Whether you’re interested in raising your own pigs (as we do at Vale House), or just a keen cook looking to acquire new skills and learn more about how your meat comes to the table, this fascinating Pig Butchery Course covers everything from pig husbandry to smoking, curing, sausage making and more.
Skills
• Confidence in butchering a whole pig
• Identifying different cuts of pork
• Curing and smoking
• Making sausages, bacon and salami
• Knife and Cleaver skills
• Pig Husbandry
• Health and hygiene awareness
The day starts with a brief introduction to pig husbandry, with some great tips for getting started and the chance to meet our lovely Oxford Sandy and Blacks in the Vale House Kitchen orchard. We’ll then move onto the butchery side of things and tackle the task of breaking down the pig into primary cuts, before moving on to roasting joints and chops. This is not only a fascinating process but a great opportunity to improve your knife skills too.
After a fabulous lunch we use the second half of the day focussing on some of the delicious things you can make with pork. We’ll make our own sausages and salami, run through curing techniques for bacon, coppa, hams and air-dried ham, and demonstrate smoking techniques too. At the end of the day you’ll head home with a variety of porky products that you have made along with a course booklet full of recipes and useful tips.
Steve Lamb
Steven lamb is a curing & smoking expert, teacher, presenter, culinary consultant and award-winning author. After a background in media, Steven’s food career began nearly 20 years ago when he joined Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage team, regularly appearing in the tv series and being instrumental in establishing the internationally acclaimed cookery school on the devon / dorset border. Beyond River Cottage, Steven’s extensive food knowledge and talent for live hosting has put him at the centre of many of the…