Heavy snow at Grange Farm makes national news

Our part of North Yorkshire was covered with the heaviest falls of snow over the past 20 years, yesterday Emma Murphy and her crew from ITV News battled their way to the farm to film the difficulties of livestock farming when the snow fall is unexpectedly early.

We are in the middle of lambing our flock of Dorset sheep, which touch wood is going really well with some fantastic lambs being born to the three new tups we bought back in the sunny days of May from The Dorset Sheep Fair. The only problem now is trying to get them out into the fields which have got a thick carpet of clean fluffy snow. Certainly for the rest of this week and the first part of next it looks like they are going to have to spend their time in the sheds racing round and round while being watched by their proud mothers.

The article went out on the ITN National News on Thursday evening. Below are some screen shots of Emma with Lesley, Arthur and Ewan, the Grange Farm Shepherds.

Ginger Pig wins Butcher's Shop of the Year Award, South of England Region

THE GINGER, BOROUGH MARKET IS BEST IN SOUTH OF ENGLAND

The Ginger Pig, Borough Market, has been named the best in the South of England Region after proving itself a cut above the rest in the annual Butcher's Shop of the Year Awards 2010.

The butcher impressed the judges from awards organiser Meat Trades journal and was judged on the following criteria: shop display, shop interior layout and design, cabinet displays, use of marketing and promotional material, efficiency, team working abilities, knowledge and presentation of staff, training and development of staff, back of shop organisation, hygiene, business development plans.

Meat Trades Journal Editor Ed Bedington said, "The Ginger Pig's passion and enthusiasm for their business shines through on every level. They set standards in South of England that other Butchers would do well to follow"

After accepting the award at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel, Charlie Shaw Head Butcher and Manager said: "We are very proud of the shop and the staff as we have all worked very hard, it is an honour to win such an award."

Ginger pig is highly commended in RSPCA Awards

The Ginger Pig got a highly commended award in the RSPCA Good Business Awards 2010. The RSPCA press release said "Butcher Ginger Pig Limited was also highly commended for its innovation and dedication to ethical sourcing and animal welfare. Recently it has been improving the standards of its pig housing to better protect pigs in bad weather and has started a free range chicken enterprise using traditional breeds of poultry"

Below is a picture of Jayne, Scott and Natalie celebrating collecting the Award.

Ginger Pig Beef Makes French Guide

On Monday 13th September Tim was invited to Paris to join in the launch of the 2011 Le Guide des Gourmands edited by the famous French food writer and broadcaster Elisabeth de Meurville and highly acclaimed chef Joel Robuchon. Each year “le Guide” acknowledges 12 artisan food producers who have been outstanding in their particular field – Chocolatier, fromages et beurre charcuterie etc and awards them the ultimate European accolade of Coq d’or. Past recipients of the award have in the main been from France, Italy and Spain. In 1999 Mary Quicke and her family received the Coq d’or for their traditional cheddar cheese and until this year remained the only British receiver of the award. We were delighted and pleasantly surprised when the Ginger Pig was chosen as an outstanding producer and retailer of beef and received Great Britain’s second ever Coq d’or award.


It was a doubly important honour for us at the Ginger Pig, firstly to be recognised but secondly recognised by the French who since the outbreaks of BSE and then foot and mouth have not looked on British Beef favourably. Leading chefs and food writers all agreed that the dry ageing process or hanging that the Ginger Pig practices enhances flavour. The awards ceremony was held in the spacious showrooms of the Moben Kitchen Designers opposite the Gare de Lyon in Paris where each show kitchen had been taken over by an artisan food producer. We tasted wonderful hams and salamis, exquisite patisserie, cheeses even rillets made from properly raised capons (no hormones). There were also some small wine producers and an exceptional maker of calvados.


We had sent over some of our mature beef foreribs which had been cooked in Mobens main kitchens and was met with a lot of praise. This years 12 Coq d’ors received their awards in Mobens Cookery School where Tim was also asked to join France’s Ros Bif Club made up of 1,500 European Chefs and Food Writers.

Ginger Pig's TV interview about Lady Gaga's meat dress!

Following Lady Gaga's appearance earlier this week in a dress made out of meat at the MTV Awards, a camera crew from the new ITV Daybreak TV Show set up in our Waterloo Shop (in Greensmiths) to interview our butcher and customers about using meat for clothing.

Our head Butcher Tom was asked what would make a good hat and shoes if you had to make them out of meat and he recommended a ribeye hat and veal escalope for shoes.

