Homemade dry-cured and smoked bacon with roasted carrots, garden courgette and cucumber and mint and parmesan sauce

Another week, another curing project. In a totally spontaneous manner I have managed to fill my summer with a number of lengthy and not entirely necessary preservation projects. But although I’ve had to put up with many estranged “are you crazy” type looks from the friends, family and total strangers whose ears I’ve bent detailing my doings, I have to say that they have all absolutely been worth it. It is true, you can buy good, exceptional even, sardines, and in this case bacon, from some fabulous independent suppliers. They will definitely save you time and might even in some cases be cheaper, but there is definitely something for the satisfaction felt in sitting down and eating something that has been days or weeks in the making. I have also discovered that a big lump of bacon as a gift inspires a great deal of happiness.

In this case, I was inspired by reading old Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall books where he explores old-fashioned techniques such as curing, smoking and preserving, and it occurred to me just how simple a lot of it is. I used to think that DIY bacon was something that was unreachable to small-flat city dwellers, but I was instantly taken with the idea, and I quick trip to my local Ginger Pig saw me committed with a large hunk of pork belly. Miraculously the whole process was surprisingly simple, and even without a proper smoker I managed to achieve a similar result using a BBQ which had a lid to catch the smoke. I have to say, the bacon that came from this labour of love tasted pretty damn good, and happily I have still got a big old piece in the fridge to whittle away every so often. 

Bacon is normally the bridesmaid. There to discretely add a depth of flavour or add a salty contrast to the primary ingredient. After getting this far, I really wanted it to be the star of the show in this dish. I’ve cut thick, proper slices and fried them until crispy, and only paired them with subtle vegetables and herbs to create something fresh and light yet packed with flavour. This year I’ve been growing courgettes, cucumbers and mint on my balcony, and it’s been lovely to walk out on a summer evening and pick a few things to go with dinner. 

As I said, you can buy fantastic bacon if the process puts you off. If that’s the case, this dinner becomes a very quick affair indeed. But I’ve caught the bug now, and am on the hunt for more ingredients to chuck in the smoker… 

Serves 2, plus a good bit of extra bacon 

Ingredients: 

For the bacon: 

2.5kg pork belly, ribs removed for eating on another occasion 
1kg table salt 
200g brown sugar 
1 lemon, zest only 
10 sprigs of thyme 
4 tbsp black treacle 
Juniper chips for smoking for 24 hours 

For the roasted carrots: 

6 small heritage carrots, trimmed, washed and scrubbed if necessary 
3 sprigs thyme, leaves picked 
1 garlic clove, crushed into a few pieces 
¼ lemon, juice only 

For the courgettes and cucumber: 

2 baby courgettes, flowers reserved 
2 baby cucumbers, flowers reserved 
1 lemon, juice and zest 
3 sprigs mint, leaves picked and roughly torn 
Splash of cider vinegar 

For the mint and parmesan sauce: 

½ bunch of mint, leaves picked 
5 sprigs fresh oregano, leaves picked 
1 clove of garlic, grated 
1 lemon, zest and juice 
3 tbsp grated parmesan 
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 

To finish: 

The flowers from the baby courgettes, stamens removed and leaves roughly torn 
The flowers from the baby cucumbers 
Red-veined sorrel leaves 
Fennel herb sprigs 


Start by curing the bacon. Mix the salt, sugar, treacle, thyme and lemon zest together in a bowl. Pour a quarter of the mixture into the bottom of a large, deep dish, big enough to accommodate the pork belly. Place the pork belly on top, then evenly distribute more of the curing mixture over the top and sides, rubbing the meat in the process. Keep about a quarter of the cure. Cover the dish with cling film and refrigerate for 5 days. After a couple of days moisture will have drained out of the meat. Drain this away and pack the remaining cure around the pork. After 5 days, rinse the meat clean and pat dry. It should have firmed in texture and darkened. Clean the dish and place the meat back in it, then refrigerate, uncovered, in the fridge for another 24 hours to dry out. 

Create a long, heaped line of the fine juniper chips on the bottom of the smoker or barbeque and light one end until caught and smoking constantly. Place the pork on a rack above, then cover with a lid. Slightly open any ventilation ducts and leave to cold smoke for 24 hours. Check every 3-4 hours, topping up and relighting the chips as and when needed. When smoked the bacon will have taken on a golden colour and have a lovely smokey aroma. Wrap with cling film and refrigerate until needed.

