Rare breed (Tamworth) ,slow Baked Ham.
We are so used to buying sliced pre packed ham in the super market it is quite an eye opener when you see a kitchen cook a whole rare breed ham with love and care. We buy our hams from a small organic farm 3 miles from us and its called Peelham farm at Foulden and it is run by the Walton family . You can actually order it and other products your self on line. This glorious ham arrived last night and we boiled it today for several hours then slowly baked it in a moderate oven after first covering it with a home-made maple syrup and orange glaze (we had studded the ham with cloves before hand.) We will be serving it in all our sandwiches and salads tomorrow.
Sustainabilty and Traceabilty is one of the themes that is close to my heart , I'm not an expert but it the right way forward for an award winning kitchen to know where their food is from and to cut down on the food miles where ever possible . Being proud of knowing where your meat and cheese, fish etc comes from is easy when you visit the fisherman yourself or go to see the farmer who rears the pigs or beef cattle. It is easy because you understand the product so much more and respect it and have that sense of gratitude of using such a wonderful product. After all, we are what we eat so its good to understand what we are putting into our bodies. You want to know who is handling your food and you want to know its being handled with alot of care and alot of thought and yes love.
We started using Peelham farm because our whole sale meat supplier couldn't tell us where the pork was from except that it is British and I just know that is not what I or our customers want.
As for sustainability ,we are using only fish that is not in danger of extinction.I'v got great admiration for Roy Brett chef /proprietor of Ondine in Edinburgh for leading the way forward there . I really take my hat off to him.
Well I am not actually going to have a Ham salad for my dinner tonight its too cold. lol I'm having spicy pork Goulash with chorizo and sweet potato but that's another story
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