an Apple and Cardamom Tart, which I will have to tell you about soon, because although it may be gauche to say, as I made it myself, was totally amazing. The aromatic, dusky flavours of the cardamom were lovely with the sweet sugary apple and warm buttery pastry. Delicious.

The peppers were pretty simple to make, but so full of flavour and not 70s dinner party at all... This will make 6 stuffed peppers. Start with the filling by slowly frying a large chopped onion in 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, until it is soft. Then add 250g of risotto rice, I used arborio, and stir until it is coated with oil and turning translucent. Add 450ml of water, some salt and pepper and 2 teaspoons of sugar. Stir this well and then simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the water has been absorbed, but the rice is still slightly undercooked.

When it is ready stir in 3 tablespoons of pine nuts, 3 tablespoons of raisins, 1 large tomato chopped into pieces, a handful of chopped mint, a handful of chopped dill, a handful of chopped parsley, a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, half a teaspoon of ground allspice, the juice of a lemon and 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. You can see where all the flavour comes from with this lot all hanging out together...

Now take 6 red peppers and cut a circle round the top to remove the lid and scoop out any seeds from inside. Fill the insides of the peppers with the rice mixture and pop the lids back on. Arrange them in a baking tray side by side, I had to slice a little bit off the bottom of some of the peppers to keep them steady. Pour about 1cm of water into the bottom of the tray and bake in the oven at 190°C for 50 minutes. Be careful when you take them out that the peppers don't fall apart, be very gentle...

They are lovely warm, allow them to cool a little before serving, they are also good cold with a salad and some yoghurt. The warm spices and fresh herbs are delicious with little bursts of sweet raisins and creamy pine nuts all in a sweet roasted red pepper. I've just had a little one for lunch that was leftover... I'm glad I made too many...

Cassoulet

This is the first cassoulet I have ever made, and apart from the fact that it was totally delicious, it also produced meals for about three days. I love a few left overs for lunch the next day, or a meal that turns into something else, or gives you stock or fat to flavour your next meal, it feels good to reuse everything... It saves money, reduces waste and I like the idea of using every scrap possible of a duck or a piece of meat, to really put the little fellas to good purpose...

A cassoulet is a stew of sorts, a rich slow cooked French casserole, with roast or confit duck, sausages, bacon, lovely stock full of herbs and tomatoes and lots of white beans, all topped with crispy, golden baked breadcrumbs. So there was the first cassoulet evening, in all it's splendour, with rich duck and crispy breadcrumbs and a bottle of young French red wine. Then the remains travelled all the way to the Lake District to be heated through with new sausages, fresh bread for dipping and crispy green salad. Finally some came home with us again and made a lovely beany soupy lunch. A well travelled cassoulet indeed...

In the French peasant origins of the dish they used to deglaze the pot from the previous cassoulet as a base for the next one, and so on and so on, which led to stories of one original cassoulet being extended for years and years, mine just lasted a weekend... It is a dish to be made in quantity really, this will feed four or more people, just add more duck if you have more people...

I started with a pot of duck stock made from the bones of the Roast Duck with Chestnut, Chorizo and Cabbage... and with Elizabeth David... I've been carrying her book around with me lately. Sometimes to work so I can look up recipes at lunchtime, over to the Lakes to read in depth the bits I haven’t gone through before, looking for new and interesting methods and recipes. I am aware that this is not normal behaviour, constantly travelling around with recipe books... and I have had a few funny looks as people get into my car to find little book collections in the foot-well, but hey...

Start with a pan for the stock, you will need a larger pan for the whole cassoulet which will go in the oven, but start with the stock pan on the hob and heat a large splash of olive oil in it. Add two thinly sliced large onions and cook until they are soft, about ten minutes, then add some chopped smoked streaky bacon, about 6 slices cut into smaller pieces, and continue to cook until it is all golden and sticky.

Pour in the stock, I used about 500ml of duck stock, you can use chicken stock, add two tomatoes chopped into pieces, four crushed cloves of garlic, salt and pepper, some sprigs of parsley, thyme and a bay leaf and bring to a slow simmer. Leave it to simmer away for about 20 minutes. I think this is the tastiest stock I have ever made by the way... I kept on having sneaky spoonfuls all the way through...

