A week or so ago saw the purchase of a piece of pork from the Manor Green Road butcher, said to come from a Gloucestershire Old Spot, with the snap above lifted from reference 1. Probably not the natal farm of my pig, but not impossible with Horsham not being that far away. But hopefully the one snapped can lift his flaps when he goes about his business.
A piece which started off as a shoulder, then boned and rolled while I watched. The blade being discarded on this occasion. For which see reference 2. I took half the resultant roll, which weighed in at 4lbs 9oz.
We had a short discussion about why it might be that observant Jews and Muslims do not eat pork. I thought that it was probably to do with pig parasites being transmitted to humans. Perusing reference 3 this afternoon, I find that there are quite a number of such parasites, with transmission to humans usually being by way of contaminated water, poor hygiene or undercooked pork. I suppose the first two of these might be a particular problem in hot dry countries - that is to say a lot of the Middle East - where clean water is apt to be in short supply.
I also find that the word 'measly' starts with tapeworms: '... This disease exists under conditions where pigs have access to tapeworm eggs and segments. Inadequate cooking or consumption of raw meat containing metacestodes (measly pork) may lead to infection in humans...'.
Applying the formula in the Radiation cook book gave 4 times 33 plus 16 plus 20 makes 168. Say 2 hours 45 minutes. At 160°C. So in at 13:50. At 16:46, it looked cooked. Not running under the knife at all. Oven turned off 16:50. Some pink juice after. Maybe an egg cup full? The plan being to take it cold for luncheon sandwiches on Good Friday.
Established that the supermarkets were indeed open for more or less their usual hours on this very holy day - shops would once have been firmly shut - off to Sainsbury's first thing for one of their white bloomers, white bread being essential for cold meat sandwiches. The plain ones did not look that clever, so I settled for a seeded one, which did fine, apart from showering seeds all over the place.
I thought, but then I would, it just about right for sandwiches. Not dry, but certainly not dripping, nor even pink.
The day following taken with potato salad and green salad. Blackberry and apple to follow.
The day following that taken with mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts, the latter a little past their best. Clearly end of season.
On the other hand, there was gravy, the most successful gravy I have made for a while. First ingredient was the stock obtained by washing out the roasting tin with some boiling water. Second ingredient was the fat from the roasting, snapped above with the brown jelly taken off and added to the stock. Rather like butter in texture. Roux'd up some of the fat with flour. Stirred in the stock. Added potato water until the desired consistency was achieved.
Tested the product with a little gravy dipping, using some of the white bread from Sainsbury's. Gravy dipping having been an important part of Sunday roasts when there were four of us.
In the saucepan.
On the plate. Where BH takes a good deal more gravy than I do. It's the same with custard.
Wound up proceedings with warm bread pudding made with the crusts left over from preparation of the stuffing for the chicken for the day following. Much better still warm, but still quite eatable cold.
All done by 24 hours later.
Some of the pork was chopped into hot gravy on brown bread at tea-time. Which did for the gravy.
The balance of the pork went into luncheon rolls a couple of days later. The rolls from Sainsbury's looked very round and neat, but came with a rather dry crust and a rather flavour-lite crumb, and so not as good as the white batch rolls from Costcutter, knocked up from half cooked, frozen or both in the sock room behind the shop.
All very successful. To be repeated at some point.
References
Reference 1: https://www.coniesfarm.co.uk/the-farm/the-livestock.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/04/more-pork.html.
Reference 3: Are Pig Parasites a Human Health Risk? - Merle E. Olson, Nicole Gusell - 2000.
No comments:
Post a Comment