Old spot pork chops with sage beurre noisette and wet garlic

The summer weather on North Uist is currently as wet as my garlic crop. Wet garlic is back in season and without the requisite farmer’s market nearby to acquire this delight in the short growing window, I can make the best of this delicacy from my own garlic crop instead.

For the uninitiated, wet garlic is simply garlic harvested before the bulb and cloves are fully formed.  It has a more gentle, sweet  almost creamy flavour, much less assertive than its powerful dried self, as comes later in the season.  The whole plant can be used: the bulb, stem and leaves, cooked or raw. Don’t pass up on the chance to try some if you are growing your own garlic for storing later. Wet garlic triumphalism

The contents of my lovingly tended and meticulously weeded raised beds are suffering with the relentlessly unsettled weather.  I was actually in a state of denial when I recently described my raised bed contents as micro vegetables, they were actually nano-veg and have only now reached the dizzy heights of micro-veg status.  The raspberries have been overcome with chickweed, the early peas are sagging despondently (those that have not detached due to basal rotation in the wind) and the tomatoes are sulking in the sunless polytunnel, having entered a post-second truss torpor.

I can (almost) sweep this despondency aside because my garlic crop is delivering yet again.  I previously covered growing and storing garlic here and once again, it is proving to be my most successful crop.These softneck plants can best be described as thugs, remaining robust and strong despite the adverse weather.  Several visitors have commented on how great my ‘leeks’ (garlic) is looking.  My leeks are in fact spindly bedraggled pencils, but the garlic is truly magnificent. With 150 growing bulbs, I have enough spare to enjoy some wet garlic.

My stored garlic is finished and really can’t make it through storage until this year’s crop yields.  The green shoot that appears in the core of the stored cloves of bulbs in spring is bitter and requires to be removed and is a signal that the storage period is coming to an end. I have learned that any excess bulbs left after May will spoil, so need to manage any surplus by preserving.  It is a tricky balance to stretch the crop out across the year, but I think I’m there.

The great wall of North Uist?

Aside for looking forlornly at my veg and fruit,  we have been dedicating our time to some pretty hefty outdoor chores that we can put off no longer.  The somewhat alarming ‘to do’ list covers some +30 jobs, some of which are fairly ambitious, not least building of a 20m long retaining wall between the house and workshop.

Normally at this time of year, I would be spending time on the island of Mingulay for the annual seabird count (more about that another time), but the time window to help with the wall would have passed if I had gone and how could I possibly miss out on such a fun week, excavating a trench between the house and the workshop to build the wall foundation? Hold me back….

In at the deep end

It was very tough work, yet another wheelbarrow bit the dust and at one end required extensive and pretty deep excavation to locate firm ground. No surprise, given the extra 150 tonnes of hardcore required for the workshop foundation.

Looking back up from the depths towards the wall foundation

With help of a friend (to whom we are incredibly grateful) and expert in such matters as concrete, shuttering and block laying,  The Man Named Sous has acquired a new range of skills he has been putting to use over the last few weeks. I am merely a fairly ineffective labourer, but that’s fine as I can focus on where my skills lie i.e. go back to looking forlornly at the vegetables. All the foundations done, only 5 pallets of block laying remains.  Easy. Next job, the deer fence…

The Great Indoors

I really enjoy a feral outdoor summer existence here, but the bewilderingly crap weather has forced us to retreat indoors frustratingly often, but that’s not so bad. The Man Named Sous turned his attention to technology and bread, adopting his roles as Technigeek and Boulanger in tandem.

I had suggested he might help me find a replacement for my end of contract iPhone, a task he pursued with exuberance and glee and one that would have made me lose the will to live.  He eventually emerged (sans anorak) having indulged in hours of web surfing to proclaim he had, on balance, identified ‘the best mobile phone in the world’ (allegedly, according to 50 squillion in-depth reviews of the minutiae of the device). Hence I am now the owner of the HTC One, turning my back on iOS / Apple in favour of Android.  What a revelation, there will be no going back for me. I am now spending an unhealthy amount of time fiddling with my ‘phone’. Revelatory and sad but true at the same time.

Goodbye iPhone, hello HTC One

The Boulanger skills of The Man Named Sous have been coming along too, assisted by Paul Hollywood’s book ‘How to Bake’ he has produced some magnificent barms, ciabatta, fougasse and baguettes, allowing me to focus on enriched dough recipes, all to be featured in future posts. Get in there!

