Ancaster - How I made Lincolnshire Haslet!

As part of my learning experience about Ancaster, I was interested in finding a traditional Lincolnshire dish that I could cook and after some research, I decided to make a (non-traditional) Lincolnshire Haslet, which is a type of pork meat loaf, traditionally made from innards and other icky bits of the pig, with stale bread and wrapped in caul, which is a sheet of fat.

My version was non-traditional, partly because I used regular pork mince, not innards, but also because, try as I might, I couldn't get my hands on caul fat and decided to wrap the meatloaf in less traditional, but infinitely tastier Parma ham!

Ingredients

For once, I didn't follow any specific recipe, but had a look at a few versions of Lincolnshire Haslet and came up with my own.  The ingredients I used included:

1/2 kilo of Pork mince

1 onion, which I chopped up very finely, although you could also mince this in the food processor

Three slices of slightly stale white bread

Garlic puree

Sage

Parma ham, to wrap the Haslet in before bunging it in the oven

Foccacia to accompany - I didn't make this, but bought it freshly baked from Marks and Spencers

Long-grain rice with peas, as a side

Gravy made from flour, red wine and vegetable stock

Process

I started by soaking the stale white bread in water for about 45 minutes, afterwards squeezing out as much of the water as possible and mixing the bread with the onion, garlic, sage and pork mince in a bowl.

Once this is mixed together, I gently kneaded it into a loaf shape, as you can see below. 

I then wrapped the Haslet in Parma ham, as you can see from these pictures.  I oiled an oven tray, having pre-heated the oven to 170 degrees and left the Haslet in there for about 50 minutes.  I must admit, I did have a moment of panic, when I thought that the Parma slices wouldn't be as durable as Caul fat and I really didn't know whether they were going to come out burnt after 50 minutes in the oven, but it turned out that I needn't have worried about the Parma ham, everything turned out just fine.

As I was waiting for the Haslet to bake in the oven, I prepared the rice, mixing in frozen peas at the end, as I love rice and peas together, with or without the Caribbean spices! 

Making the gravy was also quite simple.  I tossed some flour in a small pot for a minute or so, then adding half a glass of red wine, mixing the wine into the flour before pouring over 400ml of vegetable stock.  I let the gravy bubble away for a while, eventually turning down the heat, when the mixture had reduced a bit. There was no gravy in the original recipes I looked at, but I thought the Haslet might be a bit dry without it. 

In general, Haslet was a really easy dish to prepare and we'll definitely be having it again.  The pork was delicious and the Parma gave a nice salty taste to the Haslet that, otherwise, would have been missing.  I think next time round I would spice it up a bit, by adding chillies or spices like cinnamon to the meatloaf! 

Image Credits:

All photos were taken by me.