We don't think this is a fashion that will catch on but Ginger Pig will continue to sell the wide range of meats...we will leave it up to our customers how they choose to use their purchases!

Borough Market shortlisted for Butcher's Shop of the Year Awards

Congratulations to Charlie and his team at Borough Market on becoming shortlisted in the Meat Trades Journal, Butcher's Shop of the Year Awards, South of England Regional Category.

The Market is shortlisted along with two other Butchers Shops.

We wish Charlie and his team all the best in the final selection process.

Rose Veal

This week we have the first delivery of Rose Veal from a group of farmers on the Shropshire, Welsh borders. Midshire's Veal is a small cooperative of 5 farmers who are breeding and finishing the calves to a very high standard of welfare. I spent the day looking around the farms and abattoir and was very impressed.

These calves are killed between 8 and 12 months of age and have a natural diet of mothers milk and hay or grass, hence the colour of the meat which changes from the plain white of milk fed veal often found in Holland and Denmark to a richer pink colour.

All our shops will be getting a delivery this week and we will be happy to take any special orders at the farm.

Ginger Pig are finalists in the RSPCA good business awards

We are pleased to announce that The Ginger Pig have been selected as a finalist for the RSPCA Good Business Awards 2010 in the Independant Retailers Category.

For further information on the RSPCA and about the Awards, please follow the links below.

www.goodthings.org.uk

www.rspcagoodbusinessawards.com

Nigella Lawson visit

One of our telly favourites Nigella Lawson popped into our Marylebone Shop this week to buy some pork, whilst being filmed for her new television series due out in Autumn.
She is pictured here with our Butcher, Scott.

Ginger Pig feature in The Times Newspaper

Top 10 Butchers

The Ginger Pig features in the Top 10 Butchery by Hattie Ellis, she says;
"99 Lauriston Road, London, E9 and branches: 02089866911; thegingerpig.co.uk
My best steak of the year (so far) came from the Ginger Pig, chosen from the proud joints of beef on their counter. The Yorkshire mother-farm was founded on Tamworth ginger pigs and the business specialises in old-fashioned native breeds sold in a modern way.

Where the Chefs shop

Giorgio Locatelli chose Ginger Pig, 8 - 10 Moxon Street, Marylebone as the best butcher in London, "great personal service and you can order more unusual cuts of meat for special occasions"

Barbeque tips

Summer is finally here, bringing with it perfect BBQ weather.
All our burgers are hand-made and our shops have come up with their own individual recipes, the following burgers can be found at the following shops.

Marylebone - Beef, marrow & parsley
Borough Market - Beef, marrow, lamb kosea
Hackney - Beef, salt, pepper, garlic & worcester sauce
Waterloo - Beef, bacon, brown sauce, spring onion, parsley & chives

The majority of our sausages will cook perfectly on a BBQ, feel free to ask your butcher when purchasing, they will be more than happy to advise. A couple we would recommend you try are our Hawksmoor Sausage, which is a pork, beef and lamb sausage and our limited edition Beef, Chilli sausage which we have just made especially for BBQ's.

Rump steak is perfect for BBQ's, however other steaks will cook fine.

Don't forget to marinade your meat, rump steak or ribs marinated in the following are delicious:

4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
100ml Soy sauce
8cm ginger peeled and diced
1 -2 red chillies chopped
Freshly groud black pepper

Blackface Hogget

This week our shops have the last of the North Country Blackface lambs which have been grazing on the moor for a year. These will have fantastic herby flavour and are ideal for slow cook or Middle Eastern recipes.

The Ginger Pigs answer to Stargazy Pie

We were asked to make a medieval looking pie. Les the baker came up with a fantastic recipe using a hot water crust pastry filled with coarsely chopped pork with a pigs trotter staring from the top of the pastry. As the pie cooks the rich jelly oozes straight into the soft pork. These are not the smallest pies but great for a family picnic or buffet table. We can make these to order.

Burgers for BBQs

With early summer upon us and the start of some warm weather all our shops are making beef burgers to their own recipes.

Borough market are using the thick first slice of rump steak coarsely minced with bone marrow.
Marylebone (Moxon street) are making a very simple american style burger using only minced steak with a little salt and pepper.
Waterloo - Tom our and trained chef and butcher at our Lower marsh shop inside Greensmiths makes his burgers to a different recipe every day.
Hackney - Daniel and Cosmin are blending minced steak with salt, pepper, a little garlic and worcester sauce.

