Yesterday, This Little Pig rolled up its cardigan to it’s ham hock elbows and plunged excitedly into recipe testing This Little Pig does Christmas. Giant free range hams, plump turkeys stuffed with cranberry and pistachio & butterflied chicken breasts wrapped around wild field mushroom and bacon was strewn over the benches of Little Pig HQ.
Christmas carols were blaring, small jingly reindeer ears were placed daintily on This Little Pig’s workers & the merriment began! Soon the hams were being lovingly massaged with a marmalade & Dijon mustard glaze, with the occasional murmur from a Little Pig worker ‘oh isn’t he gorgeous,’ and ‘yes flip him over let’s massage his underside too.’ The giant turkeys stuffed with pistachio and cranberry were lovingly basted with organic olive oil, sea salt and a scrunch of pepper and given a bon voyage as it headed to the great oven to be cooked to crisp, juicy perfection.
The chat potatoes had racing stripes cut into their backs gently to become a perfect hassle back potato and were tossed with seasonal vigor in fragrant rosemary, organic olive and oh so naughty garlic salt before being placed in the giant oven to reach a crisp and crunchy finale. Broccollini and beans were sautéed in the pan with crispy free-range balsamic infused bacon, butter and garlic. Crunchy cos lettuce leaves, goat’s cheese and pine nuts were being scattered with joy on another giant platter with the tinkle of ‘jingle bells’ playing softly in the background. The butterflied chicken breasts were pulled from the oven popping and hissing as the golden skin burst open too juicy to hold back and the ham reached a sticky golden glazed new height, hot and perfect in all it’s ham glory.
As This Little Pig set out the Christmas feast for photographing, there were exclamations of ‘open the champagne it will look more festive’ and ‘here give us a sip of that, it will add a bit of life to the photo if it’s half empty!’ Taste testers of the succulent Christmas meats were taken where possible and sighs rippled through the room of ‘I love Christmas’ and ‘I love ham’ heard in all corners of Little Pig HQ. The only question left on This Little Pig’s lips after a perfect recipe test of possibly the most delicious food ever to be produced in the land was, ‘why do we not lovingly baste with a sticky glaze and heat up a glorious ham more often?’