Summer Music Fest

The summer music festival season is well underway.  It is a very long time since we felt inclined to attend one of these events, Knockengorroch, the Galloway Roots festival circa 2003 being the last. I am still scarred by some of the unforgettably far out experiences of ‘musical theatre’ and white-robed, barefoot tai chi in the mud (observed, no participation for me, thank you). Before that, it was Monsters of Rock 1992, the scars from which were more physical rather than psychological. With Slayer on the bill,  grind and grime were in equal measure.

I am now bewildered as to why anyone would want to go to these gargantuan festivals (not even Bloodstock can lure me) and I don’t remember particularly enjoying any of them, even in my teens. I came across this article in the New Statesmen by Eleanor Margolis that more or less sums up my experience and feelings about these money-spinning behemoths and saves me continuing on an extended diatribe about same.

These days, we aim for small gigs of 500-2000 capacity, optimising the more intimate musical experience at a bargain sub-£30 cost which, in the last couple of years, has included incredible gigs: Mastodon (x2),  Porcupine Tree, The Mars Volta (RIP), Opeth and Devin Townsend (of course).We are occasionally torn about going to the slightly bigger not-quite-stadium size gigs that many of the more popular / mainstream bands we like play. We recently had this quandary about Neil Young who we have seen twice before, also tempted by QOTSA and Black Sabbath, but the combination of ridiculous ticket prices and unappealing aircraft hangar venues is off-putting  Nine times out of ten, on reflection, we don’t buy tickets for these type of gigs (exceptions including Metallica and Dream Theater spring to mind).

Of course, we have been utterly spoilt by seeing so many great gigs in the ultimate venue (since the Glasgow Apollo closed) Glasgow Barrowlands. How we love the place and its sticky beery floors and glitterball, the sprung dancefloor bouncing and flexing as the 2000 or so strong crowd go crazy and acts look from the stage into the roaring mass in disbelief at the response they are receiving (in particular when we saw Robert Plant, the Fun Lovin’ Criminals and the late great Gary Moore).

It has a reputation as being one of the favourite venues for so many bands and the electric atmosphere no doubt influenced many of the outstanding gigs we have enjoyed there: Faith No More (exceptional Angel Dust Tour gig in 1992), Motorhead, Mastodon, The Cult, The Black Crowes, Steve Earle, Paul Rodgers, Robert Cray, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Mission and countless others…

So, while most music at mainstream festivals is not really our taste, from the comfort of our sofa, glass of sauv blanc ironically in hand, we could not resist having a peak at the Glastonbury ‘performances’, particularly given the much anticipated (over-hyped) appearance of The Rolling Stones.

We were lucky to see their show at all.  Had they their own way, the ever cash-conscious Stones would have had a filming blackout and sequestered the performance for a lucrative special release DVD or a pay-per-view deal for $40 a pop, as they did for a NY show last year. The band were apparently reluctant to perform for the benefit of BBC TV licence paying viewers, not for money, bien sûr, just issues of control and vanity, minor really.

The band initially told the BBC that the corporation would not be allowed to screen more than a four song set sample of their performance. C’mon guys, you are where your are in your career, no one really gives a monkeys about how you look except perhaps the pathetic Daily Mail.  Most punters just want to say ‘I was there’.

I’m not about to be ageist about the Stones in the way that so many media articles have been. It is not about age.  So many performers that are peers of the Stones still cut it: for example Old Shaky, George Thorogood (my parents saw him 2 weeks ago),  the much older great BB King.  When did The Stones last produce some really exciting music?  1971 as far as I recall from their back catalogue and regurgitating it 42 years later is just not enough to endear them to me. Then there is the  issue of the Stones trying to wring out as much filthy lucre as possible.

We would probably forgive them for all of this if their performance had been in any way memorable. However, it was not and reminded me of a James Brown gig I saw on TV, performed towards the end of his career when he was carried by multiple backing singers, choirs and a plethora of supporting musicians. Credit to Mick for his energy levels, though not his often flat and rushed delivery of songlines but Keith Richards is not the guitarist he once was and it took support from Ronnie Wood et al to prop him up.  That said, his resilience is incredible, it is amazing he is still here. As Bill Hicks said ‘I picture nuclear war, two things survive: Keef and bugs.’

