Christmas is coming!

November 24th

Christmas, Q Guild, Tastes of Lincolnshire, The ShopNo tags

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, or that’s what we hope anyway!

It always amazes me how quickly this time of year comes round, and preparations have to be started for the big day. The Christmas poultry is all ordered ready, the beef is hanging and the bacon and hams are curing, so I’m feeling quite organised this year, but despite our preparations I still have the feeling that I have forgotten something!

Christmas for us is a very busy time of year and it is very nerve racking making sure everything is prepared and ready. Three weeks ago I went out to John Laughton’s farm at North Cockerington to look at the cattle he had been rearing for us ready for Christmas, and some fine beasts they were to! Along with some prime Longhorns from Dads that’s the beef all sorted!

So then it was onto the pork, and with some lovely Gloucester Old Spots from Kieth Wright near Woodhall Spa things are looking good. The pork from rare breed pigs really do make the most fabulous sausages.

With that all sorted all I have to do is check how the turkeys are doing, and get the bacon curing underway.

We try to get all the bacon into cure as soon as we can as with dry curing the sooner we get it underway the better it will be. Once the pork has been trimmed it’s ready to be rubbed with the curing salt which has been infusing with juniper berries. Then it is left to cure in large tubs for 10 to 12 days before we hang it up to dry until we need it. In much the same way the gammons are put into cure, the only difference is instead of a dry cure they go into a brine cure, there they will stay for 3 weeks before hanging up to mature.

So with the beef all hanging the bacon curing, and a quick phone call today to see how the turkeys at  Copas  are doing everything seems to be in order! All that remains is for the orders to flowing in and, oh I need to get my tree up!