The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Recipes => Topic started by: Bionic on March 21, 2015, 01:57:57 pm
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I just wondered if it is worth doing and if so do I need to soak the hay beforehand?
thanks
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A few years ago on one of our Hebridean Sheep Society get togethers, we were treated to hogget cooked in hay. It tasted good, but I don't know precisely how the chef prepared it. I tried it at home later, being very careful which bit of hay I used, and I let the oozings from the meat add moisture to the hay. I think to wrap fresh wild herbs in with the hay would be lovely.
The other use for hay is in a hay box (strong cardboard box lined with hay !), where you bring your joint up to cooking temp then transfer it to a hay box for more than the cooking time an oven would need, then back to the oven to crisp. The meat is superbly tender, and this is how I cook other meats, especially the Christmas turkey when I cook it here and transfer it to our son's, over an hour away, in the haybox. :yum:
Either way is worth the effort
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Fleecewife, that sounds interesting. If you had a leg of lamb how long would you cook it in the oven for initially and then how long in the hay box?
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In the army we had 5 gallon hay boxes with stainless steel inserts which were suspened above the walls & the floor of the outer container by spring clips/sliders ..
Once the contents were brought to boiling for a couple of minutes, the inserts were lidded up and the inner put in the outer insulated box and an insulated lid fitted & clamped down .
They kept stews etc hot for 6 hours even in sub zero temps even 24 hours . After being made most hay box cooked food still had some warmth in it so long as no one had opened it up before hand .
Cooking in hay army style is very similar evidently you bring things to the boil all at the same time and put them in the crock and cover with grease paper then put the a good three inches of hay all round the crock pot including over the paper lid & under it .
i seem to recall that one of the TV slop jockies ( Clarissa ??? ) actually put hay inside a crock pot on top of the boiled food then the ceramic lid on it .
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Sorry Bionic, I didn't reply about the timing for a joint. I'm not totally sure of exact times, as that's not how I cook.
You would weigh your leg and cook it in a conventional oven until it was fully hot - it won't be cooked right through. Then transfer it, in it's covered pot as clodhopper points out, to the hay box. I tend to cover the lid with a tea towel or similar to prevent hay dust getting inside. The time in the hay box really depends on how long you want to leave it. It could be just an hour as you take it somewhere, or pop down to the shops, or it could be all day. It won't burn, just become amazingly tender while staying moist. When you then come towards dinner time, check it's done, then crisp it in the oven for half an hour or so.
So there's nothing exact about it, just what suits you. I suppose that for the turkey, it's almost completely cooked before I put it in the hay box, but that's mainly for transport.
Stews and casseroles are a bit different as you are using the haybox more as a slow cooker.
Just give it a go - if it's not fully done, just leave it in the oven afterwards for longer.
Clodopper, your army hayboxes sound very state of the art ;D as one would expect.
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Well, I used the hay on Sunday. It wasn't exactly clean hay from the pet shop as suggested by the recipe. I got mine out of the stock for my sheep. I saw a recipe that said to soak the hay first so that it doesn't burn. Its just as well I decided to do this as the water was filthy. So the hay got several washes first. I then put it in the roasting tin and put the leg of lamb, with some slivers of garlic in it on top and then put another layer of soaked hay on top of that and then put a lid on. I cooked it at 140 fan for about 3 hours. It was lovely and tender and very moist.
I will probably try it again but might put some sort of mesh over the top to stop having to get the bits of hay off the meat ;D
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Ive cooked lamb ang pork in hay but always only in conjunction with a pit oven ,to get the best flavour it has to be really fresh hay .more than a few months old and you really do loose the flavour .
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Tried this but mine was a bit rare :innocent: :innocent:
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Well, I used the hay on Sunday. It wasn't exactly clean hay from the pet shop as suggested by the recipe. I got mine out of the stock for my sheep. I saw a recipe that said to soak the hay first so that it doesn't burn. Its just as well I decided to do this as the water was filthy. So the hay got several washes first. I then put it in the roasting tin and put the leg of lamb, with some slivers of garlic in it on top and then put another layer of soaked hay on top of that and then put a lid on. I cooked it at 140 fan for about 3 hours. It was lovely and tender and very moist.
I will probably try it again but might put some sort of mesh over the top to stop having to get the bits of hay off the meat ;D
Ah the penny dropped not hay box cooking but cooking with hay inside an oven proof lidded dish
Clarissia and her partner Johnny did that once on one of the contry style cooking programmes they did .
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I have a recipe for pork cooked in hay. aLso some people cook a dish part way, I think, then they take hot woodash put it in a hole in the ground and cover it over, apparently it carries on cooking and tastes gorgeous
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I have a recipe for pork cooked in hay. aLso some people cook a dish part way, I think, then they take hot woodash put it in a hole in the ground and cover it over, apparently it carries on cooking and tastes gorgeous
????!
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I have a recipe for pork cooked in hay. aLso some people cook a dish part way, I think, then they take hot woodash put it in a hole in the ground and cover it over, apparently it carries on cooking and tastes gorgeous
????!
except not with the hay