I was quite flabbergasted to read post-gig reviews in the mainstream press describing how The Stones ‘took Glastonbury by storm’ and ‘blew the stage apart’. Really? Emperor’s new clothes or what? Did I miss something fundamental?

Both feeling pretty underwhelmed by The Stones performance, we opted to watch ‘Some Kind of Monster’ again,  a documentary about Metallica directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky.

I’m not suggesting for one minute that Metallica hold any moral high ground over The Stones in some respects. They were the biggest selling US rock  act in the 1990s, then there is all the Napster baggage and the fact that they have not delivered any outstanding albums since 1991 (controversial I know, especially since for many hardcore thrash fans 1991’s Black Album was itself considered to be the band selling out).

That said, re-watching this film was a whole lot more entertaining (though no more musical) than ‘Glasters’ on the Beeb. This 2004 film documents the making of the awful St Anger album at a time when the band are about to implode as a consequence of addiction, conflict, egos, control and the historical baggage of the band and its members, past and present.  There is very little music in the film and you need not be interested in Metallica, their music or heavy metal to appreciate this honest, riveting and at times very tense psychodrama. Highly recommended viewing.

OK time to wind my neck back in.  Where was I?  Oh yes. Wet garlic…

Old spot pork chops with sage beurre noisette and wet garlic

This is a super quick and simple recipe that allows good quality meat and fresh herbs to come to the fore. Beurre noisette (brown butter) is appropriately nutty, flavoursome and a bit indulgent.

The sage I am growing in the herb bed has been established for a few years, does manage to overwinter but is always attacked by some beast or other and looks like broderie anglaise .  The plants I have grown from seed this year are safe in the coldframe and much happier with big index finger-sized leaves and I have used them here. The wet garlic is included in both the sage brown butter sauce and light sauce for the pasta – chopped bulb and shredded green leaves are folded through the pasta. The Old Spot pork chop featured is part of the half pig we bought from our neighbour and butchered ourselves. It is boneless, from the bottom of the loin and simply seasoned with salt and pepper and grilled.

Sage beurre noisette

Ingredients

3-4 sage leaves, roughly chopped

1 small wet garlic bulb, finely chopped

1/2 tsp. green peppercorns, rinsed

70g butter

salt and pepper, to taste

Method

• Put the butter in a thick-based sauce pan, heat over a medium heat until it foams gently then add the wet garlic.
• Cook for a minute or so then add the sage and peppercorns.  Allow to cook for a couple of minutes more until the foaming butter turns nutty brown, and also smells a bit nutty and remove from the heat immediately to prevent the butter or garlic and sage burning.
• Season to taste and pour over the grilled chop.

The pasta sauce is really more of a dressing with a splash of olive oil, throw in a small chopped bulb of wet garlic, cook for a minute then add a chopped portobello mushroom, cook for a couple of minutes, add some halved cherry tomatoes and some shredded wet garlic leaves and then fold through your pasta of choice.  Done and dusted in under 30 minutes.   This was served with a cheerful salad of leaves and flowers from the garden. Sunshine in a bowl, given the absence of same from the sky.   And finally it is Wimbledon final tomorrow.  C’mon Andy!

Gloucester Old Spot pork scaloppine with nettle pappardelle

With most of the vegetables in the garden yet to surface, it seems wholly appropriate to utilise our currently most successful garden edible, nettles, and combine these in a meal with some of our local Old Spot pork.

Nettles (Urtica dioica) really is a great plant species, and not just for eating. Don’t be put off by online diatribes about nettles being ‘unpalatable, disgusting or only survival food’, or statements such as ‘nettle recipes exist for the sake of eating an ingredient because you can’, etc, etc. The secret is in understanding when to pick them (young, early season tips only) and how to prepare them to really get the best from them.

Also, I don’t buy the argument that they are a hassle to prepare.  They are most certainly less hassle to clean and prepare than some other veg we grow and prize e.g. globe artichokes. OK, an extreme example perhaps, but comparable with spinach, for sure.

Yes, nettles can be invasive in a garden, but if you have space for a patch they grow (too?) unabated, demand no attention and offer up a welcome lush green and nutritious crop during the hungry gap (our’s at least – it is longer than most). Later on, they are fabulous refuges and food for insects (and corncrake refuges here too), make superb nitrogen-rich liquid plant food and can help activate your compost heap. For all these reasons, I love my garden nettle patches. Of course, you don’t need to have them in the garden, there’s plenty to forage from urban wasteland, woods and meadows.

