The Borough Market Guide to Meat

THE BOROUGH MARKET GUIDE TO Meat

A quick guide to sourcing and cooking meat, with insights into sustainable farming methods and plenty of recipes

THE BOROUGH MARKET GUIDE TO Meat

Borough Market does lots of things very well, but high on the list is meat. In Northfield Farm, Ginger Pig, Wild Beef and Wyndham House Poultry, the Market boasts unparalleled expertise in farming and butchery. Visit a Borough butcher and you’ll find an abundance of different meats (nothing from these animals goes to waste) and a similar breadth of knowledge – not only of how to get the best from your purchase, but also of where it came from and how it was produced.

Never has this felt more important. The world’s insatiable appetite for industrialised animal products has a huge impact upon carbon emissions, environmental conditions, animal welfare and food security. As a result, there is a growing constituency of people who enjoy eating meat but want to know that their choice to do so doesn’t come at an unconscionable cost. The great news for them is that meat from animals that have been reared by farmers who care about the consequences of their work is also incomparable in form and flavour.

In this collection, you’ll find a series of recipes from the Borough Market archive designed to bring all that flavour to the fore, as well as the thoughts of some of the farmers and butchers who work here.

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Borough Market Online offers a wide selection of our traders’ produce, delivered direct to London addresses and, where available, by post to the rest of the UK.

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Don’t follow the herd

Clare Finney

Slow-braised beef shin & pancetta puddings

Hayden Groves

Seared beef with asparagus stir-fry

Jenny Chandler

What it takes: sausage making

Tim Wilson of Ginger Pig

Pot-roasted loin of pork with fig & walnut stuffing

Angela Clutton

Pork belly with rhubarb ketchup

Rosie Birkett

Cevapcici with ajvar

Dhruv Baker

In the mix

Clare Finney

Lamb with wild garlic & Jersey royals

Nicole Pisani

Crusted mutton chops with braised black chickpeas

Paula McIntyre

Turmeric spiced chicken with white kimchi & chilli beans

Nicole Pisani

Poulet yassa

Zoe Adjonyoh

DON’T FOLLOW THE HERD: LIFE AT NORTHFIELD FARM Clare

Finney

“Being a farmer isn’t something you switch on when your alarm goes off, and turn off again come the evening,” says Leo McCourt. “You’re always a farmer.” His dad, Jan, nods in agreement. Jan has been breathing, eating and barely sleeping farming since he swapped banking for beef more than two decades ago, and while he’s handed over many of his responsibilities to Leo and Dom, his second son, he remains very much involved.

We’re at Northfield Farm now: ensconced in what seems the very essence of a farmhouse kitchen. The only point of incongruity is the farm dog: half deaf, half blind and “very smelly,” says Jan fondly. “I rescued her 14 years ago.” His working dogs – two tall, gleaming New Zealand huntaways – are outside with the cats (also rescued) and the llamas, between them warding off rats, foxes and badgers.

Jan is a big fan of natural pest control. In fact, he’s a big fan of nature generally –it comes with the territory, as a farmer – but that doesn’t come at the expense of progress. When we arrive, Jan points out two windmills: one of them two centuries old, the other modern and new. It seems not insignificant that they sit either side of Northfield Farm.

Jan smiles when I point this out. “We are in many ways on the cusp of history,” he says. On the one hand, the farm is a very traditional operation, home to some of the oldest of rare breeds. The white park, Jan’s “particular passion”, has been raised in Britain for 2,000 years. Yet, in order to preserve the integrity of this breed and others, Jan has embraced the advances in technology bestowed by recent decades. He screens annually for common

diseases, a practice that reduces vets bills and removes the need for antibiotics “almost entirely”. He also closely monitors the various characteristics of the herds, particularly the cattle. “We are always monitoring: ease of calving, fat cover, muscle size, fertility –even testicle circumference! – and we trace these back to individual genetics. It is a very scientific process,” Jan explains.

This isn’t high-tech farming as we know it: intensive, mechanised industries designed to produce a lot of meat in very little time. This is “using science to be traditional.” Testing annually for disease means meat that’s free from antibiotics. Keeping abreast of genetic inheritance and applying that knowledge to breeding, meanwhile, helps Jan maintain the defining characteristics of rare breeds like the beef shorthorn and white park.

Being a small-scale producer isn’t easy. “You sit on a pile of debt for years and it doesn’t take much to set you off track,” Jan continues. Knowing which bulls to breed and which cows will calve without complications makes the farm more efficient, without compromising the values at its heart. All businesses need to be efficient, but efficiency does not have to come at a cost to the environment or the local community.

The farm hosts open days, welcoming children and adults into their butchery, onto their tractors and around their fields. They offer catering to local charity events, stock local produce in their farm shop and, most strikingly, having started working with neighbouring farmers in an informal cooperative, lend machines and even the odd pair of hands.

“Farming is highly capital intensive,” says Leo. “You can’t do anything for less than 20 grand and come silage time you need 10 or 15 machines just to do the work. We can do it much faster if there’s three or four of us together, with machines.” There’s no official arrangement, Leo continues. “It just came about over a curry one evening. We were chatting about what machines we had and what machines we would like to get, and the penny dropped that if we joined forces, we’d be far more efficient than on our own.”

