Please Talk About Meat... Finally

So, with cold sweats and bile rising, or mine anyway, our lesson started. With a tasting. Hooray. Coppa di Parma, Prosciutto, Jamon de Serrano, and herby mini ritz crackers all added to my misery. Sally, the owner of Empire Farm and a lovely hostess, although struggling to remember whether she had 6 or 10 dogs, introduced the day and instantly instilled in all of us in the room a heartwarming self sufficient glow; to a man and woman we were all about to learn how to get one over on "the man", whether he a multinational supermarket or a highly priced independant deli - curing and smoking ones own food is neither difficult or expensive, just time consuming. And here is where my dreams flow. The real "slow food", with no smug millitant offal roasting or yoghurt knitting. 

Simples - this takes time, so let it. 

The other gem we have drilled in right from the start is that old database addage - put shit in, get shit out. Obviously this was much more eloquently put by Sally, but you get the drift. Use hand reared meats, organically sourced salts, herbs and spices, and care about your end product. That way you have the best chance of making the best stuff. 

I cannot begin to tell you how this day has grabbed my imagination, fuelled my thoughts and driven my actions. Oh. I guess that is exactly what I have been boring anyone who will listen/read with ever since. But if you had for tea what I had tonight, you would get some way to getting it. Tonight I sampled my first ever attempt at curing anything.

After a brief discussion over the sample cured meats in front of us, we moved through to the butchery. I instantly perked up when a half bottle of Smirnoff was waved under my nose, as we would be using a little dribble in our cure for gravadlax. Marc was only joking about offering me a snifter - he doesn't know me very well - and I could feel the physical shudders and inner tuttings of many of the group as I reached for the bottle, filled the cap and had a Mary without the bloody. Better already, and a little cocksure, when the mackerel came out of the bag, blood guts and all, I was actually up for gutting them. Thankfully we were just to fillet them, and therefore we could leave the guts intact. So, knife in behind the gill, feel for the backbone, then turn the knife and slice away from you, maintaining contact with the backbone on the back of your knife all the way to the tail. We made a brine solution (50g salt per litre of water - Jonny Crofter's maths brain needed some vodka assistance I reckon) and checked it was all good by floating a potato in it. That's a test for your brine, although if you get the maths and have got scales & a measuring jug I'm guessing it's a redundant test...


Mackerel fillets in the brine, bang it in the fridge, job done till lunchtime. The same treatment for some chicken wings after a butchery interlude. In brine, in fridge, leave til lunchtime. Now for the real stuff. Two huge whole salmon were fetched from the fridge by drunk boy, now also known as fridge monkey. English Sushi Guru was evidently skilled around a kitchen. Drunk boy wasn't letting anyone else get the other fish, and 4 fillets were, I reckon, pretty expertly created by them. It was only after we had literally dived in and done a good job that Marc noted that pupils weren't normally asked to do that, for fear of them screwing up. Imagine that, me jumping in overkeen with a bit of vodka in me... The fillets were divided up into 14 pieces (with the fatty trimmings being sent off to join the makerel) and we were set free with a rack of herbs and spices to try out our first cure. Mine was :


30g per kilo salt/soft brown sugar mix
a liberal shake of cayenne pepper
fresh dill
a little vodka, some of which went in with the salmon.


The fish and cure mix was placed in a vacuum pack, vacusealed for us to take home. 5 days later, and I couldn't wait any longer... I took it out tonight and it looked like this :

Patted dry, left for half an hour to dry a little more, then sliced and served with fresh dill and lemon... A to da MAY to da ZING!!!

Drunk boy and the lovely (erm, and patient) Flora have tasted something special here in Forest Hill tonight. I urge anyone who reads this to try it immediately...


And still I haven't mentioned anything we learnt about meat once... Soon come, truss me x