Multiple Pork Products

Apple shredder designed and built by woodwork
genius, K-Dub. Photo by Carolyn. 

In the last post, I described a hand-made cider apple shredding device but had no photo with which to 'paint a thousand words'. Here to put that right is the said weapon. The drum is spinning at a fair rate here so the exposed screw heads are a blur and the wooden rolling pin used to hold the more uncooperative apples down on it is also moving. I hope you can work it out.

A car load of carcasses.

We also left the 'late' pigs down at the butcher's cooling and 'setting', hanging in his cold store. This post will show that we have been very busy ever since and not stopped with the pork products thing, till now.

AB looking the part with his ADL "Cooking
up a Storm" apron and a tea-towel over his
shoulder.

AB and I collected the meat on Thursday morning while Liz stayed home to prepare the work surfaces, for which read Dining Table and chopping boards, and to get ready the pile of plastic bags and the labelling 'Sharpie'. We use an excellent You Tube self-videoing butcher from Warwickshire for our 'how to' information. Scott Rea of the @ScottReaProject is worth a look see if you are contemplating doing any butchery or making of pork products like 'brawn' (a.k.a. 'head-cheese' ).

This is very early stages, Whipping
out the "caul fat" which lines the
abdomen and is superb for suet crusts.

Amusingly at one stage Liz was in the kitchen watching the Scott Rea on brawn while I was ensconced in the Dining Room watching the 'whole pig' one. Scott would be proud of us! 

Coo. Mind your fingers there cutting out that sheet of ribs. 

So AB and I set to with the cutting with me letting him have a go on a 'monkey see, monkey do' basis. He was quickly whipping out tenderloin fillets and sheet ribs like a pro, sawing through the spine to separate out racks of chops and generally enjoying breaking those halves down into 'primal' cuts and then freeze-able portions (quarter shoulders etc). 

Slicing up some bellies.

Finished joints were landing on the table only to be rapidly bagged and labelled for the freezer. Occasionally we called Liz in to choose cuts (chops separate or in racks? shoulder in 4 quarters? ribs in sheets or separated? etc) It was a real team effort. It took around 30 to 45 minutes per half which reassured me that we were right to not spend the €50 per pig on having them cut up at the shop. We are also able to cut the chops nice and thick (basically one chop per spinal vertebra and rib), which the shop lads, with their band saws, do not do. They zip through the 'rack' every couple of cm and the saw goes diagonally through several ribs, so you get more, thinner chops but lots of sharp, diamond-shape bones in them.

First fruits. Liz sorted out some small
 cutlets of the new pork to go with our
lunch of left over pie and eggs. Delicious!

By lunchtime we were done on 'our' three halves, though Liz had another full afternoon and some of the next day onwardly processing the other bits. There was liver to make into paté. She was also doing a 'rillette' ('pulled' pork preserved in soft pig fat, lovely to spread on bread!) and, with those 2 split heads, 4 lovely big tubs of brawn. AB and I had a chance for a breather before heading down to a friend's house to deliver their half carcass and to butcher it up for them at their place.

Clockwise from top left. First of 4 tubs of brawn, rillette,
paté and more paté. The green in the brawn is fresh parsley.

The late afternoon saw me mixing up 2 strengths of flavoured brine. These recipes are from the Strawbridge books and are flavoured with a lovely 'Christmassy' mix of cloves, garlic, onion, star anise, bay, mustard seed, chilli flakes, allspice and peppercorns. The big whole ham gets 3 days in the less salty/sugary brew before being frozen till December. The belly pork rectangles for bacon rashers get the stronger brew but only for 24 hours.

The fridge in the Utility Room is rather
over-full, at least in the short term! Here
the two 'Parma' legs stand in dry salt mix
and the other buckets hold cuts in brine(s).

We are also having another go at the dry-cure and air dried "Parma" style hams. 2 whole legs again with one planning to be ready in August 2018 and the other for Christmas 2018. These are rather risky investments - each leg is about €60 gone up the Swannee River if you don't get the salt cure right and the flies and maggots get a hold, but this is our 3rd year at this and we are quietly confident that our salt, sugar and spices (not to mention 16 days in the fridge!) will win the day.

Out in the 'honesty box' we are struggling to keep up with
demand for eggs. The girls are on a 'Go Slow'.

The Utility Room fridge is feeling a bit over stuffed just now. The whole legs are long, so they go in standing on end and we have to take out the shelves.

If you are pinned down by the rain, you can
always break up some pallets for kindling.

The bucket for the bellies just about slides in beside the dry-cure bucket and the big-ham brine container perches rather precariously on top of that. It is only for the 24 hours, though, then the bellies are done and on day 3 the big ham is also cured, so then the legs get some space. They get patted down with more dry salt mix each day and the brine which is drawn out of the meat by the salt is drained off, lest the water dissolve and dilute the dry cure. It's all good fun and technical stuff and, even better, it works!

