"The Most Gorgeous Moist Meat Imaginable"

Our own 6kg ham 'glazed' (more like 'pasted') with a mix of
mustard powder and brown sugar. 

Well, we have all done and dusted our own Christmasses and Facebook has been a blizzard of pictures of our friends and relatives table spreads, food, children, toys, Santa pictures and all that jazz. It has been lovely to see  and I do not think I would add anything by a load of similar pics from here but I would like to just sneak in a couple of bits from our own, small holder, angle. For just the pair of us we probably went way too mad on quantities, certainly of meat, but for our first year we suddenly had our own turkey available and our own ham joint.

A 17 lb turkey at this end of the table, a 14 lb ham at the other.

We had done pigs in 2014 but had only salt-cured the bellies for bacon rashers so this year it was a bit of an adventure when we decided to brine a whole ham and to dry-cure and air-dry a whole leg for "Parma" ham. The ham joint was brined in a solution of just table salt, sugar and spices, rather than the "curing salt" used by some of the commercial boys. Curing salt includes sodium nitrite and potassium nitrite as well as the nitrates.

The Christmas tree lights up the Living Room window .

It is the nitrites which give supermarket hams their bright, artificial pink colour (as well as the fact that the brine is injected deep into the muscle blocks so that the meat can be so full of water that the cooked joint still weighs 20% more than the freshly slaughtered version!). Nitrites have also, I believe, been linked to carcinogen (nitrosamine) chemistry. We decided to leave out the nitrites and go for a pale, more pork-like joint and we were very pleased with the result. We will definitely do it this way again.

Pies and Quiches made of left overs. 

As to the HUGE turkey (17 lbs), we knew when we killed this one it would be way too big for the two of us but we are nothing if not GOOD at left overs. Not for us this widely bandied around statistic that "we" waste on average 30% of our bought food by letting it go out of code or scraping our "eyes bigger than bellies" portions into the compost bucket after the meal. Our plates contain, if you are lucky, a few bones picked so clean that they could appear as dried, sun-bleached skeletons in a cowboy film and any over-production tends to come back and back and back again as cold meat, stews, risottos, curries, pies, quiches, rice or cous-cous salads, or portions frozen for future use.

A pink gin and a new "Irish Larder" apron. The tools of
a genius chef?

Having spent much of my working life as a Stock Control Manager, I am probably OCD on stock rotation, so very little goes out of code. We knew that this bad-boy would have a few slices of breast carved off him for the day and some leg meat but that he would then enjoy a long and happy career in the left overs dept.

Regular readers will also know that this turkey was a 'bronze' old fashion 'heritage' variety. We only acquired our first turkeys (Tom and Barbara) this Spring and when these birds started cranking out eggs we decided to hatch a few (and gave some to friends for hatching) and see how we got on. They were a revelation - the growth rates blew us away and if you have read the recent posts you'll know that we were killing them at only 5-6 months old at 6+ kg for the hen and 8+ kg for the 'stags', oven ready weight. Way too big for a two-some on the 25th but Liz just fancied cooking a whole bird for the table, so we did.

A heated clothes airer. A GENIUS present for
two hard-pressed Roscommon smallholders who
have not seen a washing-line drying day for
months! Thank you, Santa; you know who
 you are (!)

Bro-in-Law 'Sparks' had cooked one of ours on the 11th and reported back favourably on the taste and the succulence. He cooked his in his fancy new deep-bath American fast-fryer, in 50 minutes or there abouts and told us that the succulence was not grease/fat from the fryer, but genuine meat juices flowing out of the meat as it relaxed. That fact  everyone knows about poultry is that you test for done-ness by stabbing it and making sure the juice runs clear but I had not seen in all my growing up with mass-produced (intensively reared) turkeys any great quantities of this juice.

Turkey Jelly.

Commercial birds these days are all white-feathered, double muscled highly bred birds. The 'stags' (males) are so big that they cannot mate with the hens, so all 'sex' is by artificial insemination. Apparently that well known entity, the 'public' preferred the white birds because there was no dark, unsightly 'stubble' from the plucking and the farmers love the double-muscled format for the huge weight gain +/- growth promoting chemicals - those 26 lb birds you see advertised.

