Dingley Dell

A Passion to Inspire Norwich City College

Mark — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:56:06 +0000

On Wednesday I had the privelidge of attending the first regional heat of ” A Passion to Inspire ” at Norwich City College where five of Norfolk’s top professional chefs guided seven teams of student chefs working in the college kitchens before judging their dishes. The teams went head to head in a Masterchef style competition as they each prepared a two course meal in just 90 minutes. To see the skill, professionalism and confidence and dedication of these young chefs as they worked was a real pleasure and I wondered where these young men and ladies would end up in their careers. For my lunch I had an amazing duck dish followed by creme brulee cooked and served by George who not only was the youngest chef but also a year 1 student so has only been learning for 4 months as opposed to the others who were year 3. Congratulations to Connor Carway and George Dack for their panfried Dingley Dell tenderloin and Tom Frost and Nathan Rackham for their sous vide chicken breast who have made it through to the final on 24th April.

Lightly chilled trotters ?

Mark — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:26:03 +0000

Now I realise that its all about temperatures and water baths, cooking times, steamers and smokers all of which contribute to that final nirvana the perfect dish, but how far down the process shall we go for the ultimate gastro experience, a little light chilling of the piglets feet in early February the result the perfect trotter experience in fine dining around July when our man above reaches maturity and hits the plate on a balmy restaurant terrace. Maybe this is the start of the porcine answer to massaged Kobi beef , a little frosting of the toes to begin, a little wind around the cheeks and a touch of light tanning early June, all terribly natural and enviromentally sound. Let the revolution in prepping begin.

Mr Nutter visits

Mark — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:29:52 +0000

Tuesday started much like any other day in early Jan fairly wet and windy, and with me thinking I knew what lay ahead. Around noon the rain turned into a sort of Sri Lankan monsoon and the call came from Mr Nutter I’m not very far away can I visit. Now this is where things get eerie its the mother of all rain storms now and no sooner do we hit the pig site and as you can see in the photo, blue sky and sunshine. After showing Andrew around we decamped to The British Larder for some dingley dell pork belly and the first drink of what turned out to be quite an evening ! Andrew it was a pleasure to meet you and a magnificent afternoon but you never did explain how you changed the weather.

Big East Anglian Skies

Mark — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:35:09 +0000

December breaks and we are currently moving our breeding herd onto new ground and fresh grass, this is done every two years to give the land a break and to grow vegetables on the land where the pigs were. As ever the low winter sun produces our big East Anglian skies that so evoke our part of Suffolk. The pigs nestled next to Rendlesham forest create the most panoramic of views. This photo was taken around 4pm having just moved these girls on a Saturday afternoon. We sat back in my truck, heater on ,shoved Bruce Springsteens Nebraska cd on and contemplated about why you would want to work indoors. ( maybe I will return to this theme when we go all sub zero, frozen planet like in early Jan. Can’t wait !!! )

Shanghai a true Chinese adventure

Mark — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:21:26 +0000

: Shanghai finance district by night.

The trip of a lifetime has just passed with a visit to the Shanghai international food exhibition where companies from all over the world were showing their food brands to a hungry Chinese food market. The sheer wealth and buildings in parts of Shanghai are in equal measure both awe inspiring and disorientating as you take in the size of China and its voracity for western style consumerism. The food was amazing and unlike Chinese food I have ever eaten with the most beautiful presentation befitting of any top UK restaurant. The menus included such items as bullfrog, jellyfish, turtle, sea anemones, sea cucumbers and abalones, hairy crabs and all kinds of cuts from pork and chicken, intestines, glands, tongues , feet and rectums, a true smorgasbord of body parts as I have ever seen. Alas I opted for somewhere to the centre of extreme Chinese dining. Try my twitter @DingleyDellPork to see loads of Chinese cuisine photos both live and dead.

The chefs of tommorrow

Mark — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 06:08:25 +0000

At Dingley Dell Pork a large part of my time is spent showing chefs and butchers what we do as a business in terms of how we breed and rear our animals and it was a great privelidge last friday to show around some of tommorrows chefs. Recently we agreed to work with ” a passion to inspire ” which is a iniatative founded by masterchef of Britain Murray Chapman and run with the catering colleges in East Anglia , it is a cookery competition designed and run to inspire students and to expose them to future employers. For us at Dingley Dell it is an opportunity to educate and inspire the students and so we took a group of catering students around from Suffolk New College. My main aim was to make the chefs see that it is their individual purchasing decisions which shape the way in which we farmers farm because it is the way in which the market is created. We covered all aspects of welfare friendly food production and how the RSPCA’s Freedom Food scheme works to improve the lives of farm animals. At the end of the tour we asked the students to write down what they had gained from their visit and the general theme was respect for the pig as an animal and the sense that in the future these students would think through the implications of where their food comes from and how they view their food and consequently how they cook with it . I look forward to returning to the college and trying some of the students recipes involving Dingley Dell Pork.

