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.

How to make Salt Beef

I was down in London earlier in the year, eating, which is usually what happens on a jaunt to London. I write up a strategic plan of how to eat in as many places as physically possible before the train home departs, at least three places per day, sometime more... I find inspiration, fullness to the extreme and a very empty purse ensues...

But earlier in the year for some reason we found ourselves hungry, on Brick Lane, mid afternoon, I’m not quite sure how the hunger had managed to make an appearance but... there before us was the famous brick lane bagel shop, so we queued and ordered salt beef bagels, and my god they were good... a different ball game, what even are those things in the shops they call bagels, the salt beef, the bagel, so good...

I returned home and started planning a salt beef bagel supperclub, it happened earlier in the year at The Cumberland Arms... and went down a treat, there was even beer matching, we called it 'Some like it Hops'... If you have never made your own bagels and like baking you must try it, it’s hugely satisfying and just a whole different species from a shop bought one, fresh, bouncy, a chewy delicious crust and soft inside, so good, I blogged about them earlier in the year here...

But now to the salt beef; I’ve been making my own since then, honing the recipe as I’ve experimented, I think I’ve got it down to a tee now, at least how I like it anyway. I began with a Tim Hayward recipe from the Guardian, a step by step photo thing which made it look easy, and to be honest, it is, it just takes a while... In simple terms you make a brine, brine some brisket for a while, then simmer it with stock vegetables and you have your salt beef, all ready to fall apart into your homemade bagel...

I favour a stronger brine, saltier in short, I think the meat ends up tastier, so I now use a St John recipe for a good strong brine. These amounts make 4 litres of brine, which is enough to brine up to 5kgs of brisket, just make less if you have a smaller piece. You can use this brine for loads of other recipes too, pork belly, ox tongue, other brisket recipes... In a large pan combine 400g caster sugar, 600g sea salt, 12 juniper berries, 12 cloves, 12 black peppercorns, 3 bay leaves and 4 litres of water. I also add 30g of Prague Powder #1 which contains saltpetre, a curing agent, which encourages the meat to turn that lovely pink colour and cure evenly. Bring everything to the boil to dissolve the salt and sugar then leave to cool to room temperature.

Then you can add your brisket. I add 5kg of brisket to this brine, in a big Tupperware bucket that I keep at the bottom of the fridge. I cut it into 4 or 5 pieces, not tied up, just loose, then weight it down with a few plates to keep the meat fully submerged. I have left it to brine for anything from 5 days to 15 days, a week is ideal. Turn the meat around every couple of days, so it cures evenly. If you are only doing a small quantity you can put it in a freezer bag and fill that with the brine and just turn it over each day.

When you are ready to cook the beef remove it from the brine, add it to a large pan with a whole onion cut in half, a carrot cut in half, 2 bay leaves, some parsley, a stick of celery, some peppercorns, a few juniper berries and lots of cold water so it is fully covered. Bring it to the boil and then let it simmer for 4 hours, a very gentle simmer, the water just wants to be moving a tiny bit, so you are cooking it very gently. After 4 hours the meat will fall apart into lovely pink shreds. You can serve it hot with horseradish cream and potatoes, or pull it apart and put it in a bagel with lots of Sweet Cucumber Pickle and English mustard. It’s a delight, sorry I haven’t told you about it sooner...

Smoked Beef Ribs

Ok so this is another smoker recipe, and if you scroll down the page pretty much the last recipe I posted was a smoker recipe, and I don’t want to come across like a smoker show off, but I do have a smoker and I’ve been smoking stuff so I thought I’d tell you about it... again... because it is better than telling you about either nothing, or a bad apple risotto that seemed like a good idea but wasn’t...

I was given the Pitt Cue cookbook as a belated birthday present recently. It tells the story of Pitt Cue’s evolution from a trailer on the South Bank to their own little restaurant in Soho, building their own smokers and devising their own rubs, sauces and smoking techniques. These days they are even farming their own Pitt Pigs, I’d love my own pigs... It’s a canny little tale and is full of amazing looking smoked stuff.