To prepare the courgettes, use a mandolin to slice into thin cross-sections. Cut the baby cucumbers into long quarters. Put both into a bowl and add the lemon zest and juice, vinegar and mint leaves along with a good pinch of seasoning. Mix to combine then cover and set aside. 

For the mint and parmesan sauce, put all ingredients into a food processor and blend until everything is finely chopped and combined, adding a little more oil if needed to loosen. Taste and adjust the seasoning and/or acidity if needed. 

Pre-heat the oven to 180⁰C. 

Put the carrots on a baking tray and scatter over the thyme leaves, garlic clove and seasoning, then drizzle with olive oil. Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until tender. When cooked, squeeze over the lemon juice. 

Pour a little olive oil into a frying pan and set on a medium-high heat. Cut two thick 2cm slices from the bacon joint and fry for about 5 minutes on each side, until well browned and crisp on the outside and cooked through. When ready, remove the bacon from the pan and use a little of the juices to dress the courgettes and cucumber. 

To serve, transfer one piece of bacon onto each plate. Place some of the courgette and cucumber slices and roasted carrots around it. Scatter over some of the vegetable flowers, fennel sprigs and sorrel leaves and finish by dotting some of the mint sauce around the plate.

Three ways with mackerel: pan-fried, smoked and cured, with rhubarb puree, beetroot crisps and watercress oil

I cook with mackerel quite a lot, and regular readers will know that I have covered it in various guises in this blog before. However it has been a fair while since its last appearance, so it’s about time that this amazing fish is top of the page again. Every week that I write, in fact every time I cook, I learn something new, and I am constantly looking back on how to improve things that I have made before. My mind is always whirring away trying to work out flavour combinations or complete a long list of initial ideas that just require one or two things to tie them together. So I guess that this is an update on a mackerel and beetroot recipe that I posted last January, but slightly more refined and a damn sight prettier. 

 
We are now nearing the end of the mackerel season as they group up to spawn in the spring, but soon it’ll be summer again when there’s nothing better than flashing it on the barbeque with capers, lemon and parsley. Though the beauty is in its versatility, and as the year moves into Autumn it is just as comfortable with crunchy raw root vegetables or spicy broths, then back around to now where the season happily coincides with those new shoots of vibrant red rhubarb from the Yorkshire triangle. I am always so shocked at how bad the supermarkets are in reacting to British seasonality, and this vegetable is a fine example. Despite proper forced rhubarb only being around for a short few of months, I was saddened to still see thin and bendy imports lining the shelves. As usual, my local greengrocers knew better and I was soon walking home with a happy bunch poking out the top of my bag. Rhubarb is good for more than crumble alone (although buy extra for that too) and finely compliments savoury things like oily fish and pork. The key is in the balance, you want to keep the tartness or your main will think it’s a dessert.
   
I’m still amazed by how easy it is to hot smoke things at home. I was initially worried that my flat would be filled with clouds of black smoke, but even the crumbly old extraction and a few open windows miraculously contained everything in my tiny kitchen. So far I’ve only really tried it with fish that cook quickly using bungled smoke combinations of rice, herbs and zest, but the results really are great. The fish ends up meltingly moist with just the right amount of smokiness. Oh how I yearn to have a garden to expand on these projects…  

There are quite a few processes in this recipe but as with most things loads can be done in advance. It’s really up to you how far you take it, and the flavourings still work perfectly if you were to cook all of the mackerel just the one way. Likewise, I have perhaps been a little fancy in just using the loins of the fish here, but in no way were the trimmings wasted. Quickly grilled and crammed between soft white bread with tartar sauce they were delightful. But the whole fillets can also be used throughout this recipe too, especially if you wanted to bulk it out a bit.  

Serves 2 for a starter or light lunch.  

Ingredients:  

For the pan-fried mackerel:  

2 mackerel fillets, top loin only, pin boned 
Olive oil 
½ a lemon, juice only  

For the smoked mackerel:  

2 mackerel fillets, top loin only, pin boned 
Olive oil 
1 handful of rice 
1 lemon, zest only 
½ a bunch of thyme 
1tsp black peppercorns 
1tsp brown sugar  

For the cured mackerel:  

2 mackerel fillets, top loin only, pin boned 
100g salt 
50g caster sugar 
1 lemon, zest only 
2tbsp fresh thyme leaves  

For the rhubarb puree:  

1 large stick of rhubarb 
½ a lemon, juice only 
2 tbsp caster sugar, plus more to taste  

For the watercress oil:  

50g watercress 
100ml extra virgin olive oil  

For the beetroot crisps:   

1 golden beetroot 
Vegetable oil for frying, approx. 1ltr  

For the smoked beetroot salt:  

3tbsp smoked sea salt 
¼ of a beetroot, roughly chopped  

To finish:  

3tbsp cress, washed 


To cure the mackerel, mix together the salt, sugar, lemon zest and thyme. Pour a quarter of this mixture onto the bottom of a small dish or tray and top with the two mackerel loins. Cover with the rest of the salt mix until fully covered. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for two hours. 