Christmas Eve full moon.

We carved our birdy on our posh carving board with its stippled 'hedgehog' central area which grips the meat and its various channels which take the juices and guide them into quite a big well. We were amazed to see, after lunch, that this well was full of juices. These juices set into a jelly like the one you used to get under the 'dripping'. Liz (who has spent a bit of time in France) tells me that this 'gellée' would be highly prized in France and would be dolloped on top of your hot buttered toast and paté at breakfast time. So that was our breakfast on St Stephen's Day (Boxing Day) and very nice it was too.

The chooks have now chosen a new
place to stash eggs - out in the car port
twixt wall, pallets, bike and 2CV.

Meanwhile, I know that our friends in Kent, Miles and Paul had bought and grown the same variety of turkeys as we did and after their Christmas dinner they reported the turkey as being "The Most Gorgeous Moist Meat Imaginable", so there is back-up proof if ever you needed it.

We should also confess to a small amount of smugness that a lot of the other ingredients of the table were from our own 'farm', all be it a couple were last year's. Only the sprouts failed us this year - it was a bad year here for the brassica family. Our carrots were there and parsnips, our onion in the gravy, our red cabbage (from 2014) in the spiced cabbage, our parsley in the sauce, our spuds as the roasties, our eggs in the 'real custard' Liz made for the pud. Even the pud was home made (last year - we made too many!) though not from our ingredients.

I will leave you, hopefully as well fed as we were, with this pic of the tree, which is suffering a bit from abuse by the new cat, Soldier. I guess the cats are entitled to 'enjoy' Christmas as much as we are.

The Best Laid Plans.....

This post was going to be all about the wonderful time I was going to have trying out the sport of archery for the first time in the delightful company of the Silverwood clan. Then along came Storm Desmond with his howling gales and our first ever RED weather warning, this one for rain plus all the usual advice from the Police not to risk any un-necessary journeys. I won't bore you with the details as most of my readers will have probably copped their own share of Des by now and some will have struggled with the genuine hardships of flooding and damage which make our 'big puddles' pale into insignificance. I am in no way claiming 'hard done by' status; we just got a bit wetter and more blown around than usual. I postponed the archery till after Christmas and opted to stay here and look after the place, the livestock (and Liz?) rather than leave Liz on her own.

This tiny narrow drainage ditch is not usually visible from
our hill top. Here the concrete 'kesh' bridges are submerged.

So, I have some nice pictures of our "floods". The drain that runs into the River Lung below us has burst its banks as has the Lung itself, the local bridge named for our townland is almost up to its arches with the River so full and high, and the name-sake Lough is as big and full as any locals can ever remember seeing it. That was quite some rain that came down. We were worried for the trees near the house (and may have decided we need to do something about them), of course, but relaxed enough to be joking about conspiracy theories.

The bridge is nearly up to its arches with the 'Desmond Depth'.

Are these storms now being named, we wonder, to soften us up because Met Éireann KNOW SOMETHING about climate change that they are not telling us yet, perhaps that our standard N. Atlantic storms in November are going to be so powerful soon that we need to name them like Hurricanes? (gasp). More ridiculously, we wonder whether these storms are cunning enough to know that they can get named if they would only put in that little extra effort. Thus Abigail was not that impressive, Barney was getting there, Clodagh was definitely trying and Desmond was the best/worst ever. Do we have a Stephen King novel here? Sentient anti-cyclones?

The local Lough is no mean body of water this week. The tiny
white dots here are our wintering Whooper swans. 

Meanwhile, back in the real world the locals are all impressed by the size and fullness of the Lough. It has filled the whole valley, where it is normally a thin weedy ribbon of water half hidden by the bullrushes. Gossip has it that it was "always" this full and contained enormous pike one of which sits, stuffed, in a glass case in Liz's work-place. But then ten years ago the Dept of Civic Works (or what ever they are called) changed the drainage and allowed the Lough to empty much faster rather than hanging on to the water 'up here'. "You wait", said one local veteran, "..and in a couple of days you will hear of flooding in Boyle or Carrick. We never had that before. They should never have done that".

My new favourite 'weapon', this old cleaver was once the
property of John Walsh's Dad though he took to using it
in the cellar for chopping up kindling wood. 

