tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58781332662251149082024-03-13T02:13:00.821+00:00The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-33964238401758216362013-09-17T16:47:00.000+01:002013-09-18T06:58:09.481+01:00Rungis market - twelve hours in ParisIt's 4pm and we've been up since 1am this morning, at which time we were clambering into the Ginger Pig van, somewhere in the industrial outskirts of Paris. Getting up for the Rungis run is an exciting and magical thing to do, which is saying something considering we've been at it for over 18 months now (and 1am is an antisocial time to get up for anything - writing this with matchsticks holding The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-24751980891972480462013-09-13T12:13:00.002+01:002013-09-13T12:13:29.423+01:00Prize winnersHave you ever seen a happier man? Here's Tim and Hayley with Longhorn heifers Raincliffe Jones and Raincliffe Jubilee Queen, at the Westmorland Show in Cumbria yesterday. Jones, led by Tim, won best junior heifer, while Jubilee Queen and Hayley came second in the class.
The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-73920432453040316502013-09-03T16:37:00.001+01:002013-09-03T16:37:20.629+01:00Farm diary: AugustThe month of August started on a high, with our win with Longhorn cattle at the Ryedale Show: Breed Champion and Reserve Champion, with Primula and Maisy respectively. It would appear our first ever show, The Great Yorkshire, only a few weeks previous, was not in vain! Another wonderful thing to come out of the Great Yorkshire Show was Lohengrin, the Longhorn bull we bought from brilliant The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-13261162658633377182013-08-28T17:09:00.002+01:002013-08-28T17:12:23.310+01:00A Michaelmas Feast, 29th September
Steeped in tradition, enveloped in folklore…and a bloody
good opportunity to eat goose. We’re teaming up with Stepney City Farm (SCF) to
bring a piece of rural heritage to a slightly more urban setting, with
Stepney-grown geese, fruits and vegetables, local breads, beers and cheese.
Jassy Davis – SCF Café Manager – and our Creative Food Director, Nicola, have together drawn upon the
recipes The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-8766250715466503242013-07-17T11:18:00.000+01:002013-07-17T11:30:50.771+01:00New kids on the blockWe're cheating a bit with today's blog post, as although we saw lots of goats at the Great Yorkshire Show, what we really want to talk about is Cabrito kid goat meat, new in the shops today.
Cabrito - Spanish for meat of a young goat - was established by chef James Whetlor and farmer Jack Jennings, to make good use of male goats from the dairy industry which are usually slaughtered at The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-4352243768457450032013-07-16T09:24:00.000+01:002013-07-16T09:24:12.167+01:00The Great Yorkshire Show: at the cow wash
Farming is inherently expensive business, requiring huge investment in livestock, costly machinery, veterinary care and feed, not to mention putting a great deal of faith into the weather (a bad year can put a farm out of business). This translates to livestock showing too, and as first-timers we had quite the bill on our hands! Showing isn't simply about turfing your best animals out of the The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-62552418460299689952013-07-15T11:22:00.000+01:002013-07-15T11:52:16.106+01:00The Great Yorkshire ShowAgricultural shows are to farming and rural communities what music festivals are to, well, everybody else. On the surface they're an opportunity to get together with old friends and make new, see animals in their prime in the show ring, and - of course - enjoy the odd drink or three. For those who aren't necessarily involved directly in farming, agricultural shows provide a snapshot of rural lifeThe Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-38697987027479938502013-06-06T13:20:00.001+01:002013-06-06T13:25:56.990+01:00There's no better sight than a field full of cattleAfter a miserable winter and one of the diciest lambing seasons we've known, a late spring is finally here and the farm is teaming with life - hurrah!
