# cooking



## marcros (22 Dec 2020)

Anybody cooking anything interesting at the moment, Christmas related or not?

I have just cold smoked some salmon for the first time. It needs 24 hours after smoking to settle down but I couldn't resist a taste as I vacuum packed it and it was fantastic!


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## billw (22 Dec 2020)

I've been experimenting with chilli con carne a lot. Steak and pork belly chunks instead of minced beef, tinkering with the spices, and this stuff....

Mad Dog 357 - 5 Million Scoville Pepper Extract: Amazon.co.uk: Grocery


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## marcros (22 Dec 2020)

billw said:


> I've been experimenting with chilli con carne a lot. Steak and pork belly chunks instead of minced beef, tinkering with the spices, and this stuff....
> 
> Mad Dog 357 - 5 Million Scoville Pepper Extract: Amazon.co.uk: Grocery



is that the real price?


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## billw (22 Dec 2020)

marcros said:


> is that the real price?



I bought mine in the States and it was about half as much.

You literally use a drop at a time off a toothpick though, that bottle could last decades lol


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## billw (22 Dec 2020)

*double post*


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## disco_monkey79 (22 Dec 2020)

My brother sent me some of that from the US - it came with a teeny tiny spoon, about the size of a pinhead. It was still too big...


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## Just4Fun (22 Dec 2020)

What are people cooking for Christmas lunch? Traditional turkey or something else?
Even a small turkey is just too much for us, with only 2 of us eating it. Ham is traditional here but again Christmas hams are huge and anyway I dislike it. So we will be having elk for Christmas lunch, same as last year. For us it is a better option.


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## Dalboy (22 Dec 2020)

Just come in from the kitchen after making two Victoria sponges for family who do not like Christmas cake. I somehow don't think they will last until Christmas day knowing them as they can not resist trying them and next thing is they have gone It did give me chance to play with my new mixer which was not a Christmas present.


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## marcros (22 Dec 2020)

We will be having a turkey if I can get one from the supermarket. I can take it or leave it but the wife and daughter insist.


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## Darrenp (22 Dec 2020)

Fillet steak chips and mushrooms for us !!!


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## Nigel Burden (22 Dec 2020)

The Hairy Bikers steak and ale pie. Much tastier than turkey, and I don't get to suffer cold turkey, turkey curry, turkey sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, turkey sandwiches. Yes, you get it, I don't like turkey.

Nigel.


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## Phil Pascoe (22 Dec 2020)

Just4Fun said:


> Even a small turkey is just too much for us, with only 2 of us eating it.


There are five of us. My wife has decided we need a duck. And a goose. And a leg of lamb. I have no idea why.


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## Bm101 (22 Dec 2020)

Rolled ribeye of beef for the 25th here. Sous vide that with port and garlic. Spent an hour yesterday making a Michel Roux port sauce. Luxury cooking. Love it. Feel like Floyd lol. *Swigs*
Nowt for boxing day lunch here. Have some cracking proper sausage, black pudding and bacon from the same butcher. Late cooked champagne breakfast then picking at few bits in the day. Only two of us plus the kids. Got some nice wine. Love it.
I bought some bone marrow from the Christmas Butcher on a online order whim. Need to find a good way to cook that up.


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## AJB Temple (22 Dec 2020)

Usually we have goose on Christmas Day and Beef Wellington on Boxing Day. This year I was too late to order a goose (we usually buy them in Germany, since that is where we usually are). Our local farm shop butcher is doing turkey breasts wrapped in bacon. There is unsurprisingly a bit of a glut of massive turkeys so this is a good way of using them up. Surprisingly cheap (small free range bronze turkey is £80 round here - and al sold out) as £27 got us enough for two full turkey dinners. (Half in freezer to cook in a week or two). 

Mrs ATB will not eat Christmas cake as it has raisins and sultanas in it, which are apparently vile. Therefore I am making tiramisu for Christmas pudding. Never made it before but looks dead easy. Had to buy Marsala especially. 

With the kids locked down abroad, and us in tier 4 here, it will be a very simple Christmas. I will be baking bread and doing furniture repairs and a bit of French polishing.

