Smoked Pork and Leek Soup

Some smoked pork trimmings in the fridge needed to be used, so I put together this soup. The soup base is essentially half a courgette (diced), one medium sized leek cut into wheels, and one carrot (grated with a rotary grater). Plus a diced handful of fresh coriander, salt, and some ham (or pork) stock. The vegetables were first fried in some rape seed oil (ten minutes at a medium heat).

I added a generous amount of boiling water (about one pint).

I diced about 200g of the pork trimmings and added them to the pot about half an hour later. Cooked at a medium heat under glass for at least 90 minutes.

Completely delicious!
 

Creamed Ham, Leek and Tomato Soup

Soup made with diced cherry tomatoes, tomato puree, diced leek and diced turnip, plus vegetable and ham stock, plus tomato puree. Cooked for seventy minutes at a low heat under glass. After that I added diced garlic and deseeded red chilli. Plus paprika, oregano, and black pepper. The diced ham went in last, with some red wine and single cream. 

 

Pea and Ham Soup

A pea and ham soup made with some surplus breaded Wiltshire ham. The base of the soup was made with diced turnip, potato, diced leek, and whole yellow peas. Plus ham stock. 

The vegetables were cooked first, for about seventy minutes, after which they were mashed. A pinch of paprika was added, along with a little rosemary. The diced ham was then added, and cooked for another twenty five minutes under glass. Added black pepper. 

Serve as is, or with a bread of your choice. 

 

Kabanos Sausage Stew

Two chopped Kabanos sausages, stir fried in a little sunflower oil, along with diced carrot, diced brocolli stems, a julienned onion, two diced spring onions, half a yellow pepper cut into strips, and potato chunks. Stir fry until the onion begins to brown.

Add boiling water, two squirts of tomato puree, and the ham (or pork) stock. Simmer at a low heat under glass for an hour.

Add the herbs (basil, coriander and tarragon five or ten minutes before serving the dish). Add a quarter teaspoonful of chilli powder if you would like some heat. A little lemon zest can also be added.

Bacon Risotto

Smoked bacon, diced into small chunks, and cooked alone until crispy. Add par-boiled potato, cut into cubes. Basmati rice, pre-prepared. Plus julienned white onion, and diced yellow pepper.

Stir-fried in olive oil at a low heat for fifteen to twenty minutes.A little ham stock was added in the final ten minutes.

Dress in black pepper before serving.

Garlic Sausage Stew

Made with diced Polish garlic sausage, onions or leeks, carrot and fresh sweetcorn, diced potato, tomato puree, garlic, ham stock, chilli powder, and some herbs (Basil, Coriander and Oregano).

Cook the vegetables first in a little sunflower oil until they soften. Add water, the tomato puree, the ham stock, and the chilli powder (half a teaspoonful is  fine). Add the diced sausage, and simmer under glass for between 45 minutes and an hour.

Add the herbs to the pot, and cook for a further ten minutes.

Served in this case with Basmati Rice.

Roast Pork with Crackling

A medium sized pork joint with crackling fat, cooked for an hour in a casserole dish in the oven (190 deg C, on the middle shelf), and then for a further fifteen minutes without the lid, to brown the crackling. The dish was brushed with sunflower oil, and the crackling was dressed in a dusting of sea salt.

The gravy was made with the juices from the joint, augmented by some ham stock, and some Bisto gravy granules.

The pork was cut into slices with a sharp knife, running with the grain of the meat.

Served with batonned carrots, cooked for twenty minutes along with the Maris Piper potatoes, and halved Brussels sprouts, cooked for eight minutes.

Chipolata Sausage, with Button Mushrooms in a Ham Gravy

A simple dish of fried pork chipolata sausages, in a ham gravy with halved button mushrooms. Served with steamed brocolli spears and flat cut potatoes.

The sausages were cooked slowly for about twenty minutes and regularly turned. The button mushrooms were added during the final ten minutes. I made the gravy with ham stock, and a dessert spoonful of Bisto gravy granules. Simmered under glass for a further fifteen minutes.

The potatoes were boiled for twenty minutes under glass, and the brocolli spears were steamed for eight minutes.

Dress with black pepper before serving.