So much for the rain and floods. We got off lightly this time and we are now enjoying some blue sky, calm (ish) days as the big puddles drain slowly away and the cat, Blue. stops cursing us for cutting off all his grassy walkways and hunting routes with water and puddles. We sympathise with the folk in UK who inherited Desmond from us and got the serious floods and damage. With this non-archery weekend over we are now coming up fast on Christmas and we needed to start thinking about festive food and, in particular, turkeys.

Liz dons farmer's wife hands and starts plucking this monster.

Our first 'customer' is Brother in Law, 'Sparks' who has this year bought one of those fancy-pants  American style, cylindrical, outdoor, deep-fat turkey fryers. He is due to cook turkey for a gang of mates this week and 'ordered' a bird from us, rather bravely, having no more idea than we did as to how it would 'do', how big it would get or what it would cook and taste like. This is our first year of turkeys and our birds are the old fashion 'heritage' variety "Bronze". These are old style "single muscled" birds where most shop mass-produced birds these days are white and 'double muscled' like Belgian Blue cow or a 'Beltex' sheep, bred to put on extra muscle in intensive systems and fed no end of special food, growth promoters and so on like a steroid-enhanced weight lifter.

Those massive wing feathers took some pulling. 

When these guys hatched in June, we had no idea how they would flesh up and I worried that we'd only be able to give Sparks an over-grown chicken. We were amazed and delighted at the growth rates on them and within 4 months the youngsters were nearly as big as their Mum (Barbara). Spark's bird was always going to be the biggest as he wanted his in early December but even so, we knew we were on to a serious weight bird and him only 6 months old at this stage.

If you don't want to know how these big, living birds turn into oven ready, plastic wrapped carcasses then skip this and the next 2  paragraphs. Then, of course, there was the problem of how do you cleanly, painlessly and respectfully despatch such a big bird. The books talk of a rather gymnastic process involving standing up with your bird upside down holding his feet in your hands. Juggle a broom handle across his neck, stand on it and pull his legs upwards, breaking his neck. I was not at all convinced that I could do this quickly and cleanly and with no stress to the bird so I have to admit that I fell back on good old decapitation, the trusty meat cleaver and a big chunk of wood. Thunk. Job done, 100% certainty of death.

A lively auction  down at the Community Centre to raise money
for the same.

Done well, the bird is grabbed and 'cuddled' so he stays calm though he might be a bit curious as to why he is being walked across the grass, through the puddles, out to the other side of the pond. At the very last minute you shift your grip to his legs and let him hang upside down with this head sagging onto the wooden block. He relaxes and possibly feels rather helpless but he is not in any kind of pain and then (thunk) he knows no more.

Our antidote to Desmond.

If anyone is thinking of trying this, just be aware that although the bird may 'die' instantly, he will kick off an unconscious explosion of wing flapping and leg-twitching which will go on for a good 30 seconds and will bleed out profusely through the neck cut. The flapping will splash this blood everywhere, so I do it outside and near some long grass, so that I can dangle the bird low to the ground and contain the blood that way. You always get some on your wellies and trouser legs, so it is worth wearing old clothes and being ready to rinse the wellies before you go back indoors! I take a dustbin liner out with me to 'hide' the dead one in so that I don't have to march back past my gang of curious geese, turkeys, chickens and Guineas with a dead bird hanging from my hand, making my way back to the shed where the bird gets hung upside down by his feet to bleed out into the bag. I don't suppose the birds feel upset or grief at the loss of their friend but it makes me feel better.

Polly doing 'Monarch of the Glen'

At that point the birds get handed over to Liz who loves the plucking and 'dressing' side of the job. My work is done (though I do help with the big, tough wing feathers). This lad we were delighted to find, weighed just under 10 kg 'fresh' (but sans head and blood) and then in 'oven ready' format weighed 7.9 kg (17 lbs). Liz went for the 'traditional' presentation, legs still on, some feathers still on the 'hands' and with the giblets (neck, liver, gizzard and heart) in a bag stuffed up his fundament. Sparks can cut off the hands and feet and make good gravy out of the giblets if he desires. Good luck, Sparks. You will be our first Guinea-Pig customer and we will be very interested to know how the boy cooked up.