“You have to be the right mix of stupid, insane and passionate”

Dean Bailey finds out what it takes to learn the secrets and science of curing and charcuterie with Andrej Wout

Is there a better festive treat than a beautifully marbled ham enjoyed with good bread and cheese and a night in front of the fire? For North Wall Charcuterie’s Andrej Wout, this is the only way to spend a night in.

Don’t let the name throw you. Though his heritage is Polish, Andrej is probably best described as a travelling Englishman. Raised in Essex, he worked throughout Europe as a chef before he turned his meat curing and sausage-making hobby into a business in Co Durham.

He’s now moved the operation, and himself, to a country cottage in Wark, Northumberland, where his curing is inspired by Southern Europe, mainly Italy and southern Spain. “While there’s a great tradition of meat smoking in the UK, including a chap just up the road in the village doing it,” says Andrej, “the conditions in England, particularly northern England, are terrible for curing, which means you have to be the right mix of stupid, insane and passionate to do it.”

It’s also in the blood. “It’s a right of passage for a Pole, taking a pig and curing it,” he says. “I gave it a bash a long time ago, using a little beer fridge, but didn’t do much more until I decided I was too old for working in hot kitchens and needed to do something else.”

Andrej is friendly with the team at The Battlesteads pub just up the road, working with them for the past two years, while Box Social Brewery is combining his hams and sausages with its craft beer.

“It’s a highly scientific process,” Andrej says of his craft, handing me a manual by a Polish curer featuring the sort of maths and technical terminology which would make a chemistry graduate wince. “That book and the way it explains the science – including how you will die if you get it wrong – is what got me really thinking about the process.”

The basics are simple enough – salt, refrigerate, wash and leave in a warm, humid place. “And from there it’s about winning the battle between good and bad bacterial growth,” Andrej says, before explaining in gory detail just how bad it is should you make a mistake. “The most important thing is understanding what you’re aiming for, and living in Spain and Italy is the best way to learn that,” he says. “There’s no substitute for seeing how it’s been done for generations. We don’t have tiny caves in the foothills, which is why we have a tradition of barrel curing, but if you have the technology and understand the process you can create the right environment.”

He’s now turning his attention to new ideas, broadening his curing to other regions and introducing more British influences. “The combination of cooking and the technical processes is perfect for the way I think,” he says. “Importing meat from Spain or Italy is only going to get more expensive, so I want to let people know there is a bloke in a Tardis in Wark doing this with British produce like Saddleback and Berkshire pork reared in North Yorkshire and Co Durham.

“I like to stick to the traditions of what I’m making; I respect what it is and where it has come from. I’m working on something with venison now, and I’ve been messing around with some Turkish influences, including a type of compressed beef called pastirma which is covered in a thick red cumin paste.”

And with that, he’s off to make a batch of traditional chorizo, which he says does wonders for homemade pea soup – hence the recipe on this page. I wend my way home laden with treats and a new appreciation of the science which has gone into making them and the cottage industry Andrej has created.