You might think that living where I do that a crop of pristine unpolluted nettles should be easy to forage.  Well, it is true that we have significant nettle patches in the garden but nightly visits from deer, the dogs cheerfully marking their territory (including the nettles) and most recently, a wily sheep in occupation, make most of our nettles effectively unpalatable.

Even if I wanted to run the ‘urine gauntlet’, I’m reluctant to take an early crop of young nettle tops from our biggest patches. On occasional years, corncrakes arriving from their long migration take a welcome break in this early cover in our garden, especially if the irises have yet to get going, as is the case this year.

The rasping call of the males resonates for a few nights before they move on to more productive machair areas to establish breeding territories. I was optimistic that a corncrake may visit and benefit from our nettles as cover, but our very late i.e. non-existent spring means there was no cover to attract the first arrivals this year.  They must have felt very exposed on arrival.

I shouldn’t exaggerate about our non-existent spring.  It did occur on Sunday past after all, which was glorious and confusing all at the same time.  I was fly fishing on Saturday wearing 3 layers of fleece, couldn’t feel my fingers and abandoned the outing.  On Sunday, we were bewildered by the novelty of stunning sunshine, but not just that – warmth and managed  t-shirts all day and a swim (for the dogs anyway, I’m not quite that hardy). Monday, same old, same old northerly wind, rain and low cloud.  Where art though spring?  Or please can we cut to the chase of summer?

Spring wildlife spectacular

Despite the less than ideal conditions, the wildlife is undeterred and the breeding season is in full swing.  Lapwings and redshanks show their irritation as I pass by their breeding territories on my local run.  I know exactly when and where to expect the next irate protective parent to rise from the vegetation to give me an earful as I pass by.

I watch the oystercatchers nesting round the bay having their frequent and noisy altercations with a pair of local ravens.  Gregarious eiders also nest around the bay, the gentle and soothing call of displaying males resonates on (rare) still nights.  Females will soon form crèches with their broods to help protect the vulnerable ducklings from predation.

The spring migration is ongoing and we currently have reasonable numbers of whimbrels on passage north, stopping at the bay at the bottom of the garden on their way to breeding grounds from Greenland across to Central Siberia. Male cuckoos make their presence heard and wheatears dart around the garden, a flash of white on the rump making them stand out against the grassy backdrop.

We have had spectacular views of a pair of hen harriers and short-eared owls hunting daily across the garden, often flying within a couple of metres of my office window.  This is very distracting while I am working!  Many parts of our garden have remained largely ungrazed for years and the sward is longer than the surrounding common grazing vegetation, so we have a genuine vole hotspot that is proving very fruitful for the local short-eared owls.

I have seen them hunt successfully on a number of occasions, once taking a short-tailed field vole literally from under the kitchen window.  I never tire of watching their graceful billowing flight.  One owl has regularly taken to saving energy by scanning the grass in the garden while perching on a favoured fence post.

Another rare and spectacular wildlife watching experience happened this week.  For the first time since we have lived in this house, we had a visit from an otter in the bay at the bottom of the garden.  It is not at all rare to spot otters here and we have had many very close encounters, but our bay is unlikely to form the core part of an otter territory due to the large component of the day when the tide is some distance out of the bay.

However, this young otter appeared to be exploring the area with a view to establishing a territory.  It ran up and down the grassy slopes at the bottom of the garden, methodically exploring overhanging rocks some distance from the shore, before returning periodically to play and feed in the seaweed on the rising tide. It was delightful and a privilege to have such prolonged views of this secretive mammal from our window.

Nettles: weeding and feeding

My pristine young nettle tops were picked from my raspberry beds where no marauding beasts have access.  This served to let the new rasp shoots have more space and light to grow. I find this to be the only downside to applying old manure (pig in our case) to permanent beds – weed seeds proliferate.  The nettles are small beer though – I’ve got my hands full with the chickweed later in the season.

I have a pretty extreme reaction to nettle stings, so I harvest using heavy-duty rubber gloves – gardening gloves are not robust enough and I learned my lesson the hard way when I was stung through them.

Although sensitivity to stinging nettles does vary between individuals, my sensitivity has very much increased as I have got older.  I remember, like most children, running through nettle patches and coming out with the familiar white blotches and associated red rash, but it never really hurt as much as just irritated slightly. I would just grab a dock leaf (Rumex spp.), rub it vigorously over the affected area, usually my knees, until my skin turned green from the dock and then continue on my merry way.