While the mackerel is curing make the other elements of the dish. 

To make the smoked beetroot salt, pour the salt into a small bowl and add the chopped raw beetroot. Mix well and set aside, stirring occasionally. The longer it is left the more the salt will take on colour. 

For the rhubarb puree, chop the rhubarb into inch-sized pieces and tip into a small saucepan. Add the lemon juice and sugar and cover with water. Bring to the boil and then simmer for a couple of minutes until cooked through. Drain and transfer to a food processor and blitz well. Taste and add more sugar or lemon if needed, you want it to be quite tart still. Pass through a fine sieve into a bowl and set aside. 

Heat the deep frying oil in a heavy saucepan until it reaches 160⁰C. Peel the golden beetroot and carefully slice very thinly with a mandolin. When the oil has come to temperature, fry in small batches until lightly golden and crispy. Drain on kitchen paper and sprinkle with salt. 

For the watercress oil, put the watercress, extra virgin olive oil and a little salt into a food processor and blitz until the leaves are finely chopped and the oil has taken on a vivid green colour. Pass through a fine sieve and transfer to a bottle. 

When the mackerel has had its curing time, remove from the fridge and lift the fillets out of the salt. Rinse well and pat dry. Carefully slice the skin off and then set aside to come to room temperature. 

To make a DIY hot smoker, tip the rice, sugar, thyme, peppercorns and lemon zest into the bottom of a small deep metal oven tray that has been lined with foil. Start the smoking process off by singing everything with a blow torch. Place an oiled metal cooling rack or other grill on top and then seal with more foil. Put the tray over a medium heat until lots of smoke and heat is generated inside. Season the mackerel fillets and rub with oil. Peel back the foil and place the fillets skin-down onto the hot rack, then seal again quickly. Smoke for 4-5 minutes, or until just cooked through. Keep warm. 

Heat a non-stick frying pan with a little olive oil. Season the remaining mackerel fillets well. When a medium-hot temperature, add the fish skin-side down, holding them for a few seconds to stop any shrinkage. Fry for 2 minutes to crisp up the skin, then turn over and remove the pan from the heat and allow to residual heat to finish the cooking off. Squeeze over the lemon juice.

To plate up, lay one of each of the mackerel fillets onto heated plates. Dot the puree and the oil around the fish and scatter over the beetroot crisps and the cress. Finally sprinkle over some of the smoked salt.

Home-smoked sardines with clams, leeks, crispy cavolo nero and saffron and lemon mayonnaise

So Katie goes away for a few days with work, and in that time the kitchen somehow sprouted a makeshift smoker. And I don’t know why I haven’t done it before! 

This was a very spontaneously thought out and prepared lunch. All I knew that day was that I wanted to make something with sardines, but for the life of me I couldn’t decide on what to do with them. I had thought of curing them in blackcurrant juice, which might have looked beautiful but tasted frankly disgusting, or simply grilling them, which wouldn’t have been very original for me. It got to the point where I was cycling back from the fishmongers with a bag of fish and still didn’t know their fate. And then the idea of smoking them came into my head. 

Although I like to stretch myself and try as many different cooking techniques as I can, I have always thought that smoking was a step too far for the amateur cook. Only spending vast amounts of money on a purposely built, outdoor smoker would make this possible, and I had one scribbled down next to a sous-vide machine and double oven on my unrealistic wish list. But although cold-smokers might be a little more difficult to recreate, a makeshift hot-smoker turned out to be a doddle to make. Just make sure you open the windows and turn the extraction fan on! Anyone really interested in homemade methods such as this should check out the writing of Tim Haywood. Not only is it funny, but the things that he makes with often household items are brilliant and inspiring. 

