When I first moved to Saudi Arabia I tried to be a vegetarian for a little while, I even toyed with veganism before finally settling for being a pescatarian.  It was a choice based on my inability to purchase free-range, non halal slaughtered meat as well as a growing discomfort with actually eating the flesh of a sentient being.

So I had quite a few months to reflect on my choice and realised that I enjoy eating meat, I love the texture and the taste and could not find anything in the pescatarian world that matched it.  I dreamt about beef carpaccio and rare steak and mash.  I grew up on a small farm and I have seen animals birthed and grow and be slaughtered to feed the family for the next few months, the cycle wasn’t new to me and I slowly reconciled myself to eating meat again.  With the proviso that it had to be free-range, preferably grass fed, stunned before slaughter and I would try to buy more secondary and offal cuts then premium cuts.

Moving back to Australia with the knowledge that I was going to eat meat I was so excited.  I researched recipes and bored Will to death with promises of what he would soon have to eat, homemade bacon, ham, sausages, salami…… and the ultimate prosciutto!!! I have even volunteered to make the family Christmas ham!!  Will didn’t really have an issue with eating all these products from the local deli and couldn’t understand why I was getting so excited but I reassured him mine would be amazing with the added bonus of no nitrates.

I bought buckets to brine the ham in, plastic tubs for the bacon and a sausage stuffing machine for my sausages.  Big bags of salt and sugar appeared around the place all in readiness for Tuesday.  Tuesday is the day that the local butcher gets a delivery of free range, grass fed pork and he had promised to save me all the bits I needed.  Then I suddenly decided that I needed a new fridge to fit all my bacon and ham into while it was brining, so we bought a new fridge….. Will got excited and bought a really big one……. so big that it didn’t fit through the door and we had to do some housing modifications but that is another story.

So after spending huge amounts of money on setup I went to the butcher.  My very wise butcher, who is extremely tolerant of me asking odd questions, asked me did I really want a whole leg of ham to turn into ham or did I want to just start with a little ham, then he pulled out a pork leg that weighed about 15kgs….. I had to agree that it was probably a sensible decision to take just a bit not the whole thing.  So I drove home with about 20 kgs of meat and a day in the kitchen in front of me.

I got started on the ham and bacon first, making a 50%salt / 50%sugar mix and adding bay leaves, peppercorns and fennel seeds.  Then I split the mix in half, dissolved half in boiling water to make the brine for the ham and adding Ras el Hanout spice mix to the rest to give the bacon rub a little extra flavour.

The bacon was fairly easy, put a layer of rub in the bottom of a plastic container then lay the bacon on top and cover in the remaining spice mix and into the fridge.  The ham was pretty much the same except it was lowered into the brine mixture and again into the fridge.

I was doing pretty well, it was after midday so I cracked a bottle of bubbles and started on the sausages…… this is were it started to get messy.  We eat a sausage each for a meal, I think I had bought about 3kgs of meat…… fortunately my very wise butcher had once more stepped in and offered to mince it for me.  3 hours later and I had approx. 40 sausages or about 2 years worth.  I had finished the bottle of bubbles, the kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off and I was knackered.  It is harder then it looks to stuff sausage skins.

Five days later it was bacon day and we had eaten a lot of sausages, Will still not convinced that mine were better then the deli’s…….. there is no accounting for taste sometimes.  Anyway the bacon came out of the salt / sugar and herb mix and was perfect, firm, pink and smelling clean and porky.  I carefully sliced thin pieces and put them in the pan, slight sizzle and curl at the edges.  OMG it was amazing, I loved it, it was perfect.  I felt like a domestic goddess, who knew that it was so easy to make bacon!!!

Another five days on and I was away from the house for work and suddenly remembered my ham, still sitting in the brine in the fridge.  I thought I had better check my recipe and see how long it was meant to sit quietly doing its thing……….. 3 days.  Whoops, I’ve never been very good at reading recipes.  Urgent call to Will to get the ham out of the brine and soak it in cooled boiled water till I got home the next day.  This request resulted in some weird txt messages asking why was I pickling a brain there was no way he was eating that.  I wasn’t quite sure what this comment was about so ignored it…….. until the next day when I got home to see my ham / brain in the fridge.  It really did look like a big grey brain, it smelt ok though.  So I cut a little bit off and ate it………..it tasted OK but the texture was all wrong.  I consulted the recipe and realised that I had to boil it before it was ham!!  Whoops, nothing like eating raw brined meat…..

After boiling until the core temperature reached 75 degrees we let it cool, it looked slightly less like a brain and more like a boiled piece of grey mutton.  I tasted, it was good.  Probably a little bit to sweet might have to reduce the sugar/salt ratio but it was yummy………I have a lot to eat though, Will is still scared from having to fish the brain out of the brine….. maybe next time I will start him slowly and use nitrates so at least the brain is pink not grey!!!!

I have also ordered my nitrates and salami skins to take to Antarctica, I’ve got 10 long months and 13 men to try my recipes on…… I figure I should have it sorted by the time I get back