We took a drive over to Duncombe Park where we keep a herd of 16 young Longhorn heifers; 11 daughters of our prize bull Dynamo and five recent new editions, from herds in Settrington and Derbyshire. Having never been sprayed with pesticides or The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-19548703840731897232013-05-30T15:44:00.000+01:002013-05-30T15:46:36.077+01:00Blackface muttonA speedy post about the 16 legs of Blackface mutton arriving in the shops tomorrow, Friday 31st May. From three to five year old Blackface cull ewes, the meat is quite lean but incredibly tasty - with all that time grazing out on the North Yorks Moors, these legs are very robust and flavoursome, almost herbal due to a diet rich in heather and gorse. A long, slow braise or pot roastThe Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-19200580887466896172013-05-20T12:18:00.001+01:002013-05-20T12:20:07.374+01:00Farmhouse Cook Book - a party!
On Thursday we took a day out of the serious world of farming and butchery to throw a party to celebrate our new book. And celebrate we did, with pies, platters of ham, chutneys galore and a river of top notch booze. If you fancy starting a curing project, getting knee deep in homemade chutney or expanding your roast repertoire, you can pop into our shops and pick up a copy for £16.25 (RRP The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-67302120974929680612013-05-07T08:46:00.000+01:002013-05-07T08:47:06.108+01:00Ginger Pig Farmhouse Cook Book - out today!Say hello to our new book!
Where our 2011 Meat Book focused on just that - how we farm and recipes to make the most of meat, set within a year on Grange Farm - the Farmhouse Cook Book is a broader look at everything we do, brought together beautifully with a new collection of Fran Warde's wonderful recipes.
Because we're not just a company of farmers and butchers - what we do is wider than The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-26061553650275021902013-04-26T09:45:00.001+01:002013-04-26T09:45:23.945+01:00A fond farewell
Today marks the end of an era at the Ginger Pig, as we say a very fond and slightly teary farewell to office manager David, leaving us today after more than five years of service. It's hard to put our sentiments into words without underselling him or sounding cheesy, so we'll just say that David has been a very large part of the quiet glue that sticks everything in place here. He'll be sorely The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-39272352012055698452013-04-23T18:30:00.000+01:002013-04-23T19:05:17.188+01:00Shopping spreeSaturday April the 20th was the 2013 Spring and Summer Longhorn Cattle Society show and sale, and we had our sights set on two prize heifers - young females, intended for breeding. But before we get to the show we'll go back to the beginning; spring 2012, when our prize bull, Dynamo, sired the most fantastic bull calf we have ever seen.
Dynamo
Dynamo is quite the legend on the farm, and at The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-39414178039094097992013-03-25T10:34:00.001+00:002013-03-25T10:36:53.876+00:00New season Dorset lambWhile lamb and Easter have become as inseparable as fish and chips, spring lamb - a surprisingly delicate meat - is easily (and often) abused with powerful, overwhelming flavours. It's also, with such an early Easter this year, going to be in relatively limited supply; here's how you go about reserving some and how to make the most it.
The only breed that will produce lamb naturally in The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-28474696096157101092013-03-15T10:54:00.002+00:002013-03-15T10:54:48.031+00:00Spring chickens
Our Askew Road butcher Tom has been driving to Paris every week for over a year, to deliver beef to a butcher and restaurant and bring back French poultry and Limousin veal. While there are certainly some great British birds to be proud of - and we sell a couple of very fine examples - there's a lot of specialism and variety to be had from French poultry, and we're proud to be one of the The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-22243837556551493122013-02-11T14:53:00.000+00:002013-02-11T14:53:38.512+00:00A little note about food chain securityThere's a good chance that if you're reading this post, you're unlikely to have come directly into contact with the beef products recently revealed to contain horse meat or pork. While it's not my place to comment on the economic and social factors wrapped up in the growing horse meat scandal, I felt I wanted to write a little bit about our produce and how it is reared, sourced and produced.
The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-30697200286732190302013-01-15T12:19:00.000+00:002013-01-15T12:21:08.867+00:00Chilly weather eating
The view from Grange Farm, our head office in Levisham
Beautiful? Stunning! But very, very cold. Join us in eating for heating, and let salad leaves wait until the weather warms up a bit; here are a couple of our current favourite winter warmers.
