Category: Preserves
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How to make Guanciale, cured pork cheek
Guanciale is the perfect preserved pork. It’s wonderfully versatile & tasty, easy to make, economical to buy & use and looks brilliant. What’s not to like about that? You can see what I made in the picture above: I’m so pleased with the result. Guanciale means “pillow” in Italian, the reason should be obvious. My…
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Salumi by Ruhlman & Polcyn – Review
Salumi delivers on its promises. If you want a comprehensive, understandable, useable and enjoyable guide to how to dry cure & preserve meats Italian style, this is it. It’s suitable for the chef, semi-pro or novice home practitioner. I wish that this book had been published a few years earlier to save me some hard…
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Schug and harissa recipes
These are a blast for any chilliholic and will add a new dimension to the seasonings on any table. In the northern hemisphere, now is when we need to preserve green & red chillies. If you have a blender or food processor these couldn’t be easier. Chillies and tomatoes are arguably two of the most…
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Fermenting fruit vinegars at home
Once you know how to make your own vinegar you can experiment with different flavours. Last year I showed you how to make your own apple cider vinegar. This year, I experimented to see if I could use the same principles to make some blackberry and apple vinegar. I’ve also got into using Kombucha.…
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Tarragon vinegar recipe
My friend Emma has started Project Nosh to eat as many of the edible plants in her garden before she moves. One of the plants Emma wants ideas for is French tarragon (artemisia dracunculus). The dracunculus in the Latin name means ‘Little Dragon’, perhaps referring to the teeth like shape of the leaves or its…
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Stick blender Mayonnaise – Salad dressings No. 2
I promised some more salad dressings when I wrote the Vinaigrette recipe the other day. I really looked forward to doing this post because mayonnaise this way is so simple and so spectacular. You’ll have great mayo in less than a minute. I hope once you have made this the first time, you will not…
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Fig, fennel, coriander & bay jam
As you can see, the figs produce a wonderful colour and texture. The fennel gives a lovely background warmth with the bay. The coriander provides generous light bursts of flavour. The story behind this jam is that I had the good fortune to receive a present of a jar of fig, vanilla and ginger jam…