Pork chops.
A cooked breakfast with sausages and bacon.
A leg joint for Sunday Dinner.
What else is there to pork?
We have been raising OSB weaners now for just over a year and our freezer has been full of pork in various guises all that time. All the recognisable cuts: roasting joints, sausages, gammon, chops. They’re easy to cook with little thought and little effort, all the effort having been done to get them into the freezer in the first place. So, our first freezer-full was used quickly but possibly with not as much enthusiasm as it deserved!
At this stage, I must point out that we are a family of four with not a chef amongst us! There is no particular culinary expertise between my husband and I and if we find something which suits the whole family, it tends to be done to death! So, treating our very first much-loved happy pork with very little imagination was, as we have since pondered, sacrilege!
Having said that, in spite of our lack of kitchen skills, the very fact that we had slow grown, high welfare, rare breed pork at our disposal meant that any meal made with or out of it was absolutely delicious. The slightly higher fat content than we had been previously used to was a delight and our meat portion sizes became smaller and smaller, the more we experienced meat that actually tasted of something in its plainest form! Those who tasted our wares soon became converts and we were persuaded to take on more weaners the next time to provide the same experience to those other families!
With our next freezer-full, I was determined to put my meat to better use and I was encouraged and enthused by the LovePork website. On our facebook site, Gorstage Park Porkers, our customers posted pictures of their own culinary journeys and we have all encouraged each other to try new and exciting meals that certainly I wouldn’t have thought of using pork for in the past!
A good Sunday Roast still can’t really be beaten as my favourite meal of the week but at a recent family celebration, we fed 35 over two sittings with the vast majority of the meat being from our very own Oxford Sandy and Black, Stephen!
From bland beginnings, we can, amongst many other dishes add to our family menu:-
Swineherd’s Pie (the piggy version of shepherd’s pie)
Marinated Pork Ribs on the BBQ (honey, soya sauce, white wine vinegar)
Pork Fillet Stroganoff
Pork Souvlaki with flatbreads
Belly Pork in the fondue (very 70’s!)
Bacon & Chocolate Chip Cookies (don’t knock them ‘til you’ve tried them!)
Meatballs (made from squeezed out sausages so no need to season or add anything else!)
Sausage rolls (just add garlic and blitz sausage meat!)
All dishes easily and quickly prepared and all have caused a stir both within our home and when shared with others!
Here’s wishing you all lots of fun with your well-loved pork! I hope you’re as proud of what you’ve achieved as we are!