Today I bought some mixed beef and pork mince (no horse that I know of) to make some burgers.  As I couldn't find a recipe so made one up:

Beef and Pork Burgers

• 1 lb (500g) mince
• 1 small onion, chopped finely
• 1 egg
• 2 slices of bread, made into breadcrumbs
• seasoning - today I used thyme and a little garlic, salt, pepper mix.

Mix all this together and make into eight burghers, then cook on griddle.  Any unused will happily freeze.
(Note: They fell to pieces a bit on the griddle, so may use two eggs next time)

Elizabethan Pork


4lb pork, cubed, cooked with 8 tbsp oil
1 lb onions (sliced), 6 garlic cloves
2½ oz flour, 1.5 pts red wine
½ - 1 pint cold water (add at end to cool down before putting in fridge)
2 level tsp mace
2 level tsp medium hot curry powder
½ level tsp cayenne
2 level tsp celery seeds
2 sprigs - marjoram, thyme, sage, rosemary - or more
8 oz stoned ready to eat apricots
8 oz large stoned raisins
8oz large stoned semi dried dates
Finely grated rind and juice 2 lemons
4 small dessert apples, thickly sliced, put into juice of 2 oranges
4 level tsp soft light brown sugar
To garnish: 4 oz walnut halves

1. Brown pork in oil in frying pan, in batches, then in same pan
2. brown onions, add flour, wine, then garlic, mace, curry powder, cayenne pepper, celery seeds, s&p. Add herbs, together with apricots, raisins, dates, lemon rind and juice and orange (juice only).
3. Put pork and sauce into casserole and cook 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
4. Serve garnished with marjoram sprigs, walnut halves and orange strips.
5. Serves 13

Also see: http://www.elizabethan.org/compendium/46.html

PEANUT BUTTER

Ten ideas

1. Enrich smooth pumpkin soup with a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter.
2. To make a nutty spread for children's sandwiches, melt some good plant chocolate, combine with crunchy peanut butter, then cool until thickened.
3. Toasted bread, spread with peanut butter and topped with crispy bacon and rocket leaves makes a terrific brunch-time snack.
4. Swirl softened peanut butter into a tub of vanilla ice-cream and serve with hot chocolate sauce.
5. Crunch peanut butter mixed with chopped coriander, hot chilli sauce, crushed garlic and grated ginger makes an interesting Asian dip.
6. For a quick Thai vegetable curry, dilute the above dip with coconut milk, heat, then add chunks of sweet potato, sliced spring onions and courgettes, and gently stew.  Scatter with bean sprouts and coriander leaves before serving.
7. Plain chocolate, melted and mixed with peanut butter and a slug of branch makes a fudge-like icing for a chocolate cake.
8. Stir rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, some chopped garlic and chilli, along with some hot water, if necessary, into peanut butter, heat and drizzle over hot noodles.  Garnish with toasted sesame seeds.
9. Fry chopped onion, garlic, cumin and mustard seeds and mix into mashed potato with some crunchy peanut butter.  Shape into patties, fry until golden, and serve with yoghurt mixed with garam masala.
10. Combine softened cream cheese and peanut butter to make  rich filling for shortbread biscuits.

African Chicken, see link

And ... Peanut butter goes with:

• crispy bacon
• chocolate
• hot toast
• cucumber
• pork
• chicken
• coconut milk
• beef
• scallops
• Asian greens
• prawns

Also see ...

http://homecooking.about.com/library/archive/blpbutter.htm and

http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/healthy-recipes/10-healthy-peanut-butter-recipes

Peanut Butter Buttons, see link

Links for recipes:http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/african_chicken_peanut_stew/

http://www.dairygoodness.ca/recipes/puffy-peanut-butter-buttons

http://www.bakeorbreak.com/2007/10/peanut-butter-tart/

Peanut Butter Tart, see link

Elizabethan Pork
Presumably only for rich Elizabethan as the peasant probably survived on leaves and twigs!  It's interesting to realise that food at that time was so interesting, there was an increase in the range of foods, available, the exotic and mysterious East and from the New World. Decoration was incredibly important at that time, especially for feasts and banquets.  Most foods were cooked over an open flame, although the rich had other methods of cooking, such as spit roasting.  Communal ovens for the less well off increased the range of dishes.  Other Elizabethan recipes will be found at: http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/old-elizabethan-recipes.htm


Serves 8



2 lb pork, cubed
4 tbsp oil
1/2lb onions (sliced)
3 garlic cloves
1.5 oz flour 
15 fl ozs red wine
1 level tsp mace
1 level tsp medium hot curry powder
1/4  level tsp cayenne
1 level tsp celery seeds
1 sprigs - marjoram, thyme, sage, rosemary - or more
4 oz stoned ready to eat apricots
4 oz large stoned raisins
4 oz large stoned semi dried dates
Finely grated rind and juice 1 lemon
2 small dessert apples, thickly sliced, put into juice of 2 oranges
2 level tsp soft light brown sugar
To garnish: 4 oz walnut halves, orange strips

Method:

1. Brown pork in oil in frying pan, in batches
2. In same pan, brown onions 
3. Add flour, wine, then garlic, mace, curry powder, cayenne pepper, celery seeds, s&p. 
4. Add herbs, together with apricots, raisins, dates, lemon rind and juice and orange (juice only)
5. Put pork and sauce into casserole and cook 2 hours, stirring occasionally
6. Add water to make to correct consistency (cold if you wish to put in the fridge)
7. Serve garnished with marjoram sprigs, walnut halves and orange strips

Crackling

4.00pm: For years I've rubbed oil and salt into pork fat, hoping to get good crackling and have very rarely succeeded.  So, I've just been having a good look on the internet and found these ideas:


Firstly choose a piece of pork with a thick layer of fat beneath the rind.

Score with stanley knife, scalpel or similar as ordinary knives don't tend to score deeply enough, but make sure the scoring doesn't extend down to the lean meat.  Otherwise, when cooking, the juices will bubble up, making the rind moist.  


Dry the rind with kitchen towel or similar, then massage salt into the rind. Repeat this for maximum 'dryness'.

The secret seems to be to have the rind as dry as possible so the fat can bubble up and constantly baste the rind.

Some people even suggest drying with blow torch or similar. Whilst others suggest pouring boiling water over on the day before (like with crispy duck) as this tightens the skin.  Then leave it hung up to dry.


Advice given by others says liberally apply olive oil or even molten goose fat.


I was instructed by good cooks in the family to put meat in the oven on as high a temperature as possible as the initial blast of heat for about 15 minutes is vital. Then to turn it down to about 180C.  It was much easier in 'the old days' when we had a Aga as it was the hot 'top oven' followed by cooler 'bottom oven'.


Apparently there's no need to baste as there's enough fat to keep it moist.


If, at the end of all that performance it still isn't crisp, someone suggests that the crackling is put under the grill - or in the microwave.


Well, I'm off to try this and will report back later .....


10pm: I dried the rind, twice. Then massaged in the salt, dried and massaged in again.  
Underneath the joint I put some rosemary and pieces of garlic and on top lots of pepper and the crackling was much better than usual but rather hard.  (Still not as good as my mother's)
The best bits of crackling were the ones where there was a thicker layer of fat underneath.  Perhaps next time I'll go to the butcher instead of the supermarket and ask for a piece of pork with more fat underneath the rind - and try again.
... and after all that investigation - we're not having pork for Christmas dinner!  Now I'll need to bone up (ha ha) on how to cook turkey ...