Only a few days until I can get shot of the flipping decorations again


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## Bm101 (22 Dec 2020)

Don't really get the whole Turkey thing tbh. It's not even traditional in any proper sense let's not start on it being 'Americanism etc' Not after causing any friction. Had it's moment, far as I can see it was just a 70's supermarket swiz a bit like modern bread. It suited them to produce turkey large scale. Took hold but lots of people seem to be disregarding it a bit now. Alright in it's way a bit like overcooked veg and Angel Delight. Yeh but no thanks.
Interesting to see such a range of Christmas dinners on here.
Having said that. I bought a small frozen crown because the Mrs makes a pie out of it just so 'it's Christmas'.
Sigh.


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## Nigel Burden (22 Dec 2020)

Don't get me started on decorations. As I'm retired, I do most of the housework. Can't clean any sense with decorations up. And another thing, they go up too early.

Back to cooking. My wife informs me that our "grandchild", the daughters dog, is having mashed parsnip and mushy peas with his meal, and that after scrambled egg and bacon for breakfast.

Nigel.


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## Nigel Burden (22 Dec 2020)

Years ago when my wife worked in the local fish and chip shop, they had a customer who used to shoot in the season. We often had wild goose which is nice and lean with dark coloured meat, and is nice and tasty.

Nigel.


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## Phil Pascoe (22 Dec 2020)

AJB Temple said:


> Mrs ATB will not eat Christmas cake as it has raisins and sultanas in it, which are apparently vile. Therefore I am making tiramisu for Christmas pudding.


I found a recipe about 25 years ago in a newspaper for a steamed marmalade pudding - my m.i.l. made it every year. I no longer have the exact recipe, but I still do it - with Seville marmalade, muscovado sugar and some brown flour it looks like a Xmas pudding.


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## Nigel Burden (22 Dec 2020)

I like Christmas pudding, but as I'm the only one in the family that does, it's not worth making one. The same with Christmas cake. My wife is watching her weight and leaves cake alone as she doesn't want to put weight on again, so we don't bother to make one, and besides I have taken a dislike to icing, I just find it too sickly.

Nigel.


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## Bm101 (22 Dec 2020)

Oohhhhh! 
That (well this one ) looks the nuts Phil.








Steamed Marmalade Sponge and Whisky Custard


This festive dessert recipe is a delicious alternative to traditional Christmas pudding. It's a really moist, light, rich and warming sponge, with the thick-cut bitter marmalade off-setting the sweet sponge beautifully.




thehappyfoodie.co.uk





Sticky Toffee Pudding here this year.


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## thetyreman (22 Dec 2020)

can't beat honey roasted parsnips, christmas isn't the same without it. p.s sprouts are the work of SATAN himself


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## Garno (22 Dec 2020)

Just4Fun said:


> Even a small turkey is just too much for us, with only 2 of us eating it. Ham is traditional here but again Christmas hams are huge and anyway I dislike it. So we will be having elk for Christmas lunch, same as last year. For us it is a better option.


 I always thought Elk's were bigger than turkeys ................ Learn something new every day on here


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## Trainee neophyte (22 Dec 2020)

I killed a turkey on Saturday - 10kg or 22lbs. The goose is supposed to make new baby geese, so it got a reprieve this year, along with its mate. Just took a ham out of the brine (it was a pork joint in the freezer until last week), and tomorrow I will be attempting clotted cream, which may or may not go well. We should eat reasonably well. The steamed marmalade pudding looks like an exceptionally good idea, unlike the elk. Wikipedia tells me a male elk can weigh up to half a ton - I'll stick wit turkey.


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## --Tom-- (22 Dec 2020)

We’re having chicken with every veg possible on Christmas day. I like turkey but the wife prefers chicken, and there’s only two of us this year.
Normally make a bit of effort with something new, but can’t really be bothered this year


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## billw (23 Dec 2020)

Three bird roast here. Serves five, there's two of us. Should slice up nicely to make sandwiches until 2021.


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## billw (23 Dec 2020)

thetyreman said:


> can't beat honey roasted parsnips, christmas isn't the same without it. p.s sprouts are the work of SATAN himself



Sprouts are hell if you just boil the living daylights out of them, but there's plenty of ways to eat them that make them more than palatable!