None of the shops use artifical flavourings or colours and don't add rusk. All the burgers we sell are perfect for the BBQ

British Pie Awards

Ginger Pig don't often enter competitions but Les our head baker and his 'angels' are making such wonderful handmade pies that we thought it only right to shout about them. The British Pie awards are being judged today in Melton Mowbray.

We have entered our pork, pork ginger and rhubarb, steak and kidney, beef stilton & onion, pork leek and mustard, pork chicken & ham pies. For more information about the awards go to http://www.britishpieawards.co.uk/

ITV1 asked us for one of our more unusual pies the Pork, Ginger and Rhubarb pie for a tasting on the David Dickinson show. This pie came about because many of our customers over the years have asked us why we don't have ginger in our sausages and pies etc so we developed a pork pie with just a little bit of stem ginger chopped into the pork. We were just playing about with the pie at the time when the first of the forced rhubarb was becoming available. One of the areas well known for rhubarb is Yorkshire where our farm and bakery is based. Although rhubarb is thought of as a fruit it is in fact a vegetable which works really well with pork, so we didn't think it too strange to be putting a vegetable in the top of our pies. The first batch of these pies were tested on our staff who absolutely loved them so we started selling them in our shops and customers seem to be loving them too!
See how they got on - 1tv1 3pm today.

All our pies are available in our shops so be your own judge, win or lose Les we think you and your team are the best!

The BBC's Countryfile and John Craven visit Grange Farm

John Craven and the Countryfile team visited Grange Farm last week to film Gareth Barlow meeting his 'farming hero' our very own Tim Wilson!

Gareth, who doesn't come from a farming background, has started his chosen career with a few sheep and uses Tim as his role model.

Meet him on Countryfile, BBC 1 on Sunday 18 April.

The Orchard

We continue to restore the dry-stone walls around the farm at Levisham.


The latest work has been encircling the young orchard of gages, damsons and plums through which we will run some of our chickens.


Marcus Cordingley, a local bee-keeper, will also place some hives amongst the trees.

Thus this relatively small piece of ground will be sustaining three types of agriculture - fruit, eggs and honey.

Easter Opening Times

Borough Market
Friday 2nd 8.30am - 6pm
Saturday 3rd 8.30am - 4pm
Sunday 4th - Closed
Monday 5th - Closed

Marylebone
Friday 2nd 9am - 6.30pm
Saturday 3rd 9am - 6.30pm
Sunday 4th - Closed
Monday 5th - Closed

Hackney
Friday 2nd 9am - 6pm
Saturday 3rd 9am - 6pm
Sunday 4th Closed
Monday 5th Closed

Waterloo
Friday 2nd 10am - 4pm
Saturday 3rd 8am - 6pm
Sunday 4th Closed
Monday 5th Closed

Spring Lamb

Although Easter is early this year, we have a good supply of our own Dorset Lambs which were born at Grange Farm at the beginning of December.
This early season Lamb is pale and tender with a very delicate flavour. The legs and loins are great to serve slightly pink if that is how you like your lamb, but the shoulders will still need quite a long slow cook to be perfect.
For those customers who prefer their lamb with a deeper flavour we have our Blackface Sheep which have been grazing on the moor for nearly a year. These older Lambs known as Hogget's suit recipes where a lot of garlic or rosemary is used, these herbs can be too strong for the early Spring Lamb.
Poultry is also very traditional at Easter and although we sold all our Turkey's and Geese at Christmas, we shall have some large free range Chickens and plenty of Ducks.
If you would like to reserve lamb or poultry, or indeed beef please give any of our shops or Amy at the Farm a call.

Boozy Butcher's Banger - Special Edition Sausage

We have made a new Pork, Ale and Mustard Sausage in celebration of National Butchers Week. This is only available to buy this week and only available from our Borough Market outlet. It is made from Sam Smith's Ale and we have called it the Boozy Butchers Banger.

These are £10.50 per kilo.

Please let us know if you like it.

Mother's Day Pies

MOTHERS' DAY (Mothering Sunday) 14th MARCH

Make a change from flowers and chocolates - why not ask Les to create a special pie for your mother. To order your Mum a special pie, call us on 01751 460091.

Of course, you could give her a pie, flowers AND chocolates!

Pie's will be available to buy in all our shops leading up to Mothers' Day.