Most cassoulet's use confit duck legs, but Elizabeth does say that to use fresh duck or goose if confit isn’t an option, which it wasn't, but it will need to be half roasted. So while the stock was simmering I put a whole duck in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 220°C. Then took it out to rest and cool enough to cut up.

You will need a big oven proof type pot for the cassoulet. Rub the inside of it all over with raw garlic to begin with. Then add about 6 good quality raw pork sausages cut in half, I also added about 4 teaspoons of duck fat from a previous roasting... You could substitute with lard or dripping... Then the duck, cut into pieces. My knives are really not very effective so we got as far as cutting it in half, it would be much better into quarters or sixths as it was really pretty difficult to eat a bowl of stew with half a duck sitting in it!

Pour two tins of drained haricot beans over the top of all of the meat and then pour the stock and all its contents over the top of everything. Bring this all to the boil on the hob and then sprinkle a few handfuls of white bread crumbs over the top. I used a stale sour dough wizzed up in the food processor until it was a fine crumb.

Then place the whole cassoulet in a low oven, about 160°C, for an hour. The stock will soak into the meat and the beans and a lovely golden crust will form over the top. Delicious... Just serve it as it is, it doesn’t need any help at all. It is rich and meaty with beautifully flavoured stock and beans, it is one of my favourite things I have cooked, really lovely... I am going to get to grips with some confit soon and make it again with confit duck legs...

I found a little tip in Elizabeth David's soup section that advised heating up the left over beans and stock and pounding them through a sieve, reheating this purée with a little milk and adding pieces of cooked sausage. It is just as good reheated in its stew form with new cooked sausages, or as a simple beans stew with crusty bread. It's just good all round really...

Roast Pumpkin and Garlic Soup with toasted Pumpkin Seeds and Gruyere

We took a little trip over to the Lake District this weekend to check out its autumn colours. We were greeted by golden beech hedges, rain, mist and cows on the road that refused to move. It was a real stand off, they just stared us out and didn’t move one inch, which ended in us driving into a ditch to get past and very nearly getting stuck. I had visions of having to walk a mile in the rain to the nearest farm to get the car pulled out of a ditch... We made it in the end though and spent a lovely evening by the fire with the wind whistling around us. The next morning was bright and sunny and beautiful. You could hear the stags in the hills roaring at each other, hidden by the golden red bracken. The cows had helpfully moved out of the way for the drive home...

This month I have the privilege of a five page recipe feature in the magazine Living North. They asked me if I would put together a selection of Autumn recipes with hints of Halloween, so if you pick up a copy you can read about Toffee Apple Muffins, Roast Pheasant with Chestnuts and Wild Mushrooms, Dark Chocolate and Chestnut Tart, and this... Roast Pumpkin and Garlic soup with toasted Pumpkin seeds and Gruyère...

Preheat your oven to 220°C and begin by slicing the squash into eight wedges and scooping out the seeds. I find you can get a really good selection of squashes in the shops these days. This recipe works with pumpkins, butternut squash and all types of other squashes, I used an onion squash. The Halloween pumpkins that you find in the shops at this time of year are grown mainly just for carving and are not very full on flavour. The onion squash is a deep rich orange squash that looks a little like an onion... and is best roasted which brings out its earthy, nutty delicious flavours.

Place them all in a baking tray, season with salt and add a generous glug of olive oil, they tend to soak up quite a bit. They need to cook for about 30 minutes, but after 15 minutes throw in 6 cloves of garlic still in their skins and some sprigs of thyme and continue to roast, turning the squash around as you do.

While the squash is cooking dice a stick of celery, a carrot and an onion into small cubes, heat a large splash of olive oil in a heavy pan and add the vegetables. Add a large pinch of salt at this point and cook over a medium heat for about 15 minutes until soft and sticky, you don't want them to brown too much so keep an eye on them.

When they have reached a soft sticky stage add a litre of boiling water, you could also use vegetable stock if you wanted. Leave the stock to simmer until it is time to add the squash. The squash is ready when it is golden brown and soft all the way through, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool a little, make sure you keep the garlic too. When you can handle the squash you need to remove the skin and cut the flesh into large chunks and add them to the stock. Next remove the soft roast garlic from its skins and add these to the stock too. Check for seasoning at this point, you might have to add some more salt.

Allow everything to simmer for another 10 minutes. Finally blend everything to a smooth velvety soup, with either a hand-held blender or a food processor.