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## Phil Pascoe (23 Dec 2020)

thetyreman said:


> can't beat honey roasted parsnips, christmas isn't the same without it. p.s sprouts are the work of SATAN himself


I can't think of parsnips without thinking of Samuel Johnson's recipe for cucumber.


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## disco_monkey79 (23 Dec 2020)

Phil Pascoe said:


> I found a recipe about 25 years ago in a newspaper for a steamed marmalade pudding - my m.i.l. made it every year. I no longer have the exact recipe, but I still do it - with Seville marmalade, muscovado sugar and some brown flour it looks like a Xmas pudding.



Would you mind sharing your recipe? Thanks


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## Phil Pascoe (23 Dec 2020)

Sprouts? Lightly parboil and saute them in walnut oil.

I won't bother making clotted cream - there's a place up the road that makes twenty five tonnes a day.  

Made the orange sauce for the duck and goose - oranges, ginger, sugar, citric acid and cayenne. 

If that marmalade pudding recipe is as good as the one we used to eat, it's nowhere near as heavy as it looks. The original recipe was in the Express about 25 years ago (when it was still (just about) a newspaper) just before I stopped reading it. One friday the headline on the front page was "Sixteen pages of how to have fun and enjoy yourself". I never bought it again.


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## Phil Pascoe (23 Dec 2020)

disco_monkey79 said:


> Would you mind sharing your recipe? Thanks


The recipe BM101 linked to looks good, but the ours is a little more traditional - made with suet with marmalade inside as well as for the topping. I have to look one up every year now, but they're all variations on a theme. A suet one will take far longer to cook.


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## disco_monkey79 (23 Dec 2020)

Thanks - I adore marmalade so will give it a go


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## Trainee neophyte (23 Dec 2020)

Phil Pascoe said:


> I won't bother making clotted cream - there's a place up the road that makes twenty five tonnes a day.


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## gregmcateer (23 Dec 2020)

I'm the stereotypical sourdough dad from lockdown mk 1.

My lad just back from Uni said he'd make us a meal as Christmas present - OMG!

Simple cheese and pepper pasta starter
Home seasoned buffalo chicken wings with stilton and soured cream dip
Slow cooked jamaican oxtail with plantain 2 ways all in an oxtail gravy fried taco with smoked cheese red onion and coriander
Finished off with a trio of mini desserts - cheesecake, waffle berry pudding and melt-in-the-middle choc pot


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## flying haggis (23 Dec 2020)

clootie dumpling instead of xmas pud for us


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## flying haggis (23 Dec 2020)

Just4Fun said:


> What are people cooking for Christmas lunch? Traditional turkey or something else?
> Even a small turkey is just too much for us, with only 2 of us eating it. Ham is traditional here but again Christmas hams are huge and anyway I dislike it. So we will be having elk for Christmas lunch, same as last year. For us it is a better option.


just how big is your oven...............................................??


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## Benchwayze (23 Dec 2020)

I am cooking myself a beef Wellington for Christmas lunch. The other half of the fillet that I bought has been cut into steaks and frozen down. I know they won't be so tasty as if I cooked from fresh but beef won't last forever. No Christmas pud of any sort for me. I am forbidden sugar and starch. But it's Christmas so I will chance the pastry around the beef Wellington and just a few saute potatoes. My word; the price of fillet of beef these days! But I won't have to go cold turkey for a week!

John


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## Benchwayze (23 Dec 2020)

Trainee neophyte said:


> I killed a turkey on Saturday - 10kg or 22lbs. The goose is supposed to make new baby geese, so it got a reprieve this year, along with its mate. Just took a ham out of the brine (it was a pork joint in the freezer until last week), and tomorrow I will be attempting clotted cream, which may or may not go well. We should eat reasonably well. The steamed marmalade pudding looks like an exceptionally good idea, unlike the elk. Wikipedia tells me a male elk can weigh up to half a ton - I'll stick wit turkey.


How can you turn pork into ham? I have some leg of pork in the freezer and I like ham. Or have I missed something?

