Picked up the side of pork last week, already making our way through it. Made a load of sausages and sausage meat with the trim and some of the shoulder, and had the remainder of the bone in shoulder slow roasted over Saturday night ready for Sunday dinner. The extra fat compared to even farm shop pork is huge, so much so that I am going to have to start removing some of it before cooking. The meat itself though is fantastic, we had almost no shrinkage in the slow roast shoulder compared to when I have done it before.

For £110 we got:

4 x medium leg joints
1 x huge shoulder joint
1 x small shoulder joint
1 x hock
8 x thick chops
1 x loin joint
1 x full belly
2 x trotters
small amount of ribs
bag of diced pork
bag of trim

Decided against the any of the offal.

The bacon is dry curing at the moment, the belly should be ready to come out of the salt today for drying and the back should be cured over the weekend hopefully. Think I will need to trim the rind and at least some of the fat off before cooking.

I found mine went off quickly, I don't think I got all the butter milk out of it.

Don't forget to render the fat down, that stuff is like gold

First one out of the cure is the belly, rinsed it and hung it in the garage in muslin last night. Reckon it will be good to go on Sunday. Back should be ready for hanging Sunday.

How do you render fat and what do you use it for? Got a huge jug full of jelly and fat from the shoulder joint that I am going to probably use for stock and maybe make some mucky fat and give the rest to the dog.

Got some trotters that I dont really know what to do with too.

Put the fat and skin on a tray in the oven on a medium heat, the fat will render out. Bacon fat can be used for cooking, if I've got any it makes a great replacement for butter in a risotto , ordinary pork fat can be used to roast veggies or anywhere you would use lard. This may be good reading www.homegrown.org/forum/topics/b ... le-pig-101

Put the fat and skin on a tray in the oven on a medium heat, the fat will render out. Bacon fat can be used for cooking, if I've got any it makes a great replacement for butter in a risotto , ordinary pork fat can be used to roast veggies or anywhere you would use lard. This may be good reading www.homegrown.org/forum/topics/b ... le-pig-101

It's the buttermilk that turns the butter rancid mate.

I thought "washing" the butter was taking the pi[is[/is but no, once you've got the butter and buttermilk separated, get the lump of butter in a large bowl under a running cold tap and start squeezing and kneading the butter to get the buttermilk out. I was suprised at how long it took before the water was running clear. I might invest in some butter paddles (or patts) because they help to squeeze the buttermilk out too.

Yeah, I thought I'd got it all out, the buttermilk did make nice pancakes and soda bread though.

It's also a good low-fat treat to pour around my morning porridge

Went boat fising on Saturday for the first time since November and managed to bag some nice, prime Summer cod (63 between us).



If only cod fishing was like this all the time, we were a lot closer to the French coast than the English coast:



I've got four fillets currently at the smokers (cost 40p per lb), two are in the fridge salting down for carpaccio of salt cod with capers, chillies and preserved lemon. This is what they look like now:



The rest of them have all been vacuum sealed and frozen down.

I roasted four of the heads this morning in shallots, garlic and chillies

Before:



After:



What was left:



Last weekend I had Aliccia over to stay and she loves her fish, so I cooked a couple of turbot fillets (each weighing over 450g and I've still got another two just like 'em off the same fish), steamed in white wine with spring onions, cherry plum tomatoes, lime zest and dill and served them with pan-seared Manx Bay king scallops:

Hang on, it was you who said they wouldn't eat cod not that long ago...

I won't eat cod bought from anywhere, I only eat cod I've caught myself. That way I know it is in prime condition and isn't full of nematodes.

I'm not interested in big (over 20lb) cod either 6-15lb is the prime size for eating. The ones we caught the other day were stuffed full of brittle starfish. I prefer haddock to cod but I've only ever caught one down this way in the last 10 years. I needed to replenish the freezers and would rather have been fishing for flatties or bream but the turbot and brill are hard to find at the moment