A River Cottage inspired brunch

I have always thought that soda bread would be quite complicated to make, so I have never attempted it.  Then Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall made some on his River Cottage Everyday series.  And more recently, the Barefoot Contessa made some on one of her programs.

I have to say, it didn't look that complicated.  I decided to give it a go.

But where to source buttermilk?  Turns out in the cream section at the supermarkets.

So on Sunday I decided to have a bash.  And I have to say it's dead easy.  Even easier than making a cake.  Considerably less time reliant than yeast breads.  And extremely delicious into the bargain.  I won't give you a recipe - there are loads available out there

In the River Cottage Everyday series, they also made bacon chops, lightly cured over night.  I decided to give it a go with some pork steaks rather than chops.  That was remarkably easy as well - although I think that next time I might drop the salt levels a little and raise the sugar levels.  After all, you are not curing the meat for storage purposes but for the taste and I prefer my bacon less salty. I might also put some honey in as well.  I like a slight honey hint in my bacon.

So I took 50g of salt, 25g of demerara sugar, two teaspoons of juniper berries, crushed, and crushed black pepper corns.  The recipe calls for bay leaves as well, but our bay tree died in the winter and hasn't been replaced yet.  Put the cure ingredients into a plastic box and mix around.  Press into both sides of the meat, put a lid on the box, put the whole lot in the fridge and leave for 8-12 hours.  Rinse well, pat dry and cook.  And there you go

So we had our bacon steaks with the soda bread and with home produced fried eggs and with not home produced grilled cherry tomatoes and mushrooms for brunch.

And very. very good it was too. A mighty fine Sunday brunch!

At least it looks like it's supposed to!!