Hawksmoor Sausage

We are pleased that Hawksmoor are happy with their Victorian Breakfast Sausage which we created expecially for them, and have agreed to it being re-Christened the "Hawksmoor Sausage".
Try some for breakfast, either at home or in Hawksmoor's Restaurant.

http://www.thehawksmoor.com/

Victorian Sausage

We have made a new sausage especially for Hawksmoor's breakfast menu. This is an old Victorian recipe (hence the name) made with Pork, Lamb, Beef, Sage and Parsley.
This delicious chunky sausage is perfect for casseroles, toad in the hole and sausage and mash.

This sausage will be going on sale in our shops this week.

Introducing our new Shepherd

Name: Arthur Ramage

Age: 21, he claims he’s just had a hard paper round!!!

We would like to introduce our new Shepherd, Arthur who commenced work with us at Grange Farm on Monday 1st February. Arthur and his family have moved to North Yorkshire from North, Northumberland to work for us. He will be looking after our three flocks of 1,800 breeding ewe’s which produce 2,500 lambs, the Dorset flock which are used for early breeding and the North Country Blackface which produce our Mules. The flocks cover Levisham Moor, approximately 1800 acres and another 300 of the in by land, which is the land around Grange farm.
Arthur has brought with him his 5 dogs, Davey, Ben and Liz can be seen in the photograph below, Spot and Wallis were “unavailable” for the photo shoot .
Arthur is fitting in well at the farm. When I asked him what made him want to work for the Ginger Pig, he answered the fact we are passionate about animals, we do what is best for them. He says he is most looking forward to lambing season, it’s the busiest and most challenging but extremely rewarding.

Valentine's Day Pies

You don't have to get married to enjoy something special - why not have a Valentine's Day pie this weekend, Les can do wonderful things with pastry hearts.

Savoury Pie Wedding Cake

We are often asked for "special pies for special occasions", but Susi Chapman made us put on our very special thinking caps - a savoury pie Wedding Cake.

Our baker, Les, created a classic 3-tier Wedding Cake - the base pie contained free-range pork layered with chicken fillets and cranberry stuffing, the whole pie topped with cranberries. The jelly filling was made with champagne; the middle pie contained local venison and other wild game, free-range pork, all wrapped in dry-cured streaky bacon, again topped with cranberries and filled with a port jelly; the top pie contained free-range pork, blue stilton and apple, topped with an apple crust, filled with a cider jelly.

Susi (now Mrs Pitura) and her husband have very kindly allowed us to use some of the photos taken at their wedding.

Gloucester Old Spot Hams

I had a litter of Gloucester Old Spots last year who have spent all their lives in the Orchard at Park Farm, eating all the apples and pears that have fallen from the trees. They were destined for bacon, sausages and hams because I knew they would be carrying a good layer of fat. The legs are presently curing in a mixture of salt, brown sugar and salt peta, this is the traditional cure for a York ham. The hams will be taken out of the salt and hung to dry by the end of February and ready to eat by mid March. The hams are cured on the bone and will weigh approximately 25lbs. If anyone is looking for something really special in the ham line, these York cured hams from orchard fed Gloucester Old Spot Pigs (which will have a proper layer of fat) will be fantastic. They will be £85 each or £125 cooked and glazed and we only have 6.

Tomato Sausage

TOMATO SAUSAGE - I have just found a great recipe for a sausage I used to make when I farmed in Nottinghamshire (I think it was a local speciality as all the butchers in Worksop used to make them). The first batch will arrive in London on Thursday and be in our shops for the weekend. The Recipe is a little dry bread mixed with Napolina tinned tomatoes to soak up the tomato juice, pork shoulder and beef flank seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg which is coursley minced together with loads of sundried tomatoes, then filled into thick sausage skins. This goes really well with sausage, mash and buttered cabbage. If any of our old customers can remember a favourite sausage we used to make send us an email and we will do our best to find the recipe - Tim Wilson

Burns Night - Haggis

BURNS NIGHT - 25TH JANUARY 2010

Back at the farm we have made some traditional Scottish Haggis using legs of mutton, liver, hearts, toasted oatmeal, onions and spices. This year we have gone away from stuffing them into sheeps stomachs as many customers found the flavour too strong and have used a synthetic alternative, however the casing is only for cooking not something you ever eat. We have poached the Haggis at the farm and they are properly cooked through, they just need reheating by placing them into boiling water and simmering for approximately 25 minutes. Serve with mashed potatoes and swede. Now on sale in all our Shops.