Hi all,

Well winter is finally here, nearly a month late. That means Charcuterie Workshop time. Every year over winter we run a series of meat curing workshops, each one dedicated to different skills of meat curing and processing.

The cycle of seasons is very important to us as an organic farm, growing food. The cold helps:

• to kill unwanted pests;
• fruit trees, especially stone fruits, need chill hours to bear properly, for the last few seasons the cold just has not been there and we’ve had no apricots and very few peaches;
• our garlic, as it needs the cold to split and bulb properly in spring.

The Cooking School has completed most of the bottling for excess summer and autumn fruit and vegetables. We now have a good supply of our most popular preserves, jams, sauces, chutneys and relishes, and over the season developed some exciting new products. Our bottled products are all available through our online store. We have also tied up with a courier company so are now able to distribute nation wide. More….

We have some great cooking classes, food workshops and events planned for the next two months including:

• Charcuterie Workshops – Wickedfood Earth Farm & Country Cooking School has become synonymous with free-range pork and top quality charcuterie, including our range of sausage, coppa, pancetta, bacon and ham. This year’s programme is as follows:
  • Saturday 22 June – Whole Muscle Curing Workshop including how to break down a pig for charcuterie from 9:30am. (R1 200pp including extensive notes, and lunch). Topics covered in the workshop include tricks and tips on how to make your own bacon, coppa and Xmas hams, as well as how to cure venison and beef cuts. More…..
  • Saturday 13 July – Introduction to sausage making Workshop from 9:30am. (R1 200pp including extensive notes, and lunch). In this charcuterie workshop we will cover the basics of making the perfect sausage and we’ll take you through a hands-on demonstration on grinding, spicing and stuffing. Together we’ll make 4 classic sausages – our classic award-winning boerewors, breakfast pork, Italian style and chourizo sausages. More…..
  • Saturday 17 August – Introduction to Salami and dried Sausage Workshop 9:30am. (R1 300pp – Included in the price is the in-depth hands-on workshop, notes, and lunch). How spices and preservatives work, and different blends for different types of dry sausage and salami. We’ll make 3 classic dry sausages – classic South African droewors, cabanossi and classic pork salami.
  • Introductory charcuterie workshop – from 9:30am. (R1 200pp). If you are able to get a group of 10 people together, We’ll run a charcuterie workshop exclusively for you, where we introduce you to the basics of the three main arts of meat curing – whole muscle curing, how to make a classic pork sausage, and the basics of making salami.

• Sunday lunches – come spend a relaxing day in the country and enjoy a gourmet feast surrounded by our internationally recognised gardens, where you are free to wander through, full of winter produce. The menus feature seasonal organic produce grown on the farm, including our own veld-raised pork, lamb, beef, and cured meats and preserves. Booking essential – from R295pp. More…
  • Sunday 16 June, Fathers’ Day – treat your father to a delicious 4-course lunch including our popular 6-dish mezze platter with farm baked bread, and slow roasted veld-raised Pedi mutton;
  • Sunday 7 July, Pedi lamb feast – building on the success of last Pedi events at Wickedfood Earth Country Cooking School, the cooking school plans once again to showcase that veld-raised Pedi lamb and mutton have more flavour than most lamb from the famed Karoo meat. The cooking school chef will be using unique cooking methods and seasonal produce to create a memorable feast with strong Middle Eastern undertones;
  • Sunday 4 August, Suckling Pig Lunch – 4-course meal, prepared by the cooking school, including a selection of farm cured meats, to wood roasted suckling pig, accompanied by farm grown winter crops and preserves.
  • Sunday 25 August, Venison Tasting Menu – Join the Wickedfood Earth Country Cooking School team for a delicious venison tasting feast. This lunch forms part of our themed exclusive Sunday lunches to showcase how flavourful antibiotic and growth hormone-free veld-raised meat is. We will be offering a 4-course mezze menu of ±15 dishes, showcasing the best of venison from different animals, taking traditional South African recipes and giving them a facelift, from our popular air dried carpaccio, pâtés and terrines, to succulent wood roasted venison, served with farm grown winter vegetables, and of course a hearty winter pudding.

Meat sales

All our meat is grown on Wickedfood Earth Farm. We slaughter locally with no stress to the animal, and process in-house to ensure that we have complete trace-ability of all our meat. Animals are veld-raised, and completely free-range, using no routine antibiotics and growth hormones or stimulants. Our animals take, on average, twice as long to reach maturity as factory-farmed animals. This means that the muscles of the animals get to work, which ensures added flavour.

• Beef – At Wickedfood Earth we run a small herd of Dexter cattle, we dry-age the carcasses in a controlled environment for 24 days, before butchering, and then vacuum packing and freezing the meat. Dry-ageing is a process not commonly used in beef any more as it allows the water in the meat to evaporate, by between 10% and 15%, thus adding to production costs. This method however, improves the flavour of meat, by allowing the natural enzymes in the meat to break down the tissue, through hanging.
• Lamb – We have a few lambs that will be ready for slaughter. We need ±7 days from slaughter to packaging. Selling at R120/kg for the whole animal, slaughtered and R25/kg for butchering and packaging. They weigh in at around 12kg to 20kg slaughtered.

Collection – we are offering 4 options, please click here for an order form: 

• At the next lunch event at Wickedfood Earth in Hekpoort;
• By prior arrangement at Wickedfood Earth in Hekpoort;
• By prior arrangement in Lonehill;
• Door to door in Northern Johannesburg will quote price on request.

Sustainable cooking classes – Wickedfood Earth Farm & Country Cooking School is a proud member of Slow Food Chefs’ Alliance. The Alliance is an international network of chefs who are committed to promoting small-scale, locally produced “good, clean and fair” foods, and safeguarding agricultural biodiversity. This new and exciting cooking class for small groups of up to 12 people is all about these principles – a tour of the gardens, a discussion about agricultural biodiversity, cooking a basket of the freshest seasonal produce and finishing off with a delicious 3-course menu you have prepared together. More…

Wickedfood Earth Farm Country cooking School is pleased to announce that we have joined forces with Oryx Desert Salt as our official supplier of salt. We believe that this is a superior salt to most of the other salts available as it is totally natural – no additives, no anti-clumping agents, and no preservatives. It is unrefined and unprocessed. Dried by the hot African desert sun from an underground brine lake, it takes only 4 weeks for the salt to crystalise.

Looking forward to welcoming you to one of our events during the course of the year.

Mike, Cilla and the Wickedfood Earth Country Cooking School Team.

Bookings – contact Cilla on 076 236-2345 or cilla@wickedfood.co.za

Products – Mike, 060 761-0885, earth@wickedfood.co.za