We have started smoking down the end of our garden. Go out the back door, down the garden path and you come to our ‘secret garden’ – a plot of land hidden in between houses, cut off from the roads. It’s a land of foxes, neighbourhood cats and a ‘secret garden’ that over the past few years we have reclaimed from bramble covered rubble left by property developers in the 80s. It’s a little Brixton oasis, removed from the hustle & bustle of Brixton. It’s a magical space. In it we have planted fruit trees and bushes, perennial veg, edible flowers and medicinal herbs.
It’s from here that we collect wild garlic for making pesto, edible flowers to decorate our salads infuse our summer cocktails.
In one corner of the garden under a majestic London plane is our tiny smokery, in effect a little tool shed painted black within which we have installed equipment for hot and cold smoking.
Over the last few weeks we have smoked garlic, cheese, butter and bacon. Its a long gentle smoke for periods of 12-24 hours – gentle wafts of oaky aroma, rather than billows of smoke coming out of the chimney. We are happy with our experiments and very happy experimenting down the end of the garden.
Our bacon has had great feedback from other foodies, smokers & chefs, and we are curious to know what others will make with our smoky lardons or butter. I’ve become a big fan of greens cooked simply in smoked butter. Mixed with garlic & fresh herbs melted into sour dough it makes damn good garlic bread. There are limited amounts of butter, cheese & bacon for sale in the larder now. Pick some up and let us know what you think.
Whole smoked sheeps cheese – £5.50
Oak smoked bacon – £14 kilo
Smoked butter from £1.25
