The Cottage Smallholder

  I love ham, bacon, salami – well most processed meats actually. They get the thumbs down from the nutritionists due to their high salt and fat content. Having found out how easy it is to cure bacon at home using far less salt than traditional cures I decided to have a go at curing Read More »

It’s often said that some of the best discoveries are made by mistake. This discovery was made through laziness. We have stuck rigidly to our low salt bacon cure for over a year now. When Tessa of chiminea fame came back from a trip to Cornwall she brought news. “We discovered some home cured molasses Read More »

Our new organic butcher buys his beef from farmers whose steers graze the fields in the local studs around our village. Something like ox kidney has to be ordered in advance. Last week I invested in organic shin of beef, just £8.00 for 2 kilos. And a large oxtail that was quite a bit more Read More »

Danny and I were given a mincer and sausage making attachment for the Kenwood Chef this Christmas. This was the final step in our homemade sausage making dream. I’ve fancied making sausages for months but have held back since Hank tipped that having the right equipment was essential in the long run. Living near Newmarket, the Read More »

When we visited The Carter Street butchers in Fordham last weekend there were long slim peppered beef sausages hanging in the window. Beyond these was a rack where some dark dried meat was hanging. “There are fifty Southern Africans living in the village. Eventually I had to try my hand at making Biltong,” the butcher Read More »

“Do you think that we could adapt a chiminea to smoke bacon? There are small ones on sale for £20.” It was early summer. Tessa and Colin don’t have a fireplace. Most of the smokers available in the DIY stores are hot smokers. Hot smokers cook and smoke the food. They are also quite expensive. Read More »

Having had a baconless weekend, I have been actively seeking a new butcher. I’m told that there’s a great independent butcher in Bury St Edmunds, 14 miles away. When I next have a Saturday off, Jalopy and I will be pointed like an arrow towards that lovely old Cathedral city. In the interim, we’ve tasted Read More »

Here is the second part of Smoking Methusala’s post. Here he gets down to the nitty gritty. Smoking Methusala’s cold smoker journey. Part two. Here are the instructions for creating both the home built smoke room and the smoke generator. Making the smoke room: The fridge part is easy. Assuming you have a larder fridge Read More »

I’ve been chatting to Smoking Methusala for a while. He cures and smokes his own bacon on a hillside in Wales. He has agreed to share his knowledge with all would be bacon smokers out there. I’ve heard of a man who smokes fish and bacon in an old wardrobe but this story takes the Read More »

The temperature in the larder is rising with these warmer days. It is a proper old fashioned cold room but the fridge freezer lives in there and the large motor inadvertently heats the room. Great in mid winter as things don’t freeze but in summer it’s not cool enough for maturing my fast growing family Read More »