Pudding. Not the type with custard - though we're very partial to those too - but a big, savoury pudding filled with something meaty and slow-cookedThe Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-23174562375861747312012-11-30T11:51:00.000+00:002012-11-30T13:03:13.304+00:00Love me tenderWe're pork galore this week (even more than usual) as we start to cure our Christmas bacon, and a happy result of this is that we have quite a lot of pork tenderloin - the porcine equivalent of fillet of beef. In the shops from tomorrow (Saturday), and we're feeling rather generous; it'll be £12.50 a kilo instead of £16.50, so fill yer boots and get cooking.
Although it's a fairly The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-67617082510516961692012-11-17T12:17:00.001+00:002012-11-17T12:17:50.201+00:00Turkey day
Whether your favourite turkey day is Thanksgiving or Christmas, buy the best bird you can afford and don’t stuff it up. Here are our tips for making the most of your festive bird.
The turkey
Ours are a traditional Bronze bird reared by Gerald and Richard Botterill. The birds are fed a natural diet of homegrown cereal and vegetable protein, and are left to free range on the Belvoir EstateThe Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-47017346823276428332012-10-05T11:17:00.001+01:002012-10-07T20:39:58.882+01:00French onion soupIt’s getting chilly and so to soups, stews and pot roasts we
return. Every week one of our Askew Road butchers, Tom, drives to Rungis market
just outside of Paris to select French poultry and Limousin veal for our shops.
A trained chef, his head is often turned by outstanding fresh produce too,
and this week he returned with nets of new season Roscoff onions.; slightly pink
and beautifully sweet,The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-10975472766768128222012-09-04T12:41:00.003+01:002012-09-04T12:41:41.183+01:00The Ginger Pig Sausage FestivalOur Waterloo butcher Martin is going to be sizzling some of our super snags this week, outside our shop in Greensmiths, Lower Marsh.
Martin has been keen to try a sausage sarnie street food stall for yonks, so when he heard about the Waterloo Quarter Food Festival - running for the whole of September - he leapt at the chance to get involved. Pop down and see him on Wednesday 5th and Friday The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-64624661222050056012012-08-29T11:16:00.002+01:002012-08-29T11:18:06.020+01:00The hunt for perfect cassoulet: the Fête at night<!--StartFragment-->
We spent the final days of our cassoulet trip roaming around the
region and ducking in and out of the Fête, and soon realising that the Fete du
Cassoulet is about much more than one single dish. The quiet and sleepy town
of Castelnaudary is filled with bands, bars, markets
and thousands of revellers, who pile into huge tents to eat steaming pots of
cassoulet; like The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-1598907725437709912012-08-24T10:28:00.000+01:002012-08-24T10:32:33.688+01:00The hunt for perfect cassoulet; Fète begins!Day two begins with picking over the cassoulet recipe, and Ursula brings to the table a huge terracotta-coloured plant pot cassole, the vessel from which the dish gets its name. The wide, fluted top gives a large surface area for that all-important crust, while the depth allows for plenty of stew and bits of confit duck and sausage.
The recipe isn't a quick one, and as Ursula talksThe Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-45128034883068948192012-08-23T10:19:00.000+01:002012-08-23T10:19:19.761+01:00The hunt for perfect cassoulet; a truly local dishThis week we're in Castelnaudry, just east of Toulouse, for the annual Fête du Cassoulet. Quite why this celebration of stew is in August - when temperatures can tip 40C - is a little baffling, but we've put on our sunhats to embark on a mission to find the best Cassoulet around.
Two very good friends of the Ginger Pig moved to the area nine years ago, and have spent their time The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5878133266225114908.post-89462440939208560352012-08-09T17:22:00.003+01:002012-08-09T17:22:47.901+01:00Two ways with rump
Last week we sold cows and cows'-worth of our 55-day dry-aged rare-breed rump, but we kept a few back to see what an extra week in the hanging room could do. Phenomenally tender and oh-so tasty is what we got, and it's all in the shops from today. With regards to dry-ageing, we've got something *really* *very* exciting planned for autumn. It's a top secret for now, so you'll have to watch The Ginger Pig 'Hog Blog'http://www.blogger.com/profile/13339501311322290769noreply@blogger.com1