Only it is DEAD complicated. I want to make the ‘Mother Sauce’ but to do that I have to first make beef stock and pork stock, fresh. I’d like to make the BBQ sauce to go with my lovely beef rib, but first I need to make a spice mix AND homemade Chipotle ketchup... I make a lot of stuff from scratch but this seems a bit of a faff on. They probably don’t expect people to make most of the things, but that makes me want to give it a go... The drinks and pickles look a bit more accessible. So  I improvised, missed some steps out and sacked off the BBQ sauce and ended up with a bloody lovely beef rib rack...

I made their ‘House Rub’, there’s enough to rub a house, so make a half or a quarter of this if you only have one piece of meat like I did. It comprised of 10g of fennel seeds, 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds, 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns and 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds, toasted in a dry pan for a few minutes, then ground up in a pestle and mortar. Add to a large bowl 100g of soft brown sugar, 50g granulated sugar, 10g garlic powder, 100g of fine salt, 15g of smoked paprika, 30g of regular paprika, 1 teaspoon of dried oregano and 1 teaspoon of cayenne. I threw in some mustard powder too... See, it’s a LOT of stuff. Mix it all together and you have your rub...

The beef was a lovely 4 bone beef rib rack from Charlotte’s butchery, which I covered all over in every nook and cranny with the rub. It was enough for four people, or two if you're really greedy, we just ate it for two days.

So we set Mr. Smokerson up, charcoal burning nice and white, water bowl in, temperature hanging around 110°C or 230°F, put the little metal box of wood chips onto the coals and in went the rib, not to be seen again for 6 hours, so we went for a walk. There is a massive bit of fat that runs through the middle of the rib that keeps it really moist but also has to break down so takes some time. When it is done the meat pulls away from the bone and is soft, sticky, smoky and delicious. We had it with mustardy coleslaw, lentils done like baked beans and some buttery polenta, perhaps an odd mix, but a pretty tasty one...

Radishes with Butter and Salt

I figured if St. John say you should eat radishes with butter and salt then you probably should do just that; they seem to know what they are talking about, when it comes to all things food. It sounded a bit odd, but I'll give it a go I thought, and I'm pretty glad I did, for this week at least, it is my new favourite thing!

I popped over to check the allotment earlier, I am attempting to be a better gardener this year and so far things are going quite well; there are more plants than weeds which is a first... We have broad beans, french beans, courgettes, onions, beetroot, parsnips, gooseberrys and blackcurrants all doing well; and these little guys, who have suddenly grown into beautiful little red globes over the past week.

I proudly plucked a handful from the ground and brought them home, remembering St. John's advice on 'how to eat radishes at their peak'... Simply top and tail your radish, add a knob of butter, sprinkle with flakes of salt and crunch. The peppery crisp radish with soft creamy butter and crunchy salt is delicious, amazing, I could eat a huge bowl full, thankfully there are lots more little red radishes at the allotment still to pull up... If you find yourself in possession of a radish you must try it, the leaves make a pretty tasty salad too with a good vinaigrette...

Rollmop Herring

Herring have a long historical connection with the North East of England. Originally the small scale exploitation of an abundant local resource, fishing grew to become a thriving industry all down the east coast during the last century, with whole families in the coastal community relying on Herring for their livelihood. Too much of a good thing eventually saw the fish run out and the industry decline but these versatile, if unfashionable, fish are still caught in the North Sea today.

The herring are in season over the summer in the North East and cost next to nothing. These little fellas were 50p each from the Grainger Market. I bought them to go into Mr. Smokerson, home smoked herring sounded delicious, even though the guys at Craster are pretty good at it I fancied a go. That was until I found out it took 5 days... And even by my standards taking 5 days off work to sit and smoke some fish seemed a bit excessive.

The herring season begins in June in Scotland and works its way down the North East coast over the summer months towards Lowestoft, coming to an end in November. Amble, Cullercoats and North Shields were our main local fishing harbours for herring back in the day. Amble harbour was built in 1830 and was famous for its fishing cobels, which were out in force to catch the 'silver darlings' as the herring became known.

