23rd December -Goose Guts and Ham (mmm…)

Big Ham!

Not a great deal to report really. The morning was spent pulling the inards from various poultry and by lunchtime my arms were so well oiled with goose fat I felt rather like a cross-channel swimmer, save for the condom like hat. Protection from cold water and roasting potatoes are not the only use for the yellow grease apparently and whenever I see the substance I am put in mind of a cold remedy recommended by a jocular farmer friend; slaver your chest in goose fat apply a sheet of brown paper to the sticky surface and remember to sleep on your back! I always believed it was Vick’s VapoRub which my mother scooped from the small blue bottles and rubbed onto me when I was a child -perhaps I was mistaken.

The focus is still very much on food. The goose and turkey (we like to show off and have both) are ready for Christmas dinner, the Panettone recipe has been dug out and dusted off for another use and this evening I put the Christmas ham on to cook. It is a colossal slab of meat reserved from curing our Large White cross Saddleback pigs last spring and promises to be a sensation. I have experimented with many ways of cooking ham in the past and have often been disappointed with the dry and rather crumbly result. For years I believed that this textural difference from shop bought ham was down to the home curing but it isn't. The way to produce a firm but moist product, which slices well and tastes fantastic is to boil the joint for a short while then leave it to cool down very slowly in the water, a simple but effective technique which has revolutionised our ham eating experience. This Christmas I boiled our 5 kg ham for one and a half hours and left it on the back of the Rayburn overnight. When cool the ham can be skinned and glazed in the oven for ceremonial purposes or sliced there and then for every day use.

You won't hear from me tomorrow so Merry Christmas everyone!

Dinner

Creamy bacon, courgette and tomato pasta. Em reserved some double cream (from making her decadent orange ice cream) and it was combined with courgettes from the freezer, a jar of passata and streaky bacon to make a quick but rather good meal.