Merry Christmas

John


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## Benchwayze (23 Dec 2020)

If a turkey might be too big, buy a large crown. That's my Lady used to do!

Would one buy the whole elk when a chunk would do; and is elk as tasty as buffalo BTW?

John


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## clogs (23 Dec 2020)

this all sounds very good......
our only nod to luxury, we bought a case of some expensive wine before we left France....
no idea on what Vinyard but def Bodox it's about £50 a bottle in the UK.....
not a redwine drinker but this stuff is beautiful.......
it's do me and her the 2 days.....and she drinks most of mine anyway......lol....

wish u lot all the best.....keep Covid free......


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## gregmcateer (23 Dec 2020)

Benchwayze said:


> How can you turn pork into ham? I have some leg of pork in the freezer and I like ham. Or have I missed something?
> 
> Merry Christmas
> 
> John


 You need to cure it - look up homecuring recipes. Basically salt, plus other things for interest


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## Benchwayze (23 Dec 2020)

Thanks Greg. Now I know where to start l'll follow my nose!
Enjoy a dram or two!

John


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## Just4Fun (23 Dec 2020)

flying haggis said:


> just how big is your oven...............................................??


We have 2 electric ovens that are just the standard size but also have a huge brick oven in what we call the bakery. Even that is not big enough for a whole elk of course, even if we wished to cook one, so we'll just have a joint.



Benchwayze said:


> Would one buy the whole elk when a chunk would do; and is elk as tasty as buffalo BTW?


One doesn't buy elk. If you are not a member of a hunting club you have to know someone who is.
(Actually I have seen elk for sale in a supermarket: twice since I moved here in 1990.) It is easier to buy Kangaroo meat - which often appears in my local Lidl - than elk. Though to be honest I suspect the Kangaroo is not local produce.)

I have never tasted Buffalo so cannot compare it to elk.


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## Benchwayze (23 Dec 2020)

Someone mentioned clotted cream. I could eat the cream, but the scones and the jam preclude a Cornish tea. Never mind eh?

A full belly doesn't leave room for Covid! Hmmm


Just4Fun said:


> We have 2 electric ovens that are just the standard size but also have a huge brick oven in what we call the bakery. Even that is not big enough for a whole elk of course, even if we wished to cook one, so we'll just have a joint.
> 
> 
> One doesn't buy elk. If you are not a member of a hunting club you have to know someone who is.
> ...


That's how it used to be in UK with venison. My area manager at the time was a rifle fanatic and he got me a lovely joint of venison just before one Christmas. He wanted me to take over the branch as manager, but I had other plans. I cooked the venison before I told him. 

John


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## Trainee neophyte (23 Dec 2020)

Benchwayze said:


> How can you turn pork into ham? I have some leg of pork in the freezer and I like ham. Or have I missed something?


Not at all - ham is bacon is cured pork. It's all the same stuff, but cooked slightly differently. It's exceptionally easy to make, and way, way nicer than the slimy, square stuff you get from the supermarket.

I would start small - buy a piece of belly pork and turn it into bacon - see if you like the end result. You will need salt, sugar and saltpeter, which is potassium nitrite, also known as just nitrite or "cure". The Americans refer to it as either #1 or #2 cure - what they are talking about is whether it is pure saltpetre or saltpetre mixed with salt, but I forget which is which.

Anyway, to make a brine: for 1kg of meat, you need 421ml of water, 50 grams of salt, 25 grams of sugar and 5 grams of saltpetre. Disolve everything in the water, and then submerse the meat in the brine. NB that is not much water - I use a polythene bag which is sealed using a vacuum sealer to get all the air out. The meat should sit in the brine (never exposed to air) for one day for every half inch of meat to the centre of the joint, plus one day. For eg, if your joint is 4" thick, then the brine will penetrate from both sides, so only needs to travel 2" to get to the centre, which takes 4 days at half and inch per day. Then add your extra day for safety, and you get 5 days in the brine. Then, you need to take it out, rinse it off, and leave it uncovered in the fridge for a week so the salt concentration can even out. Otherwise it will be more salty at the edges than the centre.

