Pork Pie - Pt.1 'A Tale of Two Trotters'

This week we've taken delivery of a 1/4 of rare breed pig, handily jointed into all manner of juicy cuts, and now monopolising most of our freezer space. I think the breed is an Oxford Sandy & Black, also known as the Plum Pudding pig, which sounds delicious. Serena of Keythorpe Rare Breeds did tell us the breed, but I was too busy rooting through the meat at the time, glaze-eyed and muttering about Crackling and Sunday Roasts, so wasn't concentrating on the technicalities!

Serena very kindly included a few of the less obvious 'cuts' as a kind of 'Epicurean Bonus'. The generous portion of Liver is destined for a future experiment in Faggot making, the Kidneys... well, the Kidneys need a little more thought, which just leaves a dainty pair of Trotters.

Trotters... Hmm! Pigs would of course struggle to get around without them, but my research to date has found that this may be the limit of their usefulness. Legendary Snout-to-Tail advocate Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall swears by a Sweet 'n' Sour recipe for Trotters, but the comments I've read from people who've tried this recipe can be summarised as 'Nice sauce, but on no account attempt to eat the trotters', which is hardly a ringing endorsement.

I've decided to go back to basics, extracting the flavour and a useful dollop of gelatin from the Trotters by boiling up with a few stock vegetables and aromatics. Much more sensible than attempting to search through skin and knuckles for anything worth a chew. Pork pie it is then, with Trotter jelly (IMO the best part of a pork pie) made with a good Devon cider in the absence of our own. I've used Winkleigh Sam's Dry which is a clean tasting, and properly dry cider, ideal for the purpose. I don't want the jelly to be sweet, or too highly flavoured with the rich, bittersweet flavour typical of Herefordshire and Somerset ciders. I don't want any hairs in it either, so the trotters have had a bit of a shave.

For the pie itself I'm using a (slightly tweaked) recipe by Rick Stein, which has the distinct advantage over more traditional recipes of not using Lard in the pastry. I've made proper hot-crust pastry before with some success, but I've a feeling that if Karen catches sight of a block of Lard slowly melting into a pan of water, I'll be eating the whole 2lb pie myself...

The Broome Farm Wassail

c/o Wyenot TV


The 2009 Cider Wassail from Alan Wood on Vimeo.

Cider Jar of the Month - Symonds' Scrumpy Jack

Herefordshire cidermaker Symonds' was established in 1727, and stayed a relatively small, and well respected family concern until 1984 when the company was purchased, and massively expanded by Cheshire brewer Greenall Whitley. Only four years later the fully modernised ciderworks at Stoke Lacy was sold on by Greenalls to H.P. Bulmer, along with the Symonds' brands which included Scrumpy Jack.

Scrumpy Jack was one of the most popular of the old Symonds' brands, and therefore ripe for development as a national brand. Sadly the popular traditional version of this cider died with the closure of the old Symonds' site in the 90's, and we are now left with the keg national version which is really nothing to write home about.

The image on these lovely little cider jars is of the horse-drawn cider mill which graced the frontage of the old Symonds' ciderworks. These old mills litter the Herefordshire countryside, though very few indeed are still used for their original purpose. At best they stand as monuments to a once proud tradition of rural cidermaking, many more are planted up with flowers in peoples front gardens!

The Symonds' story is not all bad news though, the old ciderworks at Stoke Lacy is now occupied by the award-winning Wye Valley Brewery, brewers of one of my favourite beers, the pale and hoppy Hereford Pale Ale. But perhaps even better news is that the family tradition of Herefordshire cidermaking continues in Sarah's Cider of Bosbury. Sarah herself is the granddaughter of Neville Symond, the man who ran the Symonds' ciderworks until it's untimely demise in the 90's.

Pump Action

All I wanted for Christmas was a pump! Sadly, despite dropping numerous not-so-casual hints to anyone who would listen, I had to buy the damn thing for myself.... I drew the line at wrapping it up and putting it under the tree though.

Racking off can be achieved by the very simple process of carefully syphoning from one vessel into another cleaned and sterilised vessel. This is how I've been doing it for years, it's a little slow but has the distinct advantage of costing no more than a length of food-grade tubing. It's a gentle process too, which is important at this stage of the cider's development, we don't want to agitate the cider too much as this will drive off any dissolved CO2 and possibly lead to oxidisation.

The problem with syphoning is that the cider must be physically higher than the receiving vessel or it won't flow. Small fermenters can be lifted to a suitable height either before racking, or if you're really careful, during the racking process. The larger the fermenter, the more difficult this is to achieve, and we've now found that our newer 120 litre tubs are simply too heavy to lift. The time has come for us to invest in a food-grade pump.

The industry standard pump for small-scale cidermakers like ourselves is the Schneider Okoflow 3000, a flexible impeller pump made in Germany (naturally!), and imported by those suppliers of all things cidery, Vigo Ltd of Devon. Needless to say they're not cheap, but we really can't get by without one now.

It's a thing of robust, functional beauty, decked out in hot 'Industrial Orange' as all good 'Man-Toys' should be. I'm certainly looking forward to flexing it's dinky rubber impeller very soon. Perhaps I'll post a video on here... Hmm! Perhaps this Blog is dull enough already...

The Birds

Today's blog entry is a game of 'Spot the Blackbird'. There's no prizes, and I've made it very easy by highlighting the birds in the picture.


All rather pointless you might think, but there is a good reason for posting this (frankly rather poor) image, and that reason is a plea for untidiness in the garden.

Over the last few weeks this area of our neighbours garden has been home to literally dozens of birds, all feasting greedily on the rotting Bramley Apples which litter the ground. At any one moment there have been up to 20 Blackbirds, either on the ground pecking, or perched overlooking this welcome Winter food reserve. Recent cold weather has made things difficult for our overwintering birds, the ground has frozen, berries and bugs are now in much shorter supply, so a pile of rotting apples attracts great interest from our feathered friends.

The village orchard is another happy hunting ground for birdlife, and I'm pleased to see that many of the other apple trees in the village have been left relatively untidied. As for our own small orchard, well this has been largely cleared of debris by the even greedier hens. Karen has become adept at creating 'hen-proof feeding stations' for the smaller birds, though it's a bit like trying to keep the Squirrels off the bird feeders, a constant battle of wits, a battle the poultry all too often win!