October Boxes & Mature Mangalitza Pigs
Good Day To You All
October looks set to be a real banger. In food circles, Autumn is often spoken about with particular reverence and excitement, and it has proven to be so in the butchery here and on the farm. As late Summer crops and autumn fruits collide, the pickling, jamming and preserving goes into overtime. Livestock too are often at their best at this time of the year, and whilst the drought was certainly cause for concern in mid August, the grass never really let up on our wet valley farm here, and the animals have had the pick of the forage since they came off their winter hay back in early March.
We have a rare surplus of mature Mangalitza pigs at the farm. Our curing room is absolutely full once again, and we have a group of 20 absolutely stunning mature pigs that have been roaming the valley all year. They are in fantastic shape, and we are offering up the loins to be enjoyed at home as well as in the restaurant here, alongside some of their better grilling cuts. A rare thing indeed.
Its takes up to 2 years for a Mangalitza pig to fully mature, and an incredible amount of work goes into giving these pigs the life they lead. Our pigs are fed on a diet of organic barley and peas to supplement their daily forage across their various pastures and woodlands.
We will be dry aging the loins for 2 weeks or so before cutting for dispatch.
We will be trimming the loins for home use, removing some of the excess fat from the back of the loin in order to make the sausage farce for this month's raised pork pies.
We have also recently processed two more of our Dexter steers and they are currently dry aging in our butchery. They are truly glorious with rich golden fat from a long life on good forage. We let them go right through to 4 years old and they have benefitted greatly from it. These two bullocks are 100% grass fed, and have never seen a shed in their lives. I have long been fascinated by the nutritional value of the meat we raise and how the forage, genetics and life of an animal affects its relative nutritional value and density. We have done extensive nutritional lab testing for all our ham and sausage products, which have shown amazing results in terms of high monounsaturated fatty acid levels; Omega 3 & 6, and Linoleic Acids that back up the magic of the Mangalitza breed and its unique properties when grown in a slow and natural manner. We are now sending off lab samples for tests on our beef and look forward to seeing what results come back in due course.
October Boxes & Produce now available online
October Box
Dry Aged 2 year old Bone-in Mangalitza Chops x2 (approx 400g each)
Whole Hubbard Chicken (approx 2kg)
Mangalitza Pork Pie
Mangalitza Streaky Bacon
Rosemary & Garlic Leaf Lard (for roasties and general cooking)
Sourdough Bread
Butter
Piecemeal
4 year old Dexter Beef
30 Day Aged Sirloins
30 Day Aged Ribs
30 Day Aged Chateaubriand
Shins
Featherblade
2 Year Old Mangalitza
Denver Steak
Skirt Steak
Whole Fillet
Hubbard Chickens
Hens
Drumsticks
Return of the Pork Pie
Medium
Large
Plus an abundance of duck, pork & beef related provisions - pate, rillette, bacons, hams, sausages etc . And pickles and preserves - courgette piccalilli is back in a big way.
Very Best
Tom