Finally, cook your ham. You can boil it, which works if the brine was really salty, but with the recipe above it _should_ be perfect if you just bake it. I do it with a little water in a pan, in the oven and covered with tin foil. Bake until your meat thermometer says it is cooked.

If you made bacon, then slice and fry it. If you want gammon steaks, slice and fry, bake, braise etc. 

Finally, you can add lots of other flavours, use beer or cider instead of water, and generally experiment. The recipe I have given will make really, really good cured pork (or beef or lamb or any other meat), and you can try out other flavours as you go along. We used to always put juniper berries in the bacon, but discovered we prefer the taste without it. We tried cider, but didn't really rate it.


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## space.dandy (24 Dec 2020)

Trainee neophyte said:


> Not at all - ham is bacon is cured pork. It's all the same stuff, but cooked slightly differently. It's exceptionally easy to make, and way, way nicer than the slimy, square stuff you get from the supermarket.



Technique aside, I thought 'a ham' was specifically pork leg, rather than any other cut?



Trainee neophyte said:


> Anyway, to make a brine: for 1kg of meat, you need 421ml of water, 50 grams of salt, 25 grams of sugar and 5 grams of saltpetre. Disolve everything in the water, and then submerse the meat in the brine. NB that is not much water - I use a polythene bag which is sealed using a vacuum sealer to get all the air out. The meat should sit in the brine (never exposed to air) for one day for every half inch of meat to the centre of the joint, plus one day. For eg, if your joint is 4" thick, then the brine will penetrate from both sides, so only needs to travel 2" to get to the centre, which takes 4 days at half and inch per day. Then add your extra day for safety, and you get 5 days in the brine. Then, you need to take it out, rinse it off, and leave it uncovered in the fridge for a week so the salt concentration can even out. Otherwise it will be more salty at the edges than the centre.



Given that these are largely techniques for preserving meat in days before fridge/freezers, do you know how your instructions might need to be modified to cure without refrigeration? Fridge space is quite precious and I'd like to give it a go 'old school'.


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## Phil Pascoe (24 Dec 2020)

Benchwayze said:


> Someone mentioned clotted cream. I could eat the cream, but the scones and the jam preclude a Cornish tea. Never mind eh?



A Cornish cream tea should be with splits, not scones.


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## stevek (24 Dec 2020)

We normally have to provide christmas dinner for around 12 people but this year its just the two of us. What I have been doing the past few years to great effect is to bone and roll a turkey, you can find videos on the internet and once you know the few tricks it gives a really good result, the boned turkey is rolled around suusage meat stuffing. You trasform a quite big bird into somthing half the size, when sliced its a mixture of light and dark meat, and its never dry and always tasty. As I said, just us two this year and my wife is Veggie so its a little frozen turkey joint in a tin foil tray for me this year,,,but a lot less work.


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## Benchwayze (24 Dec 2020)

Phil Pascoe said:


> A Cornish cream tea should be with splits, not scones.


Thanks Phil. Makes no difference to me of course. If there is starch in a 'split' then I can't indulge. However every cream tea I ever had in Kernow was served with what looked like scones. When the lock down is over I am coming down to Penzance. Maybe I shall order a tea with splits! Cheers and Merry Christmas.

John


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## Phil Pascoe (24 Dec 2020)

You'll have a hard job finding one with splits, now, everyone expects scones. When I was a child we never saw one with scones. Splits are now not all that common in bakeries.


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## Trainee neophyte (24 Dec 2020)

space.dandy said:


> Technique aside, I thought 'a ham' was specifically pork leg, rather than any other cut?
> 
> 
> 
> Given that these are largely techniques for preserving meat in days before fridge/freezers, do you know how your instructions might need to be modified to cure without refrigeration? Fridge space is quite precious and I'd like to give it a go 'old school'.


More salt. Possibly more saltpetre. You need to look into making specific types of hams and sausages, using the specific methods for aging the meat. It would help if you have access to a cave, or unheated basement. If you use facebook, this may be of help: https://m.facebook.com/groups/thesaltcuredpig/
They used to have a website: thesaltcuredpig.com, but recently gave it up. I tried to search the Way Back Machine to see if they had any content, but it wasn't working for me. Perhaps you may have better luck.