Mushroom and Chorizo Casoulet

Sixteen whole white mushrooms, four chopped chestnut mushrooms, around 200g of sliced chorizo sausage, 100g of chopped green beans, eight chopped spring onions, two shredded salad tomatoes, and half of a roughly cut swede. The chorizo and the swede were cooked in a little bacon fat under glass at a moderate heat for around 15 to 20 minutes. I added six whole garlic cloves which were in a chilli suffused sunflower oil. Then boiling water was added to the pot, along with a couple of squeezes of tomato paste, and two ham stock cubes. The casoulet was allowed to simmer for two hours, at the end of which white pepper and two generous pinches of thyme and rosemary were stirred into the stew. Naturally this dish could be made with potatoes instead of a swede. But I had a swede which needed to be used, so I chose to use the swede. The combo is fine. The other half of the swede will find its way into a soup.

Bacon and Chorizo Soup

Bacon and chorizo soup, with a whole green pepper, celery and turnip.

The bacon was fried first until crispy, then all of the vegetable ingredients were diced and added to a pan of boiling water. Simmered under glass for thirty to forty minutes, and then mashed.

The crispy smoked bacon was diced, along with about 100g of chorizo sausage, and added to the pan. Simmered under glass for forty minutes.

Add the ham stock, black pepper and the herbs (Oregano and Basil in this case). Cook for another ten minutes, when it is ready to serve. Delicious!

Venison Sausage Casserole

Some bargain venison sausages from Sainsbury's, used as the basis of a winter casserole.

I added diced green beans, onion, celery, batoned carrot, and spring onion to a casserole dish. The sausages were delinked, and pierced four times each. They were added on top of the layer of vegetables.

I made a gravy with onion granules and some ham stock. It was allowed to cool to room temperature, and then it was added to the casserole dish, just covering the vegetables. I drizzled some sunflower oil over the sausages, and then placed it in a preheated oven at 190 deg C. Allowed to cook for at least fifty minutes.

Served with lightly roasted maris piper potatoes. 

Tomato and Smoked Ham Soup

A second soup, made with the meat and juices from one smoked ham hough, which had been slow cooked over eight hours.

So the ingredients came from the fridge - some ham, and the rich juicy jelly which provides a rich and flavoursome stock for the soup.

I began by stir-frying some onions (red) and some chopped celery in sunflower oil. After the onions and celery had softened (about fifteen minutes, stirring regularly at a medium heat), I added a tin of Italian plum tomatoes, which I diced up with a spatula.

After that, add about half a pint of boiling water and stir together. Add the jelly/stock, which will dissolve quickly. Once that has happened, add the ham, and stir again. Allow to simmer for up to two hours for maximum flavour.

Add the Basil just before serving. I served the soup with a little black pepper, and a toasted seeded flatbread from Aldi. Delicious!

Smoked Ham Hough Soup

A soup made with a ham hough, simmered at a low heat for eight hours under glass.

The vegetables cooked with the ham joint were: carrot, celery, onion, potato, half a red pepper cut into strips, and one diced red-skinned apple (Braeburn).

The meat falls away from the bone after cooking for several hours. The joint was carefully removed from the soup pot, and all the bones were fished out. Then some of the ham was returned to the pot.

The bones were discarded, and the rest of the ham was allowed to cool, and stored in the fridge for another meal. A delicious soup, and a great winter warmer. Excellent for using up surplus vegetables in your kitchen.

Ham Hough Pie

Made much the same way as cottage pie/shepherd's pie. The meat is from the joint (cooked for about eight hours the preceding day), and there is also a mixture of winter vegetables and liquor from the ham in the pie.

I used a small oval ceramic pie dish, and lined it first at the bottom with the vegetables and a little of the ham liquor. Then I added pieces of ham on top of this mixture.

Finally I added a layer of mashed potato, mashed together with a little butter and white pepper. Textured with a fork.

I cooked this on the middle shelf of the oven along with a ham hough green bean casserole, at around 190 deg C. Cook for twenty five minutes, and check the dish to see how the potato topping is coming along. If a significant amount of moisture is in the filling and rises through the body of the pie, the textured surface of the potato will take longer to become golden brown. This one took around forty minutes altogether. Check its progress frequently!

The dish works well served with peas, and/or with a sweet mustard.

Honey Ham Pasta with Sage

Honey ham trimmings, stir-fried with chopped spanish onion and diced red and yellow pepper in sunflower oil. Add one shredded salad tomato. Add two thinly sliced cloves of garlic.