Paul Foster pays us a visit

condiment — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 14:10:38 +0000

At the end of September we had the pleasure of Paul Foster poking his snout in at the farm and meeting our pigs again. Paul is head chef at The Tuddenham Mill near Newmarket [Suffolk], where he is proud to use fantastic local produce and is a very keen forager, showing us a thing or two on the farm. So whilst eating a Dingley Dell Pork platter at The British Larder we were able to throw him a few questions to get to know Paul when he’s not running around the kitchen in chef whites…

Sat Bains was a huge influence for you in the kitchen but who was it that really got you into cooking?

I grew up in pubs with my mother in the kitchen. I would always be washing up pots and prepping a bit of food here and there and constantly watching to see what she was doing. I learnt a lot from her and from there I went on to catering college.

What do you get up to outside of the kitchen if you have time?

I play a lot of squash but generally don’t have much time. I am a city boy deep down and so being in the country side is something really exciting and different for me. I also walk my greyhound a lot and forage on the way.

What has been your greatest achievement apart from all your cheffing awards etc?

I once did a parachute jump for Mencap which was amazing. I feel the charity is doing an incredible job and I wanted to show my support for them. I’ve also bungee jumped too!
Thank you Paul, and we hope you enjoyed your Dingley Dell Pork platter!

Hannah, me and the great pork chop off.

condiment — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 15:27:08 +0000

“Well I shall prove it with a pork chop off” said Hannah with all the confidence and bravura of youth.

With the scent of victory I agreed, gauntlets were laid, not quite pistols at dawn but the saucepans were drawn and Hannah cooked both versions (see recipes) and the guys running the pigs nursery site got to do the whole Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh bit. With the results in (no 50p a min phonecall voting scam) not just a small sweet marginal victory for Hannah a thumping great rout on her behalf with a hands down win over me.

Hannah you win a tremendous beer battered pork chop. Now please pass my pudding, a large slice of humble pie!

Extreme “nose to tail” with some London food bloggers

condiment — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 12:21:18 +0000

Never say never when it comes to trying new foods has always been the mantra and oh yes was this put to the test. The background, as ever, a chance discussion in London over a few glasses of wine and we were playing host to a group of London foodies and bloggers led by Rachel Mcormack from catalan cooking for a full on pig day involving farm tour/porcine photo shoot , butchery demo led by Wayne and Jim from Suffolk Meat Traders and full on morcilla blood sausage making and nose to tail cooking treats. Its probably best to check out WenLin Soh’s blog www.goingwithmygut.com where she has expertly written up pig day as a trilogy of farm/butchery and cooking or the guardian writer Felicity Cloake who again has brilliantly documented the day at www.felicitycloake.com for me I’m going to give you a brief few thoughts.

Pig Brain- interestingly done, served spiced on toast. Tried it probably wouldn’t again because of the texture.

Pig Lung -done as a hungarian dish which was extremely tasty although again I struggled with the texture.

Sobresada- a blood sausage dish this was fantastic.

Pig trotter paella- Again absolutely superb a catalan dish from Rachel.

The highlight for me easily WenLin’s beer battered chops simply divine, Hannah has redone this on our recipe section.

The strangest thing of the day Felicity eats a tempura battered eyeball!

Wine anyone

Mark — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:03:26 +0000

As a mixed farming business as well as the pigs we grow crops such as wheat , barley, linseed and naked oats. We also farm 50 acres of marsh below our office which is an environmentally sensitive area. There is a further 20 acres on higher ground that is used to promote different habitats for wildlife. These include conservation corridors , planted bumble bee mixtures, wild bird mixes and acidic grassland reversion. Paul looks after the environmental and conservation work that we do. Last year we planted some vines on a south west facing slope behind our office the varieties Seyval Blanc and Reichensteiner are both whites and hopefully should produce us a good dry white and possibly a fizzy white. This winter we will be putting in trellissing to support the vines and we will then be training them to grow along the wires. We always show chefs around our vines and we encourage them to swap a future case of ours with a case from their cellar, to date we have no single takers , ah well.