I thought that I would be able to make a smoker out of a very deep oven tray with a cooling rack suspended above, all sealed up with trusty foil. And I was kind of amazed that it worked, and that I didn’t burn down the flat in the process! The fish really was delicious, lovely and moist in the middle and smokey on the outside. As for the flavour of the smoke, I just experimented with a mixture of thyme, pink peppercorns, rice and sugar. This might not be the right thing to use for seasoned smokers, but it worked just fine for this dish. I only wanted to lightly smoke the fish, but you could leave them in for longer to achieve a crispier, stronger result. Instead I finished the cooking with a blowtorch to crisp up the skin.  It was a treat, and could well be the start of a whole lot of experimentation. 

The rest of the dish was formed by things I was lucky enough to have at home. I had clams in the fridge for a meal the next night, and the mayonnaise was made out of store cupboard ingredients. All in all it took me about half an hour, although the kitchen was a proper mess by the end!

Serves 2 for lunch

Ingredients:

For the sardines: 

3 whole sardines, scaled and gutted

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

For the smoker:

3 large handfuls of rice

1 large bunch of thyme

2 tbsp pink peppercorns

2 tbsp caster sugar

For the clams:

30 clams, cleaned of grit

1 glass dry white wine

For the steamed leeks:

2 young leeks, washed and cut into long rounds

1 tsp butter

Salt and pepper

For the crispy cavolo nero:

3 leaves cavolo nero, shredded finely

3 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

1/4 nutmeg

1 lemon, zest only

Salt and pepper

For the saffron and lemon mayonnaise:

2 egg yolks

1/2 level tsp english mustard

1 garlic clove

Splash white wine vinegar

Small pinch saffron

300ml rapeseed oil

1-2 lemons, juice only

Salt and pepper

First get the smoker ready. Line the bottom of a deep oven tray with foil and scatter over the rice, thyme, pepper and sugar. Put a shallow bowl with a little water in at each end, and use these to support a cooling rack a couple of inches above the base. Create a lid out of a few sheets of tin foil, making sure that it will seal properly and sit a couple of inches above the cooling rack. Set aside for lighting later.

Now make the mayonnaise. Add the garlic clove, salt and pepper to a food processor with a small bowl and blitz well. Top up with the mustard, vinegar, saffron and egg yolks and mix again until well combined and very frothy. Leaving the mixer on, pour in the oil in a very slow trickle, getting steadier as you reach the end. The mayonnaise should be very thick and emulsified. Squeeze in the juice of one lemon, mix again and taste. Add more lemon and seasoning as required, then transfer to a squeezy bottle. 

Prepare the sardines by removing the head, cutting open the belly cavity and removing any innards. The next step is to butterfly the fish by carefully running the tip of a sharp knife between the fine ribcage and the flesh on each side, then slowly easing the backbone free with your fingers. Cut them at the tale end so you are left with both fillets connected and bone free. Cut into separate fillets and put onto a plate. The key with handling the sardines is to be very gentle as the skin and flesh tears really easily. 

Put the oil for the cavolo nero into a medium frying pan and set to a medium-high heat. When hot, add the shredded leaves with the lemon zest and seasoning. Cook for a minute or two, of until very crispy, then remove to a plate lined with kitchen roll. Grate over the nutmeg, mix well and check the seasoning. Set aside. 

Heat a medium saucepan to a medium-high temperature. When hot, add the clams and cook in the dry pan for a couple of seconds before adding the white wine. Cover the bubbling pan tightly and gently shake a couple of times. Cook until the clam shells open, about 2-3 minutes, then transer to a bowl. Remove the clams from the shells with a spoon, keeping about ten of the shell halves for plating up. Set aside. 

Half-fill a saucepan with a steaming attachment with salted water and bring to the boil. 

When the water is nearly boiling, start up the smoker. Run a blowtorch over thyme and rice mixture in the bottom of the oven tray until charred and smoking, then put the tray on the hob over a medium heat and seal with the foil. While the smoker is heating up, dry the outside of the sardines with kitchen paper, season well and rub with a small amount of oil. When the smoker is hot and the cooling rack is up to temperature, carefully lay each fillet skin down on the rack and quickly reseal the edges. Check after 3-4 minutes; the fish should be cooked and the skin starting to turn a golden colour. Carefully remove the fillets from the rack using a palette knife and place skin up on a plate. Using the blowtorch, run the flame over the fillets until the skin starts to crisp up. 

While the fish is smoking, steam the leeks for 3-4 minutes or until jest tender. When cooked, brush with a little butter and season. 

To plate up, position 5-6 pieces of leek onto each plate. Lay three sardine fillets per portion, and scatter some of the crispy cavolo nero around the plate. Arrange the clams over the top, leaving some of them in their shells, then dot the mayonnaise in the gaps.