Slow Roast Pork Belly

A slice of pork belly per person (200g perhaps)

1 garlic clover per portion

Some sage

String and salt

Cut slices across the skin all the way along the pork belly to help it crackle

Crush the garlic and cut up the sage and mix with a little olive oil and salt (I just mush it all together in a pestle and mortar)

Spread the mixture on the meat side of the bellies

Roll with the skin on the outside and tie with string

Rub salt in to the skin and put on a baking tray

Cook at 220°C for 30 mins at which point the skin should have started to crackle, then turn down to 150°C and cook for a further 2 hours (if you think it is browning too fast turn the temp down a bit more). Rest for a few mins before serving.

Serve with mashed potatoes and veg.

Scone Recipe

Makes approx 8-10

225g plain flour (or self raising flour and miss the baking powder)
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
55g butter
25g sugar
Handful of sultanas/raisins/mixed peel etc
150 ml yogurt (or milk with 1/2 tsp lemon juice in it or buttermilk or some acidic milk product - it reacts with the baking powder to make the scones light)
Egg or milk to glaze

Pre heat the oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas 7
Put the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
Rub in the butter (like for pastry - a pastry cutter is good)
Add the sugar and fruit and mix in
Add the yogurt bit at a time, mixing gently as you do (like pastry still - you want to mix gently until everything just sticks together, don't over work and keep it cool)
Flour the work surface and turn the mixture out on to it. Roll or squish it until it is about 2 cm thick.
Cut with a pastry cutter in to scone shapes
Put them on a greased baking tray and bake in the oven for about 15 mins (check before that, they should be a pale brown all over)

A bit of culture

St.Vincents church in Bagnère has a series of free concerts throughout the summer. Most of them involve the organ. We went to the first on on Sunday.

It was a good selection of pieces and a good length (more than an hour of organ music is too much...)
The blurb about the organ in the program made it obvious that maintaining it in working order was not too easy. It seems to have spent most of its life being restored, replaced or out of order. It was obviously quite frisky to play with some uncooperative notes. Made me think of 'this one go plunk' in Molesworth - but 'this one go PAAAAAARP'. Overall very enjoyable though.

Fried rabbit with creamy mushroom sauce

Serves 2

2 rabbit saddles
2 tbl spn flour
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
50 ml cream
25 ml red wine
Some mushrooms
2 tbl spn fat (eg lard, butter, pork fat, duck fat, olive oil)

The extra bits in the pan are pork fat - rendering to provide the fat.

Mix flour, salt, pepper and paprika
Heat the oil on high in a frying pan
Coat the rabbit with the flour mixture and put in the hot oil.
Reduce the temperature and continue to fry until the meat is cooked through (check with a meat thermometer that it is at least 65°C in the middle)
Place the meat on warm plates. Turn the temperature up to max. Add the mushrooms to the pan and stir around briefly. Add the cream and wine and boil vigorously until the mixture has reduced to a creamy sauce.
Pour over the rabbit and serve with new potatoes and veg, or just on its own as a starter.

The photo of the finished product didn't come out very well. But it is tasty I promise.

Rabbit stew recipe

1 whole rabbit cut in to approx 6 pieces
Flour
Salt (something like 5 tbl spns)
Pepper
Paprika
2 carrots
1 large onion
(other veg eg potato if you fancy)
1 cup red white
1/2 cup chicken stock (from stock cube or fresh)
3 tbl spns fat (eg rendered pig fat, lard, butter, olive oil - I used pig fat as we have a lot)
A few sprigs of rosemary or thyme.
Large casserole with lid (big enough for the rabbit and veg to fit in)

Mix together the flour, salt, pepper and paprika (to your taste) on a plate.
Heat the fat in a heavy frying pan.
Taking one piece of rabbit at a time coat in flour and put in to the frying pan.
Fry until lightly browned on both sides then put in to the casserole dish.
Fry the onion gently in the frying pan and add that with the carrots to the casserole.
Add the red wine, stock and rosemary and put in the oven (or on top of the stove) and cook at a low temperature for an hour (or longer depending on the toughness of the rabbit!). It should be simmering not boiling hard.
Serve with bread and butter.

Bye bye bunny...(pics bit gross - but not too bad)

... and hello new bunny.
The bunny girls are a breed called Fauve de Bourgogne. When we bought them we impulse bought a male of a breed called Lapin Lièvre Belgique as we couldn't find a male Fauve (who wasn't the brother of the girls). However we have now found a male Fauve so Lièvre was surplus to requirements. As we can't have slackers on the farm (apart from Poppy) we ate him.
Doug killed him (quick bash to the head), gutted and skinned him (all the difficult parts!). I chopped him up and cooked him (the skillful parts!).

You can see the recipes here and here

We are curing the skin, I will write a post about that later.

Will the rain ever stop?

It is the start of June and we are having APPALLING weather here - it sounds like it is nicer in Scotland which is unusual!
It has been raining pretty much non stop for something like 2 weeks. It isn't just wet, it is cold too. The garden stuff (apart from weeds of course) aren't growing much and we feel like the whole house may surf down the hill on a wave of mud at any moment.
There is a lot of flooding across roads and in to a few unfortunate houses.

The dog has stayed huddled indoors most of the time and whines and whinges when she is forced to go outside for essential toilet breaks.

The sheep and cows don't seem too bothered (Hainoa made another escape attempt, but seemed to be trying to return home by the time we noticed so she was not far away). The horses looked a bit miserable so they are in the barn with Kira and Tigi. The rabbits seem quite happy eating grass in the rain. The chickens stay huddled inside a lot and the weather doesn't seem to have encouraged them to lay eggs much. Poor Sambuca is not pleased at all and stays huddled in her house a lot - or meows at us demanding we do something to make it warmer.

We have done various useful indoors things such as make mountains of sausages

and make the second attempt at all grain beer (the first was a disaster!) as well as continue planning our renovations (thinking about plumbing layout) and doing various exciting paperwork things (tax returns eeeurgh).

Off course I am aware that as soon as it gets sunny I will be complaining about it being too hot. Never happy!