Smoking

It has been a really busy week in the garden, so not to much time in the kitchen. Gary has been working tirelessly to get the trellising done for our fruit trees in the corner patch, and I have been helping him when needed, but also getting on with other jobs in between.

The two blueberries and the mulberry have been planted,

and the bed around the magnolia

has been weeded and mulched. Seedlings for the vegie patch are being nurtured in readiness for their new home too. There have also been trips to the timber yard to collect more posts, and order the timber to edge the garden beds with, and a few to the local hardware as well.

With this all going on we still need to eat, but it needs to be quick and simple., so some of the pre-cooked meals from the freezer have come in handy. However, I have still managed to cook up a few things too. One morning, before breakfast , I quickly made a batch of mini banana & walnut muffins (gluten free) – they have been a welcome sweet treat.

Mini Banana & Walnut Muffins (Gluten Free)

Then yesterday I just couldn’t get my head around what to have for dinner. I had put one of the smoked ham hocks, that I had brined and smoked a couple of week’s ago, into a pot with some water and aromats to simmer away, thinking that I would just can the stock and freeze the meat because I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it – it wasn’t exactly pea and ham soup weather, and I wasn’t so sure about making choucroute.

I finally decided that we’d have a mushroom risotto, easy to make, and delicious… However, while working outside, I started to play with the idea of making a risotto with the meat from the hock that was gently simmering away on the stove inside. Then it came to me – use similar ingredients to the traditional pea and ham soup, but freshen it up using some frozen peas and lovely fresh mint from the garden – so that’s what I did . I made Pea and Ham Risotto with Mint, it worked and it was delicious, and it gave me another way to use the meat from the humble hock.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

After another hectic week at Tranquility…

Bon appétit!

Links:

Smoked Ham Hocks

Pea and Ham Risotto with Mint

Mini Banana & Walnut Muffins – Gluten Free

The Corner Patch

Magnolia Bed

Glossary

Save

I know, it’s just bacon and eggs. But last night, it wasn’t just any bacon with eggs, it was my, SBA’s, bacon with eggs and tomato – now do you understand…

While I’ve always wanted to try to make my own bacon, I was a little wary and thought it would be terribly difficult! That was until I come across the post of fellow blogger “The Old Fat Guy” from the Canadian Rockies… He showed the way to curing and smoking your own bacon, and I couldn’t wait. While I was unable to procure a piece of pork loin from my favourite supplier, Coltish Pork, I managed to get a nice piece from a butcher that I know provides good quality meat.

The first thing was to trim up the meat, weigh it, calculate the brining period, then weigh out the cure ingredients, massage them in, then pop it all into a snap-lock bag in the fridge for (in this case) 10 days. Each day I turned it and gave it a little massage, just to make sure the cure was getting to each and every little bit of it. Then the big day come, it was removed from the fridge, taken from the bag, washed, given a little soak and then set un-covered in the fridge until the next day. The cold smoker was lit and the meat was set in place to cold smoke for 6 hours before being put back in the fridge. The following day, the hot smoker was set and in went the pork, along with a few other bits and pieces, and all were smoked accordingly.

In the bag curing

After being cold smoked

A combination of Apple and Tasmanian Oak chips for the smoker.

Ready for the hot smoking

Nicely smoked

Smoking nicely

The, what was now, bacon was covered and placed back in the fridge for another two days, and yesterday was the big day…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The bacon was sliced and several pieces set aside for our dinner last night – yes, that’s right, dinner, not brekky, dinner, and oh my gosh, it was amazing, delicious, what can I say. The rest of the bacon was vac sealed into small serving sizes and then frozen for another day.

Gary likes his eggs fried and with English muffins…

I like my eggs poached and with toast…

While I have posted the recipe here on my blog, I urge you to go and see The Old Fat Guys’ blog where he provides a lot of insight into the making of bacon with this dry cure and has some fantastic pics of the various stages along the way. He has some amazing posts and recipes too, so you may find me referring you there again in the future. I do find it a little amusing that a Slightly Bent Aunt from Australia is referring you to The Old Fat Guy in Canada, don’t you?

So what else was in the smoker, you ask…

Smoking nicely

I wanted to make sure I put the space to good use, so had brined three large pork hocks, three potatoes and two sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes will be used later this week for a smokey sweet potato smash, and the ordinary potatoes were turned into a delicious creamy smoked potato soup topped with a little truffle oil, fine shavings of parmesan and just to gild the lily, a few shavings of black truffle – we had that for our “Soup and Sweets” night the sweets (dessert) was my Spiced Honey and Yoghurt Panna Cotta topped with vanilla poached peaches and toasted coconut flakes.