Such fellowship is typical of Northfield Farm: a dyed-in-the-wool family business that agrees with Prince Charles’s maxim that “agriculture is made up of two words, and the ‘culture’ part of it is very important”. “Leo is part of a community up here, just as Dom is part of a community at Borough,” says Jan. Dom, the family ‘townie’ has been leading the butchery at Borough Market for some years now. “There is an interdependence of small farms up here, like there is interdependence of traders down at the Market,” says Jan.

All of this seems intrinsically connected: the rugged Rutland landscape, the farming community, the rich food heritage of Melton Mowbray, and the breeds which for centuries have been feeding Britons and acclimatising to British terrain. Jan reaches up to the kitchen shelf and pulls down a large, beautifully bound book. “This is the farmers’ bible: Stephens’ Book of the Farm, written in the 1800s,” he says excitedly. “This is where I first read about rare breeds.” Back then, they weren’t ‘rare’ breeds at all, he continues, leafing through the pages. Yet when Jan established Northfield Farm in the late 1990s, “most farmers thought I was nuts, with my white parks and my farm shop. They were all about animals they could intensively breed.”

A quarter of a century on, Jan was a bellwether. “The number of people that are now feeling this desire to have contact with the land has increased significantly.” What’s more, with farmers’ markets, farm shops, holiday lets and butchery classes all on the table, the viability of small scale farming has also increased.

“Big farms concentrate on yields. We take much longer to finish the animals, so we

have much higher costs,” says Jan. Beef cattle at Northfield Farm take nine months to be born, then just over three years to reach maturity, Jan continues. That’s over two years more than your average supermarketbound specimen. “Then we hang the meat for 28 days to age it” – so that’s four years, and thousands of pounds’ worth of feed, space and labour, before making a penny.

So, is it worth it – the expense, time and space these great, ancient animals need, when there are such easy, cheap alternatives available? Beyond their beauty and their historical importance, it is difficult to see why a farmer would go to such lengths. Then you taste the meat and it all falls into place. “They have this incredibly fine marbling, which when cooked is just stunning,” says Jan. Add the maturity, and the “grassy earthiness” that comes with a cow reared almost entirely on pasture, and what you end up with is exceptional beef.

It’s not just white park, of course. Beef shorthorn, Aberdeen angus, angus-white park cross and flocks of sheep all graze on Northfield’s rich pasture. At the time of writing they are still wintering in airy barns, filled with Northfield hay and dining on Northfield silage – but the moment the grass starts growing again they’ll be let out to roam.

“We reconfigured our barns recently,” says Jan, recalling how a trip to Scotland opened his eyes to how hardy native breeds of cattle are. “They thrived so much better in more basic conditions. We came back and changed the layout, so they wouldn’t overheat and would have more air. This crew yard is a very traditional way of wintering cattle.” Much as he welcomes the input of science, he continues, there is a lot to be said for “knowledge that has been acquired and passed down over a long time”. The trick is to combine the best of both scientific enquiry, and the wisdom years of experience brings.

The llamas are a case in point. Traditionally used in South America to ward off wolves, in the UK they’re deployed to deter diseasecarrying foxes and badgers. “I don’t want to tempt fate,” Dom ventures cautiously, “but since we have had these boys, we’ve not had a single case of TB.” Sentry-like, they

prowl through the fields of the farm chasing “anything small and moving.” Before that, if the cattle were even suspected of having tuberculosis, they would have to be shot.

That would be a sorry end for any animal, but for one of such pedigree as these, to die in vain is heart-breaking. Jan’s philosophy is that “if you are going to kill an animal, you have a duty do the best you can by it – in life as well as in death.” It’s a philosophy that has informed his entire approach, from the genetic tests right through to his views on pasture feeding. If possible, tried and tested traditional practices should be adhered to, but not at the expense of the animal’s welfare or the quality of the produce it creates.

“The term ‘pasture-fed’ is a contentious one,” explains Jan. “What the evangelism of the 100 per cent pasture-fed lobby doesn’t allow for is this duty you have toward the animal,” Jan continues. “We do finish our beef on pasture and silage, but sometimes they need a bit more.” He likens it to people needing to supplement their diets if they’re deficient in

a particular nutrient, or have been ill: “It’s the equivalent of a few bowls of muesli. Nothing unnatural. We don’t add it if we don’t need to, but if we’re finishing a skinny animal, we’re producing meat that’s no good to anyone.”

Like ‘efficiency’, the word ‘supplement’ can be a dirty one, conjuring up refined sugars, antibiotics and other additives to cattle feed. “Much of the beef you buy in a supermarket will have been finished very quickly, on grainbased diets,” Jan points out, “but if we’re supplementing the feed, it’s the tops of sugar beets combined with barley from the nearby mill.” It couldn’t be more natural, he continues.

As for speeding things up, the thought could not be further from the McCourts’ minds. “We’d finish our meat at six years if the economics of the market allowed us to. Six years would be perfect. It would be amazingly marbled and flavoursome – but we’d have to charge double what we do currently, which just isn’t feasible.” As ever, the gossamer balance between what is desirable and what is possible is never too far from Jan’s mind.

