Friday Fungus: A truffle growler? Now that's a thing of wonderment, for sure!

The combination of pork pie and mushrooms is, for me, a better than suitable replacement for the food of the gods. So when in one’s meanderings the tale of Britain’s – nay, the World’s Poshest Pork Pie – appears, the heart beats a little faster and the soul does a little skip of joy!

I wasn’t really sure whether to bite the excellent man’s hand off or just fall on him in gratitude. Dear Reader, I behaved and just said please and thank you interminably. The said man is Mister Truffle on Twitter and he’s setting up a new business, born of his passion for truffles, offering mail-order fresh truffles by the gram so people can order tiny amounts and feel more comfortable about using such a luxurious ingredient at home. Possibly in more “British” foods than you’d normally associate with a truffle. Hence a humble pork pie maker striking very lucky.

His challenge to me was to make a pork pie with truffle.

“I’m just sending you a sample – 10g” he said. After the merriment of picking up a parcel from the Post Office addressed like this, I discovered that 10g of truffle is a very decent, if not generous, sized little lump. How very lucky!

Sarah goes on to describe the making of this fine pie – complete with quails’ eggs – and its auctioning for local hospices. Sadly, this mushroom fan arrived too late to play – and would love to know who ate all the pies!

However, while Norfolk’s a long way off (and I wouldn’t want to be too disloyal to Cullingworth’s growler* king, Paul Ellison), the ordering of truffles on-line is a great discovery. To buy your truffles from Mr Truffle just click here, put in how much and bingo they’ll arrive, Mr Benn-like “as if by magic”! And while you’re buying discover more about nature’s most wonderful thing – the truffle.

The term "truffle" as commonly used refers to members of the genera Tuber and Terfezia. There are many other kinds of subterranean fungi, "false truffles," which outwardly resemble the ones we eat. They are far more common than the ones that are collected for food, and some are poisonous.

Truffles are round, warty, and irregular in shape and vary from the size of a walnut to that of a man's fist. The season for most truffles falls between September and May.

And if you’re in Norfolk don’t leave without trying one of Sarah’s pies – they are my sources say a passing fair pie indeed!

*According to the concise gentlemen of Oxford, a growler is a small iceberg or a four-wheeled cab. They do not know what they have missed. Anyone from these parts devoid of vegetarian tendencies would tell those who write our dictionaries that a real growler is a thing of beauty, rare personality and infinite variety. It is a pork pie

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Ginger Piggy

There I was, stood in Cullingworth’s Co-op searching for some chicken fillets. And staring me in the face was a pile of filleted pork legs – at half price.  Missing this chance seemed foolish and a purchased 5lbs of pig meat for £6.50 – a bargain!

But how to cook it? Normally, I’d just roast the meat and be done with it – after all it’s hard to top a good roast dinner. However, a thought (and a memory) struck me on seeing a large, mostly full bottle of ginger beer. White trash ham!

Or rather a variation on white trash ham with ginger beer instead of coca-cola. And in this case with raw rather than cured pork (simply because that was what I had to hand). Essentially the approach is as in the ham recipe except with ginger beer replacing coca-cola and leg of pork replacing gammon:

“...put the gammon in a pan, skin side down if it fits like that, add the onion then pour over the Coke. Bring to the boil, reduce to a good simmer, put the lid on, though not tightly, and cook for just under 2 1/2 hours. If your joint is larger or smaller work out timing by reckoning on an hour a kilo altogether, remembering that it's going to get a quick blast in the oven later. But do take into account that if the gammon's been in the fridge right up to the moment you cook it, you will have to give a good 15 or so minutes' extra so that the interior is properly cooked. Meanwhile preheat oven to 240C/gas mark 9.”

For my ginger piggy I made gravy by reducing half the ginger beer I’d cooked the pork in – with some shallots, celery and fresh root ginger added (plus cumin, coriander, salt and pepper). Or you could make a glaze and roast the pork (having removed the skin) similarly to that described for the white trash recipe. With the other half of the ginger beer I braised the pork for about 45 minutes to give it a roast dinner feel.

I served this with roasted roots (parsnips, potatoes and sweet potatoes) although I’m pretty sure if would be great with pease pudding. If you insist, you can have some green things with the dish – we had leeks but a nice strong savoy cabbage would go well too.

All pretty tasty!

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