To serve top with a scattering of pumpkin seeds, lightly toasted in a dry pan and a grating of Gruyère cheese.

The nutty roasted flavours of the squash and the garlic are delicious with the crunchy seeds and creamy melted cheese. A bit of crusty fresh bread and cold butter makes a delightful autumn lunch...

Homemade Salami

I have been reading a bit about preserving, combining salts, sugars and spices to make cuts of meat or vegetables last for months or years. It comes from the days before refrigeration, and although I don't have that problem I still think it is a good way of cutting down on waste if you have too many vegetables or cuts of meat that aren’t perhaps the best. I already need to plan what to do with the millions of courgettes that have begun to appear at the allotment, and am thinking about a courgette, apple, raisin and chilli chutney. So I have been interested to see how difficult it would be to make my own salami, a homemade air dried sausage... It turns out it's not that difficult if you have the right equipment... I'm already planning bresaola and potted shrimp as my next challenge...

Start with a pork shoulder on the bone, I used rolled, but I think getting the meat sinew and fat free might be easier with a boned shoulder. My joint weighed about 1 kilogram and I ended up with about 700g of chopped meat. You also need 200g of back fat, I was told by the butchers in the Grainger Market that you can't get it, I still haven’t worked out why, but he gave me a load of fat they had trimmed from another piece of pork, it was a bit short on weight, but hopefully it will be enough. I have since been to various butchers and found it really easy to get hold of if you ask in advance.

Slice the pork shoulder into pieces, discarding all fat and sinew, and then dice it so you end up with 1cm cubed pieces of meat, or smaller. This process takes a while, my knives weren't sharp enough and it did test my patience... but I persevered and got there eventually. When the pork meat is done also dice the back fat into small cubes of a similar size.

It is now time to salt the meat. I decided to do two different types of salami so I divided my meat into two bowls, half the meat and half the fat in each. The amount of salt is critical for the curing process, so you should weigh everything very accurately. You must add at least 25g of salt to every kilogram of meat. Each of my bowls weighed 422g so I added 10.5g of salt to each, Maldon sea salt that I crushed finely in a pestle and mortar.

Now it is time for the flavouring. I decided on one quite simple combination of half a teaspoon of fennel seeds, half a teaspoon of black pepper corns and a clove of garlic, all crushed to a paste in the pestle and mortar. The other became a bit more adventurous and also perhaps more French in style, with red wine and walnuts. I added half a teaspoon of black pepper corns, a couple of crushed juniper berries, a clove of garlic, again crushed to a paste and added to the meat, along with a handful of chopped walnuts and a splash of red wine. I mixed both of the bowls up to combine the meat, salt and spices thoroughly and put them in the fridge to mingle for a few hours.

Next comes the stuffing. I ordered 38mm natural hog casings for the job, a salted pig's intestine, and soaked them overnight to remove the salt and soften them up. They come bunched up tightly on a tube ready to pull off and pipe in the sausage stuffing. They don't smell very nice I warn you... If you have a mincer they often have a sausage stuffing attachment, or you can use a small sausage funnel or pack it by hand. I did not really have the correct tools for the job, lots of frustration ensued... It took a while to get the salami packed tightly without air gaps and lumps, but I got there finally and ended up with 6 salami in total. I tied up each end with string, tying the intestine into the knot so it doesn't slip through when you hang it. I have found on further attempts that cutting a length a bit longer than you need and stuffing by hand to be the easiest method.

Each salami needs to be labelled with its full ingredients and also its weight. This is important as you will know when the salami is ready when it has lost 30% of its total weight. Hang them inside for a few days while the skins dry out and tighten up. Then hang them either outside in a cage so wildlife can't get to them, and under shelter or in a draughty porch or garage. Mine are currently up in the roof of my porch... it smells quite meaty and garlicky every time I come in and out of the house...

So that is where I am at, they will be ready in 3 weeks, and I'm already looking forward to them. They may start to develop a dry white mould on the outside of the skin, which is ok, but patches of fur or coloured mould should be washed off as they develop with a weak solution of vinegar in water. I will let you know how they taste in due course...

And finally here is the finished article... It was better than I could ever have hoped, really delicious. Rich and deep meaty flavours. When I get some better equipment I will be starting on the next batch...