Meanwhile, Stumpy the hen reaches Day 21 of her 2nd go at doing 'broody' today and, right on time, she has a hatch. I have seen at least 1 baby chick peeping out from under her skirts. Following the new system of naming chicks after your current Help-X volunteers (as in Manu1, Manu2 etc) we guess these guys should become AB1, AB2 and so on. Wish them luck.

European Lime and Cider Apples

3.93 kg of red cabbage.

With Liz back from her latest 'errand of mercy' down to the Silverwoods, the kitchen is once more its periodic whirlwind of activity. The Christmas Pud stir-up, postponed from the proper day (Sunday 23rd) went ahead with the usual lavish spread of ingredients packets all over the dining table and of course we both got to do a stir and make our wishes. I was instructed to bring in from the garden my finest red cabbage which we had been saving for the making of the Christmas 'spicy red cabbage' recipe. This had grown and grown and even took me by surprise by being 3.93 kg and as big as my head! Liz was suddenly scrabbling around all the fruit bowls and fridges for enough apple to go with it and raiding the onion 'ropes' in the car port for enough onions.

I love the sight of red cabbage shredded up.

The mix is now gently brewing in the huge slow cooker and in our big gumbo pot and will give us frozen portions nearly through to next Christmas. That is just from the one cabbage. While I was out there, I also lifted some more spuds (Sarpo Mira) and a few carrots. These crops seem to store best left in the ground, as long as you do not have too much of a slug problem. I found a few small clutches of slug eggs but nothing to worry about and the spuds are coming up nice and clean; it is just a cold wet job in the drizzle and I am happy that I can walk on the paths between the ridges to dig and also that we have a nice warm house to retreat to for a coffee.

The 2015 pigs are not even born yet, but a little old lady
we know of in Leeds jumped at the chance to name them!
Our pleasure, Olive!

The 'errand of mercy' was Liz staying at the parents' new place over the weekend keeping an eye on Steak Lady and Mr SL (the latter not long back out of hospital) but also able to nip round to the Silverwoods' and dog-sit their three Westies while the family de-camped to a hotel in Bray for a baton twirling competition (mentioned in an earlier post). This also gave Steak Lady a chance to abandon Mr SL for tasks like a 2 hour shed-clear-out, or any shopping, knowing he was well looked after, and chatted to by, Liz. Mr SL is thriving by all accounts and is up and about, shaved and out of his PJs looking much more like his old self than a patient. He has always been a very dapper chap and happiest in his suit. He was hating the unshaven, just got out of bed look.

A first rack of lamb and a good dollop of
home made crap apple and rosemary jelly

Exciting news this week when I got a text from our main tree supplier, FutureForests.net to say that 'our' trees were now out of the ground and ready for 'shipping'. I had seen on Facebook that they had had a fire at their premises but were hoping to get back to business as usual and they obviously have. These trees will be some European Limes (Tilia cordata x) which we are mainly buying for the bees. These limes flower in June which is a bit of a hungry-gap between the main flush of spring flowers (dandelions, horse chestnut, fruit blossom, blackthorn, hawthorn and the like) and the full flourish of proper summer flowers, the bramble and so on. A friend in the Cotswolds tells us that they are much loved by the bees and that a tree in summer can 'hum like a hive'. The writers in our bee keeper Federation mag (An Beachaire) also recommend them, so we are giving them a try. The rest of the trees are our first dip into cider apple growing and possibly cider making. We have bought traditional old Irish varieties (we love the names - Dabinette, Camelot and Dunkerton Late Sweet). We read that Irish cider is normally made with a 50/50 mix of the actual cider apples and what ever dessert apples were to hand. . These should arrive here either tomorrow or Thursday, so watch this space on that one.

Mk 3 sheep shelter (now with sides!)

Our old sheep man, Kenny, laughed when I first erected a shelter for the sheep back in 2012 when we had them in the orchard. These were tough Mayo sheep, he insisted, used to being out in all weathers on scruffy mountainsides. But they seemed to like it and use it, hiding in there when the nights were frosty or one of our mighty Atlantic squalls came driving through; this even though the shelter was a rudimentary affair with just four posts and a roof, with a 'back' made by tying an opened out builder's bulk-bag to the sheep-fence. I have done a shelter ever since, moving the old corrugated sheeting, the builder's bag and door-frame timbers around to which ever field the sheep were in. This week I got hold of Sparks's brutal diamond-cut angle grinder and cut out some bits for the sides. We are positively palatial and the sheep which should also be coming soon will be well protected. Mayo sheep they might be but 2 of them at least will be in the family way and will get, even if they don't need, a higher standard of pampering. The third sheep is too young to be got in lamb yet, but she can also enjoy the shelter while she watches and learns from her 'aunts'.