CHRISTOPHER L PROCTOR

Jan McCourt at Northfield Farm

SLOW-BRAISED BEEF SHIN & PANCETTA PUDDINGS Hayden Groves

Serves 4

Ingredients

100g unsmoked pancetta lardons, cut into 1cm cubes

1 onion, peeled and cut into 1cm chunks

1 large carrot, peeled and cut into 1cm chunks

100g flat mushrooms

600g boneless beef shin, cut into 3cm chunks

2 tbsp plain flour

4 cloves of garlic, peeled but left whole

2 tsp tomato puree

100ml red wine

500ml beef stock

2 bay leaf

2 sprigs of thyme

2 tbsp chopped parsley

For the suet pastry:

175g beef suet

350g self-raising flour

1 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Method

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large casserole dish over a medium-high heat. Add the pancetta and fry until golden, then remove with a slotted spoon and reserve. Add the mushrooms, onions and carrots to the pan and sauté until lightly golden, then remove with a slotted spoon and reserve with the pancetta.

Dust the diced beef shin with the flour thoroughly, fry the beef in the pan until nicely browned, add the garlic and tomato puree and cook stirring regularly for a further minute. Add the red wine and scrape to dislodge any sticky caramelised bits on the bottom, simmer for a further minute. Add the stock, bring to a simmer, cover and cook for 1 hour with the thyme and bay. Carefully skim off any fat that has formed on top, stir in the cooked vegetables and pancetta, simmer for a further hour or until the shin is tender, season to taste, discard the thyme and bay and allow to cool in a shallow bowl. This stage can be completed up to 3 days before and reserved covered in the fridge.

Make the suet pastry by combining the beef suet with the flour, seasoning and chopped parsley, add a few tbsp water at a time until a soft dough is formed.

Rollout two-thirds of the suet pastry to a 5mm thickness. Line four 250ml pudding basins, then divide the cooled beef shin mix between them. Roll out the remaining suet pastry and top the puddings. Cover with greaseproof paper and then tin foil. Steam in a pan of simmering water with a tight-fitting lid for 45 mins or until the suet pastry is cooked and the filling piping hot. Turn out carefully onto a warmed plate and serve with creamed potato and your favourite gravy.

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Pancetta

The Parma Ham & Mozzarella Stand

Beef shin

Northfield Farm

Flat mushrooms

Turnips

SEARED BEEF WITH ASPARAGUS STIR-FRY Jenny Chandler

Serves 4

Beef and asparagus is understandably an extravagant ingredient, owing to the effort and resources that go into its production. Here’s the perfect way to make a little luxury go a long way, with no sense of scrimping. Marinating the beef and searing it in a separate pan ensures the perfect caramelisation. The rare pink flesh is then sliced into ribbons and added to the vegetables. Sprue or thinner stalks of asparagus are perfect for stir-frying, while thicker spears benefit from being blanched for a couple of minutes before joining the wok. The liquorice scent of Thai basil really brings something to the dish, but Mediterranean basil will be delicious too.

Ingredients

For the beef:

1 x 350g sirloin steak

1 tbsp vegetable oil

3 tbsp fish sauce

1 tsp palm, muscovado or brown sugar

½ tsp grated ginger

1 clove of garlic, crushed

For the stir-fry

1 clove of garlic, thinly sliced

2cm dice of ginger, finely chopped

3 spring onions, finely sliced

300g asparagus, sliced into bite-sized pieces

100g mangetout, trimmed of stalks

2 red chillies, finely sliced

2 tbsp crushed cashew nuts

1 lime, quartered

2 leaves of Thai or Mediterranean basil

To serve: White rice

Method

Remove any excess fat from the steak (setting it aside to fry with later) and place the meat on a plate. Mix together the oil, fish sauce, sugar, ginger and crushed garlic and tip over the steak. Leave the meat to marinate at room temperature, turning it over after about 30 mins.

Put your rice on to cook. Heat up a heavy frying pan (this is the moment to add the discarded fat if you have any, giving a bit of extra flavour to the pan). Wipe off any excess marinade from the meat, keeping it for later. Once the pan is smoking hot, sear the meat for about 3 mins on each side for rare meat. Set aside.

Heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a large wok and add the sliced garlic, chopped ginger and spring onions. Toss or stir for 10 secs before throwing in the asparagus, mangetout and chillies, and stir-fry for about 15 secs. Add the leftover marinade and about 4 tbsp water, then cook for 2 mins until the asparagus is just tender. Taste, adding more fish sauce or chilli if necessary.

Spoon the stir-fried vegetables over the rice (noodles are also a great option). Sprinkle with ripped basil and a scattering of cashews. Sliver the meat into ribbons and add to the dish along with the lime quarters, ready to squeeze at the table. Scatter over the basil and serve.

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Palm sugar

Raya

Asparagus

Ted’s Veg Lime

Elsey & Bent

BEEF HEART TACOS Ed

Smith

Serves 4

Beef heart enjoys a very quick but hard fry or griddle. There’s definite beefiness in the meat, but also a hint of iron. This is matched really well by the sweet, smoky salsa, and the sour crunch of the pink onions. Warm corn tacos hold everything together. They’re best eaten immediately with a cold beer nearby.

