Pigs Ears

After a quick review of my previous posts, I realise that it's about time that I posted about something other than pork. But not quite yet.....

In the weeks leading up to slaughtering the 2 pigs, there was alot of bravado about how the neighbours would come from a meal on the evening that we butchered the carcasses and eat the likes of Crispy Pigs Ears, Chinese style trotters and black pudding.

The Neighbours respose never varied, "If I've had enough aquavit, I,ll eat anything!"

So after all this, I had talked myself into it. There was no being squimish, it was simply a matter of it says it in the book, so make it.....

And have enough aquavit we did, but not before 4 pigs ears had boiled in water for a few hours, been sliced into fingers, given a light coating of mustard and bread crumbs and cook in the oven at a high temp for half an hour or so. Also, Chinese style pig trotters were cooked up according to HFW's instructions.

The pigs ears served with HFW's home made Tartar Sauce, went done a treat. Not so dissimilar to the Pork Scratchings that are a favourite beer accompanient of mine when in the UK. The trotters got mixed reviews, "all fat and no meat" did not go unheard. The black pudding reminded the Norwegians of their days in Kindergaten, which seems to be the last time that everyone from Norway ate it. This was approved, although many insisted coating it with suger. It seems that that is how they get all those toddlers to eat it in the first place!!!!!!!!

All in all, great food and great company.

Hams and other cured meat.

A total of over 20 Ltrs of "Basic Brine Mix" went into curing hams and bacon. These were left in the brine solution for 24 hours and then an extra 12 hours for every kilo over 1Kg. After this time the excess liquid was squeezed from these and they were hung to dry in Muslin bags for 24 hours before finding their way into the freezer. Some of these are designated for Roasting joints and some for Bacon. To date these have not been sampled so I cannot comment if these are a sucess or not.

A total of 7Kgs of "dry cured bacon" was also produced. Pieces of belly, after the (spare) ribs were removed, had a salt, cracked black pepper and brown suger mix rubbed into them every day for 5 days removing the water driven out by the salt from the container every day. At the end of this procedure, this was rinsed, packed and frozen. Before freezing, a small sample was fried for sampling. This was very tasty indeed, the slightlhy excessive saltiness being put down to the fact that the slices came from the outermost part of the bacon. Time will show if this is true.

Aside from the Salami and Chorizo, which doubtless will be the subject of many future posts, there was a "Flavoured Cure", Suffolk, I think it was. A combination of brine, beer, malt vinegar and spices, which the selected ham laid in for 3 days per Kilo. A total of around 4kg, 12 Days. This, according to HFW should have then be smoked, but in the absence of a smoker, it was simply hung to dry for 24 hours and put in the freezer. This should make a substantial dinner, perhaps for New Years, when we have our visitors.

The final, and as previously stated, most ambitious of our cures is the prosciuttio style ham. A back leg, weighing a mere 14Kg (de-boned). Salt was rubbed in to the area from which the bone was removed and the leg stitched back together. This was then packed in a total of 27Kg of salt and a couple of boards were placed on top loaded down by over 30Kgs. This is to be left for a total of 50 Days (3-4 days per Kg) before hanging to dry for a few months. Whatever happens, you will find out.

Pictures to follow.

A Butcher, 50 years ago and now

I know, by now, you have all fallen off the edge of your seats wondering how we got on with our butchering and meat processing plans and I apologise for the delay in this post.

I have 2 excuses for this, most recently, a week of long days and limited internet access in Turku, and, 200Kg of Pork.......

So now, I finally have both time and an internet connection at the same time. All this in a hotel room in Krakow, Poland.

Unfortunately we do not have a accurate measurment of the total carcass weights, the educated eye of the slaughter man put the male pig around 120Kg and the female around 90Kg. All in All, I think it is fair too say, perhaps a little too large.

As mentioned in my previous post, my Father-in-law was the master butcher with myself acting as butchers boy. A remarkable feat and a tribute to the fitness of a man who is a shade under 80 and butchered his last pig over 50 years ago, when he was younger than I am now.
His rustiness showed only briefly. A slightly too tight circle around the first back leg, not quite locating the joints on the trotters first time.The second side was almost perfect and the second carcass went like clockwork. All this in my "lower garage", complete with its newly cleaned, painted and disinfected floor.

By around 4 p.m. on the Saturday we had our Carcasses dealt up as desired. Chops, Hams, 1 enormous back leg for Curing as Prosciuttio, pieces for Sausage meat, fillets, Norwegian "Ribbe", Spare Ribs, Belly Bacon, Back Bacon, trotters, 1 head, 2 ears and much, much more. If any of you out there would like our full detailed plan, please apply through the comments, we'll see what we can do.

All the meat that was not destined for further processing was kindly packed, weighed and labelled by my dear wife, my mother in law and my sister in Law. And very gratefull we are to them. This whole procedure took pretty much the whole day, other than putting a few hams in their respective cures and cooking our celebratory feast (see next post) the day vanished.

Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall describes it as a "Pig Weekend", you will see from the next few posts that, for us at least, this is more accurately a "pig week".

On-Site A&E

There is much to write about after a very long weekend and 1 evening of butchering and meat processing, but I'll start with this.

A weekend of butchering pigs inevitiably includes sharp objects, one of which found it's way deep into my thumb early Saturday Afternoon. A particularly sharp knife that the father-in-law went to put down on the table in the same place as my thumb.

The cut was not to large, but it was deep enough to need attention. After a brief moment of panic that all our plans will be ruined by a trip to casualty, it was quickly decided that the resident vet could fix me. A quick bit of local and a couple of stiches and I was out working again (with gloves on, of course) inside 20 minutes. Very efficient.

Black Pudding.

Well, the deed is done.

As planned the 2 pigs were slaughtered on Wednesday.

Their was very little stress (for the pigs) about the whole event. They spent the 300Metre journey eating and the experience of the slaughterman was clear from the efficiency of the whole process.

The many times that I have accompanied and helped the resident vet during all manner of operations, post mortoms and so on held me in good sted and I had no problems holding the bucket to collect the blood which is now very tasty black pudding. We also took one liver, both hearts and some of the fat on the inside of the belly, which have gone into 2 different batches of Liver Pate (Most of this is within the guidance of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his antics at River Cottage).

Last night saw us make some "practice" sausages in preperation for the major processing operation tommorrow.

Wednesday was both a sad and an exciting day. It was also a relief. The weather had not been kind to us or the pigs over the last few weeks. The place was pure mud, and trying to feed 2 hungry pigs when it is dark, muddy and raining is not easy. It certainly helped that this was the plan from the start. We enjoyed their characters and their freindly nature. We were amused by their antics. However, we always knew they were not for keeps. We feel that they had a better life than most production animals and the end was conducted in the most stressless way possible.