My great grandfather used to have two cobels in Amble harbour; they were beautiful boats, each being built specifically for its user. Boats fished with seven or eight lines, about 200 metres long, with 500 to 1,000 hooks on each, baited with mussels. Baiting the lines was a very timely task usually left to the women, old men and children at home; with children often being absent from school during the herring season. A harbour in Lowestoft once recorded a catch of 60 million herring in one day, so you can see why they were an important visitor...

The rollmop, essentially a pickled herring, has been a staple in Northern Europe since Medieval times, probably being more popular in the Baltic areas of Northern Europe than over here. I have always enjoyed them so decided to give them a go. I went with a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe for my first attempt, a cider vinegar and orange pickle. The flavour is really deep and rich compared to other roll mop I have had, spiced and orangey, but fresh and sharp with sweet soft fish.

To start you need to take the fillets off each of the fish as carefully as you can, I'm not the neatest at this yet but am getting better... Then remove any bones left in the fillets, running your fingers along them to feel where they are and pulling them out with some little pliers or tweezers. Dry each of the fillets with kitchen roll and then place them into a plastic Tupperware type container. Dissolve 60g of salt into 500ml of cold water and pour this brine over the herring fillets, then leave for 2 to 3 hours.

To make the pickling mixture add 500ml of cider vinegar, 250ml of cider, 12 allspice berries, 12 black peppercorns, 6 bay leaves, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of mustard seeds, the zest of an orange peeled in wide strips and a thinly sliced small onion. I also added a pinch of general pickling spices. Bring this all to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, then leave to cool.

When the fillets are ready to come out of the brine dry them carefully with kitchen roll. You will need a large kilner jar or something similar that seals tightly. Roll up each of the fillets, skin side out, from tail to head; and pack them into your container tightly so they stay rolled. Then pour over the pickling marinade, make sure you have orange and spices in the jar with the fish and liquid, then seal the jar. Store them in the fridge for at least 3 days before eating, they will keep for about a month, and are best between 5 and 10 days. The longer you leave them the softer the fish becomes and the more pickled they will taste.

Pickled fish doesn’t immediately set everyone's taste buds tingling, but these are really fresh and delicious, sharp vinegar with rich orange and spices and the fish tastes fresh, soft and delicious. Hugh recommends serving with some brown bread and sour cream; they have been a treat to have in the fridge over the past few weeks. I will definitely be making more, trying different pickling combinations as I go. I have come across recipes using mace, white wine vinegar, dill, cloves, fennel... I had best get back to the Grainger Market before the season ends...

White Sourdough Loaf

I have baked my first ever loaf of bread... it was not without disaster but has turned out much better than I expected, and I'm pretty proud of it to be honest.

Over Christmas I have been growing and feeding my own 'culture', it was passed on to me by artist Alex Charrington and I have been keeping it alive since just before Christmas. I understand you are meant to pass it on and share it with people, so if anyone wants some of mine I will be happy to make you a little jar up, I like the idea of one starter feeding lots of loaves all over Newcastle and beyond! I am very inexperienced in the world of bread making, I still don't really understand why I have gone through all of the processes I have, and whether I have even carried them out correctly. I need to read more and get a better understanding of what I'm doing. I can easily follow a recipe and complete every step, but I'd like to know why I am doing each step and what is happening to the dough while I do. I want to learn more culinary skills this year and bread and yeast is one of the areas I'm going to try and get to grips with.

So I fed the 'culture' every five days as instructed by Alex, with one cup of organic milk, one cup of flour and one cup of sugar, I'm still a bit unsure about the sugar bit, other recipes I have read don't do this, but I proceeded as instructed and it grew and bubbled as it was meant to... I left it unattended while we went up to Bamburgh for a few days for New Year and it kind of took over the kitchen, bubbling out of its pot all over the kitchen counter and beyond...