Ingredients

For the beef heart:

½ beef heart (500g)

½ tsp ground cumin

1 heaped tsp dried oregano

For the salsa:

200g cherry tomatoes

1 dried ancho chilli

1 tsp smoky paprika

1 tsp granulated sugar

150ml just-boiled water

To garnish and serve:

100g red onion, peeled and very finely diced

60g white wine vinegar

25g granulated sugar

10-12 stems of coriander, leaves picked

13 x 10cm corn tortillas

Method

Make the pickled red onions and tomato salsa first. Put the finely diced onion in a small bowl. Add a good pinch of salt, mix and leave for 15 mins. Heat the vinegar and sugar in a small pan, stirring until the sugar has dissolved, then pour over the onions. Cover with cling film and leave for at least an hour. You could do this up to 24 hours before if you wish.

To make the tomato salsa, rehydrate the chilli by putting this in a small container and

pouring 150ml of just-boiled water over the top. Leave for 30 mins, then remove from the water and chop finely.

Put the chopped chilli, the water used to hydrate it, the cherry tomatoes, paprika, sugar and a pinch of salt into a small, heavybottomed saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer over a low-medium heat for 20-30 mins until the water has almost entirely evaporated. Squash the tomatoes a little to release excess water, then boil and reduce for 5 mins more. Leave to cool.

To prepare the heart, slice any hard fat and sinew from the outside. Slice the heart to open it flat. Cut out any sinew from the middle, then slice into manageable sections. Slice each piece into 1cm-thick lengths, then these lengths into 1cm dice. Mix with 1 tbsp sunflower oil, the oregano and cumin.

It takes barely 1 min to cook the ox heart, so you may wish to cook in batches – perhaps eat half the tacos then cook again.

Put a large frying pan or wok over a very hot hob. Add 1 tbsp sunflower oil and heat until nearly smoking. Tip the diced ox heart into the pan, stir quickly to ensure the dice are thinly spread across the pan, then leave to brown without touching for 30 seconds. After that time is up, stir quickly again so the raw parts of the heart now touch the pan, then leave for another 30 seconds. Decant the meat from the pan into another container to rest for 1-2 mins while you get everything together.

While the heart is cooking, warm the tortillas on another frying pan over a low-medium heat. To assemble, add a spoonful of tomato salsa to the base of each tortilla. Top with a mound of ox heart, ½ tsp pickled onions and a few coriander leaves. Eat immediately.

Beef hearts

Wild Beef

Ancho chilli

Changarro

Corn tortillas

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WHAT IT TAKES: SAUSAGE MAKING

Tim Wilson of Ginger Pig

Where did you discover a love of making sausages?

When I was a child, I was given The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency by John Seymour, and in there was a basic recipe for pork sausages. That was the first recipe I knew. From then on, something about the idea of making sausages appealed. It’s the simplicity, I think. English sausages are just pork, pork fat, herbs if you want them, and some form of breadcrumb. You need bread to absorb the fat and retain the flavours – if you just put pork into a skin, as soon as you cooked it all, the fat would run out. With the breadcrumbs, you have to get the best quality you can, as is true of every element if you want a great sausage.

How many different types of sausage do you make?

At any one time, I would say we have about 20 sausages available at Ginger Pig. Personally, I would sell around 12, but if you have people who love making sausages, they are not happy to keep making the same recipes all the time. My sausage makers keep dreaming up

new ideas. Some can be very strange ideas, like: “It’s Wimbledon, why don’t we make a strawberry based sausage?” I generally let them experiment, and accept that out of every five recipes one will be a blazing success and two will be unmitigated disasters.

What is the key to making good sausages?

You need the right people. I have a guy in there at the moment called Josie who just loves making sausages. Not just the mechanics of it, but thinking of the recipes, trying new things. If you give the finest pork in the world, the best breadcrumbs and wonderful herbs to someone not in love with making sausages, it won’t work. Likewise, you can’t give someone who loves making sausages bad ingredients, because that won’t work either.

What is the starting point?

High quality, fresh meat. Pork arriving on Tuesday should be used up and sold by Saturday. It should arrive with the bone in and be prepared by the butcher. It is important that all the meat you are going to use is there

– you don’t want to mix fresh pork with meat from an older delivery. You cut it into strips and remove the skin, leaving the fat, because good sausages need that fat.

How do you create the flavourings?

This is often the trickiest part of the process, because you need consistency. For example, sage in April is very different from sage in December; fresh herbs are very different from dried herbs. After coming up with a recipe, the real skill lies in scaling the recipe up. It is not simply a case of using more of everything, because ingredients behave differently in large volumes, so the proportions may have to change to get the same flavour profile. It takes experience and skill to get it right.

How do you go about combining it all?

My way of making sausages is dropping the unseasoned meat through a mincer to get a nice coarse texture. Then you mix in the herb blends, add the breadcrumbs, then run it through the mincer again on a lighter setting. This combines everything thoroughly without the texture becoming too fine.

What happens next?

The sausage meat is now ready for the casings. I tend to use English hog skins and for small sausages like chipolatas, I use lambs’ intestines.

Does the amount of filling you pack into a sausage matter?

It definitely does. I want a sausage that is well packed. You have to get this just right, though, because if you overstuff the skins they burst when you are making the links. A well-packed sausage cooks more evenly, looks much more appetising and tastes better. Personally, I have no issue with sausages bursting while cooking.

What is the best recipe you’ve come up with?

A few years ago I created what I called the ‘winter sausage’: belly of pork, bread rusk, garlic, juniper berries and grated orange rind. It is lovely with mash on a winter’s day. I still do make them, but only very occasionally and only in winter – this is definitely not a summer sausage.

