Jonty

If you're ever in Yorkshire give me a shout.... its a crying shame the leap from game dealer venison prices to shop shelf retail prices for venison. @clangerman that stew looks lovely - I've never hat muntjac, but I understand that it's a very tasty meat.

An ironic offshoot of this emissions additive thing is that the Arla dairy in my local town of Settle has been producing a foul smell across the town for the last year. On a bad day the town really does stink. Arla claim to be trying to resolve the issue, but as yet to no avail. It would be great if they could sort out their own factory emissions before taking on the cows.

It’s the Kashmir 👍 me and the kids ate there a couple of weeks ago. The menu is a little more extensive now than when I started eating there 25 years back but it’s still no frills - just fantastic food.

Thanks wisdom 👍. The leaves were a breeze… I bought a plasma cutter from the midline of Lidl a while back. I gave it its inaugural run the other day to make the leaves….and completely cocked the settings/config up 😂 I ended up getting my grinder out, they were pretty easy to cut out the elipse shapes and then I used the cutting disk just to score the veins in - I reckon once it’s properly rusted up,it should look really good.

Latest endeavour! Owls are a theme here because we have so many visit the trees around our house - some evenings they can drown out the radio! Anyway, the boss has loads of bird feeders so I thought I'd make her a new one. It looks better than the picture now as after being out a few days, the rust masks my dodgy welding. The main frame is 16mm rebar but I had to drop to 12mm for anything I needed to bend - my goodness me, without the right tools even the 12mm is really difficult to bend.

I remember making that at school too mate. You're right with the haddock, I think that's the traditional fish, it's just what the wife asked for when she saw the kippers in this case.

I’m not a fan, but the boss loves it. I bought her some kippers from the ‘best before’ section in booths (they were nearly down to the price of some fresh ones from harrods) and she asked if I’d make kedgeree with them. Poached the kippers in milk and then used that to richen the rice. She prefers a softish boiled egg rather than hard boiled chopped through the dish - who am I to say no?

I made three of these last night - I think the ‘branch’ could do with a couple of leaves, but I think they’re fun all the same

Superb looking burgers and superb equipment setup - that burger press looks ace. what species of deer was it?

Pork fillet is a very lightly used muscle on a pig and has no fat /marbling or connective tissue so cooking it low and slow wouldn't help it as there's nothing to break down to leave the remaining meat tender. I think it looks great - whatever you did with the glaze etc looks like a winner. The way you described your cook sounds just about bob on for fillet, maybe it was in a tad too long or you were just unlucky with that particular piece of meat. Kudos for publishing the 'not so wins' along with the 'wins'

Thanks for the comprehensive response - that really clears up the questions I had - thank you. I had an electric smoker which recently died, I loved the flexibility and controllability, it wasn't quite up to the standard of yours but very convenient all the same. I know that once the meat gets to 60-ish it doesn't take any more smoke so I was wondering if that impacted the end product, the fact you've changed to hickory completely proves it doesn't have any detriment at all. I'm looking forwards to your next forays 👍

@JTaylor91 the food looks amazing - it's a great way of cooking isn't it? I've no experience wit the Traeger smokers but I understand that they're really controllable temp wise - which is obviously what you want for smoking. I have a quick question.... do they need to burn pellets all the time that you are cooking, or for example, on a two hour cook, could you burn pellets and produce smoke for hour one and then just continue to cook with no smoke for hour 2? Thanks

Trust me - that picture is far from suss… that’s BBQ perfect!!

These sausages were walking around a field in Scotland on Friday - can’t say fresher than that 👍. I’d hoofed it up north from the Dales on Friday in fear of missing out on an evenings stalk due to leaving late. I jumped out of my truck with maybe half an hour to get to a high seat or doe box only to have a deer present itself less than 300m from where I was parked, for once fate was on my side. I have plenty of joints and muscles in my freezer so apart from the loins, I boned this one out and minced everything with a plan to make burgers, sausage and bolognese etc. I used a weschenfelder pre-made mix and a good 1/4 of a bottle of port - I have to say that preliminary fry up of the remnants tasted very good.

That's a cracking head that. I thought I'd try the 'pint of maggots from the fishing shop' trick on a red stag a few years ago. I tucked it in a box under the external central heating oil tank and forgot about in....until the boss commented on the number of bluebottles in the house for November. My poker face obviously isn't very good and she sussed I was up to something straight away. Turns out there was an air brick next to the head and the rest is history. I'm not allowed anywhere near the fishing shop now 😀