Now, even the slightest brush against the youngest stem covered in the small silky irritant hairs, which contain histamine, serotonin and formic acid among other things, is to be avoided. These hairs generate the familiar rash but this is coupled with considerable pain.  Although the rash looks the same, the pain stays and I can feel the effects for up to 2 weeks after being stung and the area of skin remains tingly and sensitive, which is a bit disconcerting. I wonder how common increased sensitivity is with age and expect it isn’t unusual, just unpleasant!

Preparing your nettles

I wanted to incorporate the nettles into pasta.  The best way to deal with them for this is to blanch the young tips, plunge them into boiling water for 3 – 4 minutes, then refresh in ice cold water to retain the vibrant colour.  The stings are now gone and the nettles can be handled.

All stems should be removed and the leaves squeezed lightly before blitzing in a food processor to a fine texture.  The nettles then need to be squeezed hard to remove as much moisture as possible as this will impact on the texture of the pasta.

Nettle pappardelle

I wanted to make a rustic hearty pasta to accompany the pork and thought pappardelle would be a fitting choice for the nettle and to complement the gutsy flavour of the pork scaloppine. I have used the same pasta recipe for about 20 years as it has never let me down.  It is from Nick Nairn’s first book ‘Wild Harvest’. The standard recipe calls for 150g of flour (plain, but I use ’00’).  For this recipe I used 180g to offset the additional moisture the nettle brings to the mix.  I got away with it.  Just.

Ingredients

180g flour, ’00’ or plain

1 whole egg, medium

1 egg yolk, medium

80g of fresh young nettle tips, rinsed, blanched and refreshed, trimmed and blitzed

Method

• Combine the flour, eggs, blitzed and squeezed nettles together in a food processor for 2 – 3 minutes. The mix should resemble fine breadcrumbs, not be gooey.  Add a bit more flour if it is.
• Tip out the dough and knead briskly for 1 minute.  Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge to rest for an hour.
• Cut the dough into 2 pieces, flatten each with a rolling pin to 5 mm thick then roll and refold the dough 7 times until you have rectangles about 8 x 18 cm.  This is important to work the gluten to get a shiny dough and gives the correct al dente texture after cooking.
• Using a pasta machine, set the rollers at the widest setting, pass through the dough and repeat, reducing the roller setting with each pass until the penultimate setting.  Pass through at this setting again and hang up to dry for at least 5 minutes.
• Lay the pasta sheet out on a lightly floured surface and roll before slicing about 2 cm wide to produce rustic pappardelle ribbons. Hang them up again until you are ready to use them.
• To cook, place in salted boiling water, bring back to the boil and cook for 2 – 3 minutes.  Check the texture as you cook.

Pork scaloppine with prosciutto, capers and balsamic vinegar – a fitting accompaniment

Ever since I got a hold of our local Old Spot pork, one particular recipe has been pouting at me and I knew it would work very well with this nettle pasta.  I saw this recipe on the The Garum Factory blog pages.  The pork is sumptuously blanketed in prosciutto with pungent sage delicately folded within which also shines enticingly through the prosciutto. The sauce is perfect with the pork – and the nettle pappardelle.

Jody and Ken are not just accomplished chefs, but Ken is also a superb photographer.  His images capture the essence of this recipe and my photos would simply not hold up to their exquisite gallery of images that accompany the recipe. I do not reproduce the recipe, but it can be found here.  Thank you Jody and Ken.  It was really delicious!

My pork scaloppine and nettle pappardelle

Stornoway black pudding bon bons, Angus asparagus and Gloucester Old Spot pancetta

Last week, after a 5 year campaign, Stornoway Black Pudding at last received its deserved Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status, under the EU’s Protected Food Name (PFN) scheme. It is not often that these islands on the fringe of Europe have a gastronomic accolade bestowed on them. What better reason to indulge in my favourite blood pudding.  It might be mid-week, but what the heck…

In fact, this post is one in celebration of prime Scottish ingredients at different geographical scales; National: Angus asparagus; Regional: Stornoway Black Pudding; Local (very): my neighbour’s Gloucester Old Spot pig for our home made pancetta.