POT-ROASTED LOIN OF PORK WITH FIG & WALNUT STUFFING

Angela Clutton

Serves 6

This is a very special pork joint, with crackling worthy of a celebration in itself. The loin’s rich fig and walnut stuffing is helpfully cut through with the vinegar – try De Calabria’s lovely honey vinegar. The stuffing is packed inside the joint before you tie it up, but don’t worry if any oozes out in the cooking – it will just nestle in among the bed of fennel and onions (tossed in vinegar to draw out maximum flavour) that the joint is pot-roasted on.

Ingredients

½ leek, trimmed and finely chopped

180g fresh figs, finely chopped

1½ tbsp finely chopped lemongrass

40g walnuts, finely chopped

½ tsp ground cinnamon

Grated zest of 1 orange

125ml cider vinegar

20g dried breadcrumbs (not panko)

2kg boneless loin of pork (ask the butcher to cut the loin under its eye to create a flap for the stuffing)

1 large bulb of fennel, roughly chopped

2 onions, roughly chopped

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

Method

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan and cook the leek until softened. Turn off the heat and stir in the figs, lemongrass, walnuts, cinnamon, orange zest, 75ml vinegar and the breadcrumbs. Season it well.

Open the loin out, skin-side down, and stuff the opening with the fig mix. Don’t pack too much in – you want to be able to close it tight when you tie it.

Cut off at least six times the length of the joint

in kitchen string. Pass the string under the joint at one end, bring round to the seam of the stuffing and tie a knot, leaving one short end of string (around 7-8cm) and a very long end. Pull the long end 2cm to the side of the knot, hold in place with your finger, pass the string under the joint then bring up to where your finger is and pass the long end under the string you are holding down to form a knot. Keep going along the joint to tie it together.

Once you get to the end, turn the joint over, run the string along the centre of the tied joint and tie with the short end you left at the beginning. You should – hopefully – have a tightly tied-up loin.

Heat the oven to 150C. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large casserole dish suitable for oven and hob. Sit the pork loin fat-side down in the oil and leave for a few minutes to brown. Turn it over and sear the underside, then remove and set aside. Add the fennel, onion and garlic to the hot fat and allow to just start to soften but not colour. Pour over the remaining vinegar, season, stir round, then sit the joint on top, fat-side up. Cover with a lid and put into the oven for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, increase the oven heat to 200C. Remove the lid and sprinkle salt flakes over the would-be crackling. Let it finish in the high heat for 30 mins, then remove from the oven. Set aside to rest for 10 mins, then lift the joint out and carve. The fennel and onion mix on the bottom of the pan (there won’t be much, but it is delicious) can be spooned into a bowl for serving.

If the joint is difficult to carve through with the crackling, you could cut the string, lift the crackling off and serve it on the side for people to help themselves to – then carve.

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Loin of pork

Ginger Pig

Cider vinegar

Bianca Mora

Figs

Stark’s Fruiterers

PORK BELLY WITH RHUBARB KETCHUP

Rosie Birkett

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

For the pork belly:

2kg pork belly, ribs in, skin scored

3 tsp sea salt

1 tsp brown sugar

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp dried red chilli flakes

1 tsp thyme leaves

1 apple, sliced

1 bulb of fennel, sliced

2 celery sticks, sliced

1 carrot, halved

2 white onions or 4 shallots), skin on, halved

3 bay leaves

500ml chicken stock

1 glass of dry cider or white wine

1 tbsp plain flour

For the rhubarb ketchup:

500g pink forced rhubarb, sliced

2 shallots, peeled and halved

A thumb of ginger, sliced

100g caster sugar

120ml cider vinegar

1 orange, zest and juice

4 cardamom pods, seeds only

2 black peppercorns

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 star anise

Method

With a pestle and mortar, grind the salt, sugar, fennel seeds, chilli flakes and thyme leaves. Stab some slashes in the underside of your pork, then smear the salt mix all over it. Cure for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight.

Remove the pork from the fridge an hour before you cook it, so it comes up to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 120C.

Place the apple, fennel, celery, carrot, onions and bay in a roasting tray. Place the pork on top and roast for 5 hours. Remove from the oven, then turn the heat up to 200C. Pour the chicken stock and wine or cider into the tray around the pork, without touching the pork’s skin (you need it dry for nice crackling).

Line a roasting tray with greaseproof paper. Place the rhubarb, shallots and ginger in the tray and cover with the sugar. Pour over the vinegar, orange juice and zest and add the spices. Cover the tray with foil and place in the oven. Return the pork to the oven at the same time. Roast both trays for a further hour, in which time the pork skin should crackle and the rhubarb will cook down until tender. Remove both trays from the oven and place the pork on a platter to rest.

Make the rhubarb ketchup by removing the star anise and then blitzing the remaining tray contents, plus the apple and celery from the pork, in a food processor, until smooth. Taste for seasoning. It should be a nice balance of sharp, sweet and fruity, and a pretty soft pink colour.

To make the gravy, place the pork tin over a medium heat, drain any juices from the resting pork into the tray and scatter over the flour. Mash into the veg and liquid in the tray with the back of a wooden spoon, and stir until thickened, adding some boiling water to thin the gravy down to the right consistency. Season, then strain through a sieve into a warmed jug. Once the pork has rested, turn upside down and cut into squares. Serve with a dollop or smear of rhubarb ketchup, and some greens of your choice.