The really old school way to salt meat was to have a salt barrel. Fill the barrel with enough salt that it completely covers the meat, and stays solid no matter how much liquid comes out of the meat. The meat will last for ever, but will need much soaking before it is edible. I _think_ that the recipe above has enough cure to keep the ham safe as it is hung in a cool place and dries out naturally. I think. You definitely need a second opinion before you try it, as botulism poisoning isn't something you want to experience. I have never tried keeping cured meat because I don't have a handy cave, and it is just too warm here even in the winter (18°C as I type). I believe @Steve Maskery has tried his hand at some long term curing - perhaps he can help. I eat everything I cure immediately, or cure it and keep it in the freezer, which is cheating.


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## Just4Fun (24 Dec 2020)

Phil Pascoe said:


> A Cornish cream tea should be with splits, not scones.


Oh that's interesting. I make splits occasionally but I have always known them as "Devonshire splits", purely because that is how I have always heard them named. Is there any difference between a split from Devon & a split from Cornwall?


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## marcros (24 Dec 2020)

Just4Fun said:


> Oh that's interesting. I make splits occasionally but I have always known them as "Devonshire splits", purely because that is how I have always heard them named. Is there any difference between a split from Devon & a split from Cornwall?



I imagine so...


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## Nigel Burden (24 Dec 2020)

My mother and grandmother were from StKeverne. The family left Cornwall in about 1925, but I'd never heard mother mention splits. I never knew my grandmother. Whether there were regional differences in Cornwall I wouldn't know.
Perhaps Phil will enlighten us. Whatever, jam first, cream on top.

Nigel.


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## Suffolkboy (24 Dec 2020)

Two adults and two kids here but I'm a big eater a d I like a blowout on Christmas day. Never been over struck on Turkey so we're having a haunch of Wild boar and a wild goose with all the trimmings. 

Made a Christmas pudding about six months ago that I have been feeding with rum weekly so I should be fast asleep by say... 6pm.


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## Phil Pascoe (24 Dec 2020)

Nigel Burden said:


> My mother and grandmother were from StKeverne. The family left Cornwall in about 1925, but I'd never heard mother mention splits. I never knew my grandmother. Whether there were regional differences in Cornwall I wouldn't know.
> Nigel.



Many regional differences, I expect. I've known people in my lifetime who hadn't been more that ten miles from where they lived. I've known people from twenty miles away whose accents and vernacular I couldn't understand, come to that.


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## Phil Pascoe (24 Dec 2020)

Just chopped the garlic, olives and anchovies for the lamb to go in for its nine hours overnight. The goose goes in in the morning.


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## Nigel Burden (24 Dec 2020)

Phil Pascoe said:


> Many regional differences, I expect. I've known people in my lifetime who hadn't been more that ten miles from where they lived. I've known people from twenty miles away whose accents and vernacular I couldn't understand, come to that.



Same here in Dorset. There's not many with strong accents now, only out in the sticks. It was certainly more common back in the mid 1950s when I was a kid. I would find it difficult to understand some of my fathers generation though. Oddly enough I didn't find it too difficult to understand an old chap and his son from Traboe, and their accents were stronger than Jethros. I don't think either had been out of Cornwall, and Jimmy the old chap, I don't think had been much beyond Helston. I think mothers family only went as far as Helston about once a year though.

Nigel.


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## Nigel Burden (24 Dec 2020)

The wife made the mince pies and sausage rolls yesterday and some Rocky Road today.

We tend not to buy or make too much these days. Years ago it could get that by the end of Boxing day I didn't want to see another sausage roll, mince pie or chocolate for another year.

Nigel.


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## Phil Pascoe (24 Dec 2020)

My parents when first married lived in Penryn - my mother said in those days (early '50s) she could tell by their accent whether an old person came from Penryn or Falmouth (about two miles apart).


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## Nigel Burden (24 Dec 2020)

Mother and her sisters didn't have strong accents, my fathers Dorset accent was stronger. I never knew my maternal grand parents. Whether the fact that mothers father was a Welshman, and her mother was Cornish had an effect on their childrens accents, I don't know

Nigel.