In the land of the deep fried Mars Bar

It is unfortunate indeed that Scotland is synonymous with bad food – not least deep fried everything – indeed it could be argued that this recipe, in part, reinforces the stereotype.

When I lived / worked abroad (in Portugal, Hungary) and on excursions across Europe and beyond, I came to appreciate how different our food culture is from that of a sizeable chunk of the planet – we had no daily food market culture and yet it is such an intrinsic part of life elsewhere.  It is something I have long admired and missed about living in Southern Europe.

It is worth reflecting on this because I think in the last decade, a lot has changed. We have become aware of the value of food provenance as well as eating locally and seasonally. Farmer’s markets bring new insights into good British artisan produce.  Perhaps the tide has turned, we just need to look a bit harder in the surf to find the gastronomic gems.

I think this is the essence of the problem we face as British consumers trying to seek out the clichéd ‘Best of British’, it can be hard to find, and you have got to work (comparatively) hard to get a hold of the best. This is exemplified by the efforts one must go to here to seek out the very best produce but be reassured, there is no doubt it is here.

In Uist, we export the finest seafood in the world to continental Europe, principally France and Spain.  I am lucky since if I want live langoustine, lobster or crab and hand-dived scallops, I know where to source them.  I know where and how to collect local shellfish and where to catch trout / seafish. I can forage for seaweed, samphire, nettles, herbs.  However, all this takes considerable local knowledge, effort and that thing that life always seems be short of – time.  Here in particular, food really has to matter to enable one to access the best. It does pain me that often visitors ask where they can get local seafood, fish and meat.  The answer in never straightforward.

And so to our fine produce…

National gem: Angus Asparagus

If it was not for Fiona Bird (see my last post reviewing her book ‘The Forager’s Kitchen’), I would not have become aware of the suppliers of fine Scottish asparagus from Eassie farm, Glamis, Angus.  Fiona has roots in Angus and after a recent trip, kindly left me some of this fine product at a specified drop off point (again – this time the Cal Mac ferry office, Lochmaddy – thank you Fi and staff).

Eassie Farm asparagus is suberb quality and supplied to London’s Covent and Borough markets as well as fine dining restaurants across the UK such as The Kitchin, Edinburgh (one of my favourite restaurants, more on that later).  I can see why discerning customers would seek it out.  This is probably the best asparagus I have eaten. Of course, I have tried and failed spectacularly to grow it here.  However, I think after tonight’s asparagus excursion, I am determined to try again.

More about the Angus asparagus can be found here. Asparagus production is not Eassie farm’s only talent, they also produce sea kale, and I really hope to try some of that in future.

Regional delight: Stornoway Black Pudding

This genuinely wonderful product joins the ranks of Champagne, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Stilton Cheese and another Scottish favourite, Arbroath Smokies. The PGI status now guarantees the provenance of this iconic Scottish product. This status can only be described as Stornoway Black Pudding if it is produced in the town or parish of Stornoway on Lewis.

It is intrinsically linked with the food heritage of these islands and black pudding has been made on crofts in the Outer Hebrides for hundreds of years.  PGI will hopefully eliminate the threat to the pudding posed by  imitation “Stornoway Style” black puddings, produced elsewhere that are invariably, in my experience, inferior products.

Stornoway Black pudding is produced by only 4 butchers in the Stornoway area. It is rich, moist, decadent, delicately seasoned and every bit as distinctive and unique as the delectable Spanish morcilla and French Boudin noir.

Local hero: Gloucester Old Spot pork 

Except for the occasional tweet about the progress of our Gloucester Old Spot pig butchery, sausage and bacon making, this is the first time I have had the opportunity to include this wonderful produce in a recipe for a post.

We bought half of one of my neighbour’s Old Spot pigs a few weeks ago.  I could see the two Old Spots wandering around the croft from my office window until their demise and I am delighted to say I know they had a wonderful time, freely rooting around in their luxurious field and quarters until their time came.

It is widely understood that pigs are very intelligent and sensitive animals and no secret that there are welfare issues associated with pork and derivative products such as sausage (if indeed it is pork!) and bacon we can buy commercially in the UK.  I do not choose to consume this kind of pork.

To use the cliché, to buy free range, slow grown pork of a heritage breed is a totally different animal. I will focus more on the butchery, sausage and bacon making of the Old Spot in a future post. For this recipe, we wanted to include some of the dry cured bacon we made from the pork belly.  Some of this was kept in chunks and frozen to provide us with pancetta-style lardons for recipes such as this.

