Projects from the curing chamber
Every year we raise a couple of pigs on our smallholding. The Berkshire/Duroc cross swine have a beautiful meat to fat ratio, and are very pleasant company whilst they are with us. We practise whole animal butchery, which we undertake ourselves, wasting nothing.
Our head chef Dan has a long standing love of charcuterie, and has been steadily gaining experience through various lockdown projects, not all of which were a success, but every failure is a lesson learned.
Our favourites so far have been our Nduja, red wine and black pepper salami, Coppa ham, our wonderful Prosciutto which took 13 months from start to finish, and Guanciale, or “Face Bacon” made from the jowl of the pig, a highly underused cut, often destined for dog food, but is much like the belly of the pig, and absolutely delicious when cured or slow cooked.