Once the contents of the pan begin to brown, turn down the heat and add boiling water. Then add a squeeze of tomato puree, and a ham stock cube. Also add a bay leaf. Stir occasionally.  Simmer for at least an hour under glass. Ten minutes before it is ready to serve, add half a teaspoonful of dried sage.

Prepare the penne pasta ten minutes before serving. I used Dove's farm wheat-free pasta in this case, which behaves very much like the standard Durum wheat version during cooking (i.e., it doesn't dissolve into nothing). It also has the texture and taste of regular pasta.

Fish out the bay leaf, and add the ham and onion sauce to a bowl. Drain the pasta and add it on top. Stir through a little. Serve!

Onion, Carrot and Potato Soup, with Coriander

A simple warming winter soup made with carrot, celery, onion, potato, lentils, coriander, spinach, turmeric, and ham stock.

Add chopped carrot, sliced onion, celery, and potato to a saute pan of boiling water. Dice fresh celery and spinach leaves, and add with a third of a cupful of red lentils. Cook for an hour at a simmer heat under glass, stirring occasionally.

Add a third of a teaspoonful of turmeric, half a teaspoonful of black pepper, and lots of ham stock, and simmer for another half an hour. Delicious!

Chorizo and Red Onion Cassoulet

Made with red onion, green and yellow peppers, carrot, potato, sugar snap peas, haricot beans, spring onion, chestnut mushrooms, celery, tomato puree, plus ham and vegetable stock.

The onions were stir-fried first, and the rest of the vegetables were added as prepared (chop everything!). I used some oil left over from a jar of grilled peppers, but sunflower oil would be fine. The last thing to be added was the chorizo sausage. Turn down the heat and stir everything together. Cook for fifteen minutes.

Add boiling water to the mix, and stir together. Add the haricot beans (soft), the tomato puree, and the ham and vegetable stocks. Simmer under glass for at least half an hour.

Serve with black pepper, or just as it is.

Bacon, Pepper and Spinach Stew

Made with potato, red onion, red pepper, spinach, garlic, ham stock, and coriander. You can add chopped mushrooms also.

All the vegetables were chopped into thin strips, and the spinach leaves were rotated after each cut so that they became very finely chopped.

The potato pieces were stir fried in a saute pan first, followed by the red onion after a couple of minutes. After that the chopped bacon strips, the spinach, and the garlic. Stir fry for seven minutes at a medium heat. Add boiling water to the pan, the ham stock, and two squeezes of tomato puree, and a pinch of coriander. Stir together.

Cook for a further thirty minutes under glass at a simmer. Serve with a pitta or another flatbread of your choice.

Lentil and Bacon Broth

Made with one leek, finely chopped celery, green lentils, half a turnip, three carrots, and two rashers of fried bacon, chopped into small pieces. I stir-fried the leek first (in a little bacon fat), then added boiling water, and then the chopped carrot, turnip the fried bacon pieces (crispy!), and then a third of a cup of green lentils.

Simmer for an hour and then mash. Add ham stock, black pepper, and simmer under glass at a low heat for another half an hour, stirring occasionally. Nutritious! Tasty!

Serve with some toasted potato bread, or another flatbread of your choice.

Pork and Leek Sausages, in a Red Pepper and Mushroom Gravy

Some  pork and leek sausages, pierced and cooked in their own fat, supplemented by a drizzle of Sunflower oil.

I cooked them entirely separately from the gravy, which was a good move, since there was a large fat residue in the saute pan where they were fried and turned for twenty five minutes, with the last five minutes under glass. The sausages came from Sainsbury's delicatessen counter. The fat residue is not really important if you fry or grill the sausages before doing something else with them.

The gravy was made with finely sliced white mushrooms, thin strips of red pepper, and a diced leek. The leek was stir-fried first in some sunflower oil, and then the pepper and onion were added. After fifteen minutes I added some boiling water, and then a mixture of browned cornflour and water. I turned up the heat, stirring continuously until the gravy came to the boil. After that I added a ham stock cube to the gravy, and continued to stir until the gravy began to thicken. Reduce the heat, stirring occasionally until served.

Decant the sausages from the saute pan or skillet, and spoon the vegetables and gravy over the top. Delicious and quick to make!