This green bacon is as far removed from average shop bought bacon as you could imagine. It is succulent and flavoursome without exuding water (commercial bacon is usually injected with water to speed up curing) and is not overly salty.

Stornoway Black Pudding bon bons, Angus asparagus and Old Spot pancetta

Originally, this recipe was set to feature hand-dived scallops since scallops are a tried and tested combination with asparagus.  Unfortunately, the weather has been a bit rough for the last week for the divers to get out.  I’m trying hard not to complain about the atrocious weather we are having, in fact, it doesn’t feel like spring has yet started and the vegetation and garden are testament to that fact.  However, this weekend, I saw the first few broods of greylag geese and the short-eared owls are hunting around the house, otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to tell whether it is November or May!  I have the utmost sympathy for visiting tourists – not least cyclists, I have been there and it is not pleasant.

The elements of this dish offer no great innovations in combination, but they work.  If it isn’t broken, don’t try and fix it – just use the best quality ingredients available, which is what I have tried to do.

The bon bons are simple to make and are deliciously soft and sumptuous and packed with flavour. They are simply shaped spheres of Stornoway Black Pudding coated in seasoned breadcrumbs with Parmesan cheese and parsley (parsley from the garden, home made breadcrumbs).

The asparagus was simply sauted.  This approach was inspired by Tom Kitchin and his “à la minute” style of cooking, where the sauce is prepared just before serving, very fresh and captures the essence of the asparagus. I had watched him demonstrate a similar recipe to students on the new BBC series ‘The Chef’s Protégé’ this week and it seemed like the most respectful way possible to treat this high quality asparagus.

Advice for asparagus: Because asparagus spears are tapered, unlike when contained in an asparagus steamer, when sauted, the tips cook at a faster rate than the more woody bases.  To compensate, remove the green outer layer from the bases of the spears at about 4 cm from the bottom.  That way your spears will sauté evenly and the tips will not be soggy and over cooked.

I used the best quality balsamic vinegar and Jerez sherry vinegar to finish the sauce. This provided the right balance of acidity to accompany the rich elements of the dish. Timing is all for this dish and each of the elements have to come together within a couple of minutes, so get everything prepared in advance to bring it together quickly.

Ingredients

For the Stornoway Black pudding bon bons:

1 Stornoway black pudding

200g white breadcrumbs

50g Parmesan cheese, finely grated

plain flour

2 tbsp. parsley, finely chopped

salt and pepper

1 egg, beaten

Groundnut / sunflower oil for deep frying

For asparagus and sauce:

10 fresh asparagus spears, bases trimmed

2 more asparagus spears, shaved for raw garnish

250 ml chicken stock

1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp. Jerez sherry vinegar

a splash of rapeseed oil

salt and pepper, to taste

Pancetta:

150g pancetta, chopped into lardons

a splash of rapeseed oil

Method

• Roll pieces of the black pudding about the size of a walnut, coat in plain flour, then egg, then the herby breadcrumb mix: breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, parsley, salt and pepper.
• Trim and remove the outer layer from 10 of the asparagus spears.  Shave the last 2 spears using a potato peeler – these will be served raw on top as garnish.
• Heat the oil ready to deep fry the black pudding bon bons.
• Sauté the asparagus spears in a little rapeseed oil in a sauté pan over a fairly high heat, keep them moving.  When they have gained a bit of colour, and start to produce some liquid, but are still firm (1 – 2 minutes), add a ladle of chicken stock and quickly cover to sauté.  Keep a close eye on the asparagus, keep it moving and add a little stock at a time, as required.  Cooking will take no longer than 5 minutes. The asparagus should flex but be firm with some bite.
• Deep-fry the black pudding bon bons until they are cooked through and the crumb coating is golden.  Be sure the oil is not too hot or they will burn on the outside and be raw in the middle.
• At the same time (!) gently fry the pancetta in a frying pan, bringing together all 3 elements to be ready at the same time.
• Remove the asparagus from the sauté pan, add the butter, allow it to start to bubble up through the asparagus liquid and chicken stock, whisking then add the Jerez sherry and balsamic vinegar.  Allow to cook for a minute or so to evaporate off some of the vinegar. Season to taste and serve, garnish with the raw asparagus and drizzle over the sauce.  Simple!