At dinner with some friends the other night, Anton (who is German) said that calling food ‘Bavarian’ is meant to be an insult… I imagine that it’s a reference to heavy, stodgy food: knödel, wurst and the like. I cooked my latest item from the Roaming Roosters meat box and the thought of ‘Bavarian’ did come to mind, amusingly. Not least because these were four very big and hearty sausages. Continue reading
Hello everyone and sorry for the huge gap between posts. Hope you’ve all had lovely Christmases and Hanukkahs!
In the past two weeks I’ve been to the other side of the world and back, had a quadruple Christmas bonanza and topped it up with a jaunt to Paris. While I recover on a diet of salad and water, here’s the latest in my meat box adventures – the much awaited Christmas Eve venison, followed by a guest appearance from former meat box suppliers Well Hung Meat, in the form of a Christmas Day goose. Enjoy!
Christmas Eve | Blackface saddle of roe
The real statement piece of my Blackface meat box was this 1.65kg saddle of roe. At a not inexpensive £46, it was a wonderful alternative to the Christmas bird – so we decided to cook it for our Xmas eve dinner. I can only link you to this comment by my pal Mike T., who draws strangely appropriate comparisons between the saddle and sci-fi horror fest Event Horizon. With the bone in, the saddle really looks gruesome. And that colour IS the actual colour it was. A vivid magenta; the stuff of nightmares.
I can’t believe it’s December already – and time to get really festive! Recently I unboxed my third meat box, a hand selected box of game from the Blackface Meat Company. I’d had this idea of working my way through a whole month of Christmas dinners, but even the Christmas enthusiast in me had to admit that was an over-ambitious idea. Not to mention it might dampen my appetite for real Christmas! Continue reading
My next and third meat box is <drumroll>… from the Blackface Meat Company! Don’t be alarmed by their name – Blackface is merely taken from the traditional sheep breed of the same name, for which they are famed. Some things you should know about Blackface first: Continue reading
I’m going to wrap up my Riverford Organic month with the final item from the meat box, and it’s a goody. A beautiful haunch of venison, boned and rolled at a petite 650g. I had previously cooked another venison dish from the same box – see venison goulash – but this joint seemed to come from an altogether different breed. It felt so velvety smooth and did the weird thing when you press it and it doesn’t spring back (I guess that’s like edema.. which is gross). Continue reading