Pork belly

Northfield Farm

Forced rhubarb

Turnips

Dry cider

The Cider House

CEVAPCICI WITH AJVAR Dhruv Baker

Serves 6-8 as a starter

I fell in love with ajvar on my very first visit to Croatia. You see it everywhere. It’s perfect with grilled fish or meats, like these kofta-like kebabs. It’s a game-changer for even the most hapless of barbecuers – put a pot of it on the table, and everything else becomes easy. The leftover ajvar from this recipe will keep in the fridge for up to a week.

Ingredients

For the cevapcici:

500g pork mince

500g beef mince

1 egg white

3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1½ tsp of cayenne pepper

1 large white onion, finely diced

For the ajvar:

4 red peppers

1 large aubergine

4 cloves of garlic, peeled

50ml extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp caster sugar

1 generous pinch of chilli flakes

Method

Mix all the cevapcici ingredients in a large bowl. Form into 7-8cm sausages – you want them a uniform thickness, unlike koftas which can be thicker in the middle.

Place onto a baking sheet and refrigerate for a couple of hours, or overnight (this will help them stay intact when cooking). To make the ajvar, heat the oven to 220C. Brush the peppers and the aubergine with olive oil and roast in the oven for 30-40 mins, until the skins blacken and char (you can do these on the barbecue too if you wish).

Remove the veg from the oven, place in a bowl, cover tightly and leave for 10-15 mins. When cool enough to handle, rub or peel the skins off the peppers and aubergine. Take care to remove all the seeds from the peppers.

Place the peppers and aubergines into a food processor along with the remaining ingredients, and pulse to gorgeous, thick, bright orange puree. Season to taste.

Heat a splash of olive oil in a griddle pan or frying pan and fry the cevapcici in batches so that you don’t crowd the pan, turning every 5-6 mins to ensure they are evenly browned all over. This will take approximately 20-25 mins.

Serve the cevapcici with ajvar, diced red onion a wedge of lemon and some flatbreads.

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Beef mince

Wild beef

Cayenne pepper

Spice Mountain Aubergine

Ted’s Veg

IN THE MIX Clare Finney

Imagine a large, modern day field of wheat in, say, East Anglia. At first glance it’s beautiful: woven, golden ears rippling and rich with the promise of bread, cakes and pasta. Look deeper, however, and you might find such beauty is barely soil-deep. British farming is dominated by monoculture: the cultivation of a single type of crop or animal in the name of yield and efficiency – but at great cost to the environment. Soil degradation, water pollution and the loss of wildlife and biodiversity are just some of the consequences of sustained monoculture –and it is these consequences which Richard Vines sought to tackle when he set up Wild Beef.

“I decided I would try to do something a bit original with my land” – in part, he confesses, because he needed to provide for his family. He was unemployed at the time but had the fitness (Richard is ex-army) and business acumen to make something of his 40 acres in Dartmoor. He didn’t set out to be a standard bearer for ethical faming, but he did love nature, and held his herd of native Devon cattle in high esteem.

He’d seen industrial farms: “Large units, sometimes 1,000 heads of animals, who never go outdoors. They have cubicles and loafing areas, and their food is high energy and high protein, so they live a very artificial lifestyle, totally alien to their natures.” The fact the direct opposite – grazing his herd on Dartmoor, maintaining thickets and gorse for shelter, making manure and silage – also addresses the issues of monoculture is in part a happy coincidence of his care for his cattle, and the beautiful moorland in which

he lives. “It is mixed land use,” he says, “which is the best there is, because you can grow your own feed and straw for bedding, and produce farmyard manure that can actually be put back on the land.”

In many agricultural heartlands, the soil has been degraded to such an extent it’s being blown away by prevailing winds. “The land has been tilled and tilled until the particles are tiny,” says Richard. What’s more, monoculture reduces biodiversity. “It is like growing beans on blotting paper in a school lab,” he adds. Having depleted the natural support and pest control provided by a diverse ecosystem, monoculture farmers have to try and replicate it in the form of synthetic herbicides, insecticides, and fertilisers. Chemicals used to keep the weeds at bay “don’t support nature”; on the contrary, they are often actively harmful, destroying the microbes and weakening the soil structure. “There isn’t the same microbial activity. Then you lose even more from the top soil when it blows away.”

Yet much of this can be remedied via the application of natural, homegrown farmyard manure. “It acts like a daub and wattle on the wall: it puts structure back into the soil, and it is good for microbial activity.” By way of contrast, chemical substances are fairly indiscriminate in their slaughter, so a variety of wildlife, beneficial insects and native plants from neighbouring ecosystems will be affected as well.

The argument for mixed land use, therefore, is a strong one. “It changes the productivity of the land and maintains its quality.” Of course, Richard adds, monoculture is “highly

productive, and produces cheap, efficient, profitable food. Never has food accounted for so small a proportion of our income.” However, the price you pay does not account for the cost this method of farming can have on the soil long term. Vast swathes of monocultured land are now uncultivatable. What is more, the food that monoculture produces is arguably less nutrient-dense than that which has been responsibly, sustainably cultivated.

In spring and summer, Richard’s cattle feed on Dartmoor’s “perennial grasses. They come up every year, and they go down deep: 20 or 30 inches, bringing up water and nutrients. Because they do that, you get more goodness, protein and nutrients in each mouthful that they – and ultimately you – eat.”