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## Nigel Burden (24 Dec 2020)

Just watching A Wartime Christmas on channel 5. They cooked scrambled egg using dried eggs for breakfast, and the main meal was pigeon with, I presume veg.

Nigel.


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## billw (24 Dec 2020)

Just4Fun said:


> I have never tasted Buffalo so cannot compare it to elk.



Buffalo is absolutely superb.


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## Phil Pascoe (24 Dec 2020)

As is kangaroo. And camel, if you don't mind it a bit tough. Think Tesco steaks.


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## space.dandy (25 Dec 2020)

Trainee neophyte said:


> More salt. Possibly more saltpetre. You need to look into making specific types of hams and sausages, using the specific methods for aging the meat. It would help if you have access to a cave, or unheated basement. If you use facebook, this may be of help: https://m.facebook.com/groups/thesaltcuredpig/
> They used to have a website: thesaltcuredpig.com, but recently gave it up. I tried to search the Way Back Machine to see if they had any content, but it wasn't working for me. Perhaps you may have better luck.
> 
> The really old school way to salt meat was to have a salt barrel. Fill the barrel with enough salt that it completely covers the meat, and stays solid no matter how much liquid comes out of the meat. The meat will last for ever, but will need much soaking before it is edible. I _think_ that the recipe above has enough cure to keep the ham safe as it is hung in a cool place and dries out naturally. I think. You definitely need a second opinion before you try it, as botulism poisoning isn't something you want to experience. I have never tried keeping cured meat because I don't have a handy cave, and it is just too warm here even in the winter (18°C as I type). I believe @Steve Maskery has tried his hand at some long term curing - perhaps he can help. I eat everything I cure immediately, or cure it and keep it in the freezer, which is cheating.



Great info, thanks.


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## gregmcateer (25 Dec 2020)

Phil Pascoe said:


> A Cornish cream tea should be with splits, not scones.


I didn't know that - I'll have to try a split.
Phil, you will be traumatised to hear my VERY particular mate was once asked at a cornish tea shop if he wanted butter OR cream. To which he replied, "both, clearly, otherwise I wouldn't have asked for a cream tea"
The poor young server then made the fatal error of asking if he'd like strawberry or apricot jam!

She's probably still not recovered from the lambasting


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## Benchwayze (25 Dec 2020)

Phil Pascoe said:


> You'll have a hard job finding one with splits, now, everyone expects scones. When I was a child we never saw one with scones. Splits are now not all that common in bakeries.


Well that's no reason not to come to Cornwall! Cheers Phil

John


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## OldWood (25 Dec 2020)

I think only once have I been to Cornwall (1970 I think) and I don't remember making an expedition to find a Cornish tea, so what are 'splits'? Well just to confuse matters further they are 'baps' - that is a morning roll in Scoltand; it's quite likely that there are regional names for those here too, but that is what I know them by.

And if it hasn't been already linked as I haven't read through the whole thread, here is the difference between Cornish and Devonish cream teas, and a 'splits' recipe.









Cornish Splits - Seasons and Suppers


A classic British treat, these Cornish Splits are a lovely yeast bun, filled with jam and whipped cream. Perfect for a special dessert.




www.seasonsandsuppers.ca





Oh, and thank you to the Neophyte for the ham processing - might well try that. One thought is what if the meat is still on the bone ?
Rob


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## billw (25 Dec 2020)

OldWood said:


> Oh, and thank you to the Neophyte for the ham processing - might well try that. One thought is what if the meat is still on the bone ?
> Rob



You can buy ham on the bone so that shouldn't be an issue?


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## Phil Pascoe (25 Dec 2020)

I suspect they hit the nail on the head - splits don't keep, scones do.


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## marcros (25 Dec 2020)

billw said:


> You can buy ham on the bone so that shouldn't be an issue?



From what I have read, it is easier if it is on the bone because there is less exposed surface area which could escape the cure. If it is defined you have to take extra care to get the cure in the nooks and crannies


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## Phil Pascoe (28 Dec 2020)

Saffron cake -


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