A lunchtime treat

Flushed with my triumph over the roofing sheet mountain, I felt that I deserved a little pampering on my Saturday shopping expedition.

The first port of call, as ever, was Derek the Fishmonger, where I found a nice piece of Cornish plaice for my Sunday lunch. Then I spotted the scallops. And dive-caught scallops at that.

I don't know why I like scallops so much. There is something ever so slightly indelicately gynaecological about their appearance, but I can rarely resist buying them. Sadly these didn't come with their built-in plates, but I was sure they could form the basis of a lunchtime treat.

Back at home, I checked the greenhouse to see if there was anything edible.
Still very little unfortunately, apart from a few radish and rocket thinnings. The herb bed yielded some very healthy chives and a few leaves of lemon balm and fennel that were starting to poke their heads above the soil.

Fortunately I had visited the farm shop on my way back home, and bought some crunchy romaine lettuce and a few self-indulgent cherry tomatoes. I know they don't really taste of anything much at this time of year, but I fancied a bit of colour with my lunch. They also had in chorizo from Wenlock Edge Farm. I hadn't tried their chorizo before, but their coppa and salami is excellent, so it was worth a try.

Lunch was more an operation in assembly, rather than cooking as such.
Chop the chorizo into coins, dry fry until the fat runs. Then add the scallops and fry for a minute on each side.

That's it - simply serve with a nice salad and balsamic dressing, and arrange as attractively as a person with limited artistic abilities can manage.

Using it up

Our last pair of porkers went off to the abattoir not long before R died.
We had the usual sausage-making fest, but on a smaller scale than in previous years. We also sold a lot of the meat to family, friends and R's work colleagues, but for one reason or another a lot more ended up in our freezers than had in the past, and most of this was in the form of large joints.

My eating habits have changed so much since I have been alone. There is precious little chance of me actually turning totally vegetarian, but I would say that probably over 50% of my meals now contain no meat.

Which hasn't helped very much with consuming the stockpile of pork in the freezer.

As I would like to get another pair of weaners this Summer, it really does seem incumbent upon me to eat what I already have - that and the fact that it really does need to be used up very soon or it will only be fit for Moose to have.

So I need to find ways to use it up that do not simply involve me gnawing my way through a 6lb slab of roast pork!

This is what I did with a piece of belly pork.

The weight was in the region of 5 lb. There is a very small patch of freezer burn on the rind, but otherwise it is fine.

When our porkers came back from the butcher, I had asked for each belly half to be cut into three halves, but for the bones to be left on, for reasons that will become apparent.
The first step, though, is to remove the bones using my best filleting knife.

I then cut the meat into three equal portions.
The first was just crying out to be slow-roasted.
Now this is possibly not a meal for someone on a calorie-controlled diet, but it makes a splendid feast for someone who has been digging the garden all afternoon!

My feeling when it comes to roasting home-reared meat is that the less you do to it the better, so I simply scored the rind and placed it on a bed of chopped onions and a couple of large sprigs of thyme from the garden.

This went into a very hot oven for 20 minutes to flash roast and get the fat running, then I turned down the heat to about 160 C and largely forgot about it for a couple of hours, other than to pour off the fat every 40 minutes or so.

Meanwhile I turned my attentions to the remainder of the belly, which on this occasion I decided to turn into bacon.
The first step is to make up the curing mix. There are many recipes available in books and on the Internet - some use nitrites, some don't. I prefer to use them as I like my bacon to look pink, rather than grey, but it isn't essential if you are going to use it up quickly or store it in the freezer.

On this occasion I went for a simple mix of salt, demerara sugar and curing salt, which I rubbed thoroughly into the remaining two pieces of pork.

And then did the same with the sheet of bones that were removed from the belly.

The whole lot went into a plastic bag and then into the fridge for 3 days. And that folks, really is all there is to making bacon!

Recipes using the bacon will follow, but in the meantime I shall devote my attentions to the slow-roast belly pork...