For Richard, allowing cattle to graze out on the moors alongside sheep and ramblers allows them to “express their natures in as natural a way as possible”. They live in herds, they have freedom to move around. For the consumer, this means nutritious, deeply

flavoursome and high-welfare meat. It also means meat that’s free from antibiotics. The most efficient approach is to keep the cattle in close proximity, with very little outdoor time, but close quarters are a breeding ground for bacteria so to avoid an epidemic, these intense, monoculture farmers must mix antibiotics into their feed.

For the countryside – the historic moors, the hedgerows, the waterways, and the wildlife within it – it means viability. By gradually pruning certain flora and breaking up the ground with their hooves, which enables reseeding, the cattle help to sustain the delicate balance of plants, insects and birds which are unique to Devon and Dartmoor. They fertilise the land, while the sheep eat the rough grasses and process the worms the cows cannot deal with, working in symbiosis with their fellow mammals. And all the while, the humans walking the moors, or eating Wild Beef from Borough Market, are reaping the rewards of an approach to faming that is delicious, but also sustainable in the long term.

Richard Vines of Wild Beef

LAMB WITH WILD GARLIC & JERSEY ROYALS

Nicole Pisani

Serves 4

I’ve used lamb neck fillet here as it’s an easily overlooked cut but works really well in this dish. The trick is to brine the meat overnight in whey to tenderise it. You can use the water from buffalo mozzarella, squeeze feta water over the meat, hang yoghurt in muslin and use the water, or make your own goat’s milk ricotta and use the leftover whey.

Ingredients

2 x 250g lamb neck fillets

200ml whey water

1 sprig of rosemary or thyme

Some lemon peel

1 clove of garlic

75g unsalted butter

Beef stock, to deglaze

200g Jersey royal potatoes

1 tsp fennel seeds, dry toasted for 2 mins

100g wild garlic (or greens)

Sea rosemary, to serve (optional)

1 tbsp hazelnuts, roughly chopped (optional)

4 tbsp thick natural yoghurt (optional)

Zest of 1 lime (optional)

Method

To brine the lamb neck fillets, place them in a sealable food bag along with the whey water, herbs, lemon peel and garlic. Seal and leave overnight in the refrigerator.

When ready to cook, rinse the brine from the meat. Pre-heat the oven to 180C, heat an oven proof griddle pan to high and sear the fillets for 3-4 mins on one side. Turn over, add a couple of knobs of butter and then place the pan in the oven and cook for another 8-10 mins.

Remove from the heat, place the fillets on a board, season with a good pinch of sea salt, cover and rest for at least 10 mins, before slicing.

Make a simple gravy by deglazing the pan with beef stock and whisk in a little more butter.

Boil the potatoes in plenty of salted water until tender. Drain and toss in a little extra virgin olive oil, a generous pinch of sea salt and some toasted fennel seeds. Slightly crush the potatoes with a fork.

For the wild garlic, simply rinse and steam or sauté in a little butter and season to taste.

To serve, start with the crushed potatoes at the bottom, add some wild garlic and then the slices of lamb. Pour over the juices from the pan and garnish with herbs such as sea rosemary or thyme and roughly chopped hazelnuts.

Serve with lime yoghurt on the side – simply stir in the zest of a lime into thick natural yoghurt.

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Lamb neck

Ginger Pig

Wild garlic

Fitz Fine Foods

Hazelnuts

Food & Forest

CRUSTED MUTTON CHOPS WITH BRAISED BLACK CHICKPEAS

Paula McIntyre

Serves 4

I’m so glad mutton’s having a resurgence –when an animal gets older, it develops more flavour, and sometimes you want a bit of oomph from your meat, a bit of personality. I love this combination of tender meat and crunchy crumbs, with the lovely yeasty tang of sourdough and the nuttiness of brown butter.

Ingredients

For the braised black chickpeas:

75g pancetta, diced

1 onion, finely chopped

1 stick of celery, diced

1 clove of garlic, minced

250g black chickpeas, soaked overnight

250ml passata

750ml vegetable stock

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

For the parsley root:

4 medium parsley roots

A few sprigs of thyme

1 lemon

50g smoked almonds, chopped

A handful of lovage, chopped

50ml olive oil

For the mutton chops:

2 medium onions

1 sprig of rosemary

8 mutton loin chops

75g butter, chopped

75g sourdough breadcrumbs

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

1 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Method

Heat the oven to 180C. Cook the pancetta in a large casserole pot until crisp and golden. Remove from the pot and set aside.

Add 1 tbsp olive oil to the rendered fat with the onion, celery and garlic. Cook gently until soft. Drain the chickpeas and add to the pot with the passata and stock. Cover with a lid and place in the oven. Bake for 2 hours or until the chickpeas are soft. Add the balsamic and check the seasoning.

Peel the parsley roots. Cut into 3cm pieces and place in a pan of water. Season the water with salt and add the thyme sprigs. To prevent the roots from discolouring, halve the lemon and squeeze out the juice from one of the halves into the pan, then add the lemon shell. Cook until the parsley root is tender – about 20 mins. Drain and dry on kitchen paper.

Squeeze the remaining lemon juice into a bowl and add the almonds, lovage and oil. Season to taste and toss in the parsley root.