I gave it a final feed a few days ago, then you have to wait 24 hours before you can start with the bread. I followed a St. John recipe for a White Sourdough Loaf, I trust they know what they are doing when it comes to baking much more so than I do...

Step one was to add 500g of strong white flour, 130g of the culture, or Mother as St John call it and 320ml of water at 5°C to the electric mixer bowl. I couldn't find my thermometer so this was a guess really, I just went with cold... I used the dough mixing attachment and was meant to mix it for 6 minutes on a low speed, but... my mixer doesn’t really do slow, so it went pretty fast for about 4-5 minutes. This was when I began to be concerned that I wasn't going to be much good at bread making, it did form into a ball of dough though. The next step was to add the 'bathe' which was 90ml of cold water which you add a third at a time until totally combined.

This was the first disaster, as when I took the mixing bowl off the machine the dough had somehow managed to leak under the mixer attachment and down and out of the bottom of the bowl, and was everywhere! It is pretty difficult stuff to clean up, so while the dough sat and rested for 20 minutes I ruined most of the cloths in the kitchen trying to clean it all up, at which point I was not at all confident that this was going to turn out ok. After 20 minutes I added 10g of sea salt and mixed for another 4 minutes. St. John said until the dough looked 'smooth and leaves the sides of the bowl' but I think mine was a bit too wet, maybe I should have mixed it more, or kneaded it a bit more. This was the main problem throughout I think, that the dough didn’t become as firm as I expected?

Next I formed the dough into a ball, of sorts, sprinkled with flour and put it in a bowl in the fridge for 1 hour. After this, remove and form into a ball again, sprinkle with flour and cover with a cloth. Leave it somewhere warm, about 20°C for about 3 hours until slightly risen. My house is pretty chilly most of the time so I put the heating on, left it by the radiator and went out to watch Newcastle struggle to keep a place in the FA Cup. They did, thankfully, and the dough had risen slightly when we returned.

The next stage was to form the dough into one large ball, or two small ones, depending on what size loaves you want, I went for one large one, and place on a floured tray, sprinkle with flour, cover and leave to rest for 15 minutes. Finally place the loaf into a floured plastic bowl, sprinkle with flour, cover with a cloth and leave for 4-5 hours until it is doubled in size. I ended up leaving it over night, as the process is so long it takes up more than a day...

This worked out quite well though as it meant I had bread ready to bake first thing on Sunday morning, which is a bit of a treat. Even though I was in no way sure it was going to work... Preheat the oven to 230°C and place a baking tray of water at the bottom of the oven. This produces lots of steam and helps to form a good crusty crust.

Place the ball of dough onto a baking sheet, mine was still not firm enough as far as I was concerned but had risen to almost twice the size. I put it in the oven for 30 minutes and was amazed when I opened the door that it was an actual loaf of bread, that looked like ones you can buy in the shops. I couldn't have been more proud! Take the tray of water out and continue to bake for another ten minutes. This is when I got a bit nervous as the loaf already looked quite brown and I didn’t want it to burn, so I think I only ended up leaving it for about 5 minutes... Which was probably a bit of a mistake.

Apparently if you knock on the bottom of the loaf and it sounds hollow it is done, I did this, it sounded kind of hollow, so I took it out... and left it to cool on a wire rack. I maybe cut it open a little soon in hindsight. So on the positive side the crust was lovely and crisp and crusty and delicious, it smelt amazing and was an actual loaf of bread! On the negative side I think it is a bit too damp and slightly heavy, this may have been for any number of reasons that I have to figure out with continued baking! I think my dough was too wet, but I did use the correct amounts of liquid, flour and culture... I think I should have baked it a bit longer, an extra 5 minutes or more, but I was nervous of it burning, and then I think I should have left it to rest a little longer than I did. I'm a bit in the dark still to be honest, but I will read more and try again, today even perhaps... Saying all that, it tasted pretty good with large amounts of butter melting into it and I think it will make amazing toast... Conveniently I have some leftover slow cooked Brisket which will make an amazing sandwich with a dollop of horseradish and some green herb sauce... Delicious.

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...