Incorporating cheese into full sized salami can be difficult but is much easier in snack sticks. Cheese and salami in one snack is a great combo. I would recommend using the cheese in place of some of the fat (which it mimics).
Snack Sticks – Worcestershire and Cheddar
Making Cheese – Queso blanco, or Paneer (Panir)
Over on the (now defunct) sausage-making forum, someone asked for suggestions for a cheese-related activity to do with a group of school kids that wouldn’t break the bank. I immediately thought of paneer, an Indian vegetarian cheese, also known in Mexico as queso blanco. It’s like the cheese my granny made out of soured milk!
I’d only ever made it from non-homogenised milk, but nothing ventured, nothing gained: the investment of a whole £1 got me 2 litres of the local supermarket’s best full-fat homogenised milk.
Continue reading Making Cheese – Queso blanco, or Paneer (Panir)
Teriyaki Chicken Sausage
Teriyaki chicken sausage makes a fine breakfast sausage. This recipe adds a citrus note with the addition of orange zest. Brown sugar is used to balance the harshness of the soy sauce.
St Clement’s Sorbet
Feeling Fowl
Cheese and Onion Pie
I like this pie best as a cold-cutting pie. It’s a great addition to a buffet table. The recipe comes from my grandma, who lived in the North West of England – Lancashire and Westmorland – for many years.
You’ll see from the photo that the bottom’s a little bit soggy – hey, sometimes that happens; it could’ve done with a few more minutes in the oven, but so what, it tastes great.
The recipe’s really simple; I’ve tried it in the past with additions like egg in the filling, but this one’s the best, just cheese and onion like grandma used to make.
Continue reading Cheese and Onion Pie
Sweet BBQ Sauce
This is a basic barbecue sauce that’s based on a commercial one that was available in the UK until recently.
Continue reading Sweet BBQ Sauce
Snack Sticks – Five Spice
Snack sticks offer wonderful opportunities to experiment with new flavors.
This one uses five-spice powder, which is used extensively in Chinese cooking. Here it is used to flavor fermented snack sticks.
It is an original recipe.
Continue reading Snack Sticks – Five Spice
Easy Salami – Snack Sticks – An Introduction
Snack sticks, along with jerky, are an increasingly popular option for people looking for a fast, portable, high protein snack food. Most snack sticks are a cooked product (heated to 68-70 C). Some are smoked and / or dried as part of the manufacture. Fermented snack sticks, on the other hand, are an interesting subset of salami products.
Important: Changes to EU curing rules
An EU directive in October 2023 introduced changes to the permitted levels of nitrite and nitrate in cured food, which came into full effect on 9 October 2025.
The reason for the change is to reduce the chance of nitrosamine formation whilst keeping the meat safe. Nitrosamines have been linked to some forms of cancer. As home curers who do not sell their products, we don’t have to comply with this, and in the UK, even commercial suppliers don’t have to now that we’re no longer in the EU. However, I intend to – I think it would be irresponsible to ignore a law whose formulation is based on the advice of some of the best meat and other scientists in the world.