Now prepare the chops. Peel and cut the onions into quarters. Place on a sheet of foil and drizzle over 2 tbsp olive oil. Season with salt and add the rosemary sprig. Wrap in the foil and place in the oven at 180C for about 30 mins, or until soft. Blend to a puree, then check the seasoning.

Season the chops and place in a frying pan, fat-side down. Cook gently until the fat is crisp and has rendered. Seal the chops off, then transfer to a roasting tin. Cook for 10 mins at 180C, then remove and leave to rest.

Heat the butter in a pan until the foam starts to subside and the mixture turns brown and smells nutty. Add the crumbs and chopped rosemary and cook until crispy. Add the parsley.

When the chops are rested, spread some of the onion puree onto the top and press on the crumbs. Serve with the parsley root and chickpeas.

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Black chickpeas

De Calabria

Passata

Bianca Mora

Smoked almonds

Brindisa

TURMERIC SPICED CHICKEN WITH WHITE KIMCHI & CHILLI BEANS Nicole Pisani

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the white kimchee:

1 Chinese leaf cabbage

1 tbsp sea salt

1 daikon radish (optional), sliced

1 fennel bulb, sliced

1 red onion, sliced

3 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp grated root ginger

1 clove of garlic, crushed Cornflowers, to garnish (optional)

For the chicken:

2 tbsp coconut oil

½ tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp garam masala

½ tsp chilli powder

½ tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground turmeric

½ tsp black pepper

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 lemon, quartered

1 large whole chicken (approximately 1.5kg)

For the chilli beans:

½ onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1 chilli, finely chopped

1 thumb-sized piece of root ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

2 tbsp mirin

2 tbsp brown rice vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)

1 tbsp brown sugar

200g green beans

Method

To make the kimchi, shred the Chinese leaf cabbage and separate out the leaves. Toss with the sea salt until evenly covered, then leave to sit for 2 hours. Rinse and drain.

Mix the radish, fennel and onion with the cabbage. Mix together the fish sauce, ginger and cgarlic, then thoroughly combine into the vegetables with your hands.

Press the kimchi into a sterilised jar. You need about 3cm space between the liquid and the top of the jar, and it’s important that the cabbage is submerged, so top up with a little water if needed. Cover with the lid – but leave it loose – and keep at room temperature for a day to kickstart the fermentation process. After that, store in the fridge (keeping the lid loose) for up to a month.

For the chicken, heat the oven to 190C. Pound or blend all the turmeric rub ingredients into a thick-ish paste. Rub the lemon quarters all over the chicken, inside and out, then do the same with the paste. Put the lemon quarters into the cavity, place the chicken in a roasting tray and roast for 1 hour 30 mins. Cover with foil and allow to rest for at least 10 mins.

For the beans, saute the chopped onion in a little olive oil for about 3 mins before adding the chilli, ginger and garlic. Continue to cook for 2-3 mins, then add the mirin, brown rice vinegar and brown sugar. Cook for a few minutes, until the sauce is slightly sticky, then set aside.

Steam your green beans for a few minutes –the fresher they are, the quicker they will cook – then toss in the chilli sauce. Carve and serve the chicken, along with some white kimchee and chilli beans.

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Chicken

Wyndham House Poultry

Ginger Raya

Garam masala

Spice Mountain

POULET YASSA Zoe Adjonyoh

Serves 6

This classic Senegalese dish is so simple and delicious. It is perhaps not often recognised as having African origins because of its French name.

Ingredients

For the marinade:

4 cloves of garlic, minced

3 tbsp cider vinegar

4 medium red onions, sliced

70ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 green habanero chilli, de-seeded and finely diced

1 tbsp dijon mustard

4 tbsp groundnut oil

2 tbsp wild honey

½ fresh nutmeg, grated

For the chicken:

4-6 jointed chicken thighs and legs

1 tbsp groundnut oil

1 habanero chilli, pricked with a knife

3 large carrots, thinly sliced

1 bay leaf

128ml vegetable stock

For the coconut rice:

300g rice

350-400ml coconut milk

Method

In a large glass bowl, prepare the marinade by mixing all the ingredients. Place the chicken pieces into the marinade, ensuring they’re all well covered. Cover the bowl with cling film. Marinate in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

Heat the oven to 180C. Remove the chicken pieces from the marinade, reserving the marinade and onions. Place the chicken in a shallow frying pan over a medium heat and saute the chicken for 4-5 mins on each side until golden.

Meanwhile, remove the onions from the marinade. Heat 1 tbsp groundnut oil in a flameproof casserole dish or frying pan and cook the onions slowly until tender and translucent. Add the reserved marinade. When the liquid is thoroughly heated, add the pricked habanero, carrots, bay leaf and vegetable stock. Mix well, then bring slowly to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, add the chicken pieces, cover and cook for about 30 mins, until the chicken is cooked through.

Wash the rice at least three times to remove starch. Cover with 200-250ml water (enough to cover the rice), stir in 1 tsp salt, then place on a medium heat for 5 mins until the water is absorbed. Gradually add the coconut milk, stirring it in, then cook for a further 8-10 mins, until moist but there is no liquid visible. Remove from heat and allow to stand with a lid on for a few minutes. Fluff with fork then serve.

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Chicken

Wyndham House Poultry

Honey

From Field and Flower Carrots

Elsey & Bent

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