Master butcher's exceptional pork products

Jimmy Scott knew he wanted to be a butcher from the age of ten, when he helped his grandmother shop for and cook various cuts of meat for their huge, extended family Sunday lunches. He used to marvel at the animal carcasses hanging from hooks in the shop and was intrigued by how they were transformed into mouth-watering meals at home.

His mother had 12 siblings and they and their families, who all lived on the same estate, would get together every week over a traditional stew or roast dinner and veg made in industrial-sized pans on two cookers in his granny's tiny kitchen. There were so many of them, it had to be dished up in three separate sittings.

Young Jimmy grew up to be an award-winning master butcher, working all over the world including with top chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Michel Roux and Marco Pierre White. Now widely regarded as one of the best in the country, at one point he was running butchery and charcuterie courses for the Suffolk cookery school run by Jimmy Doherty, of TV's Jimmy's Farm.

Little did he realise as a boy, growing up in a tiny council house with a small garden in Ayrshire, that his fascination for meat would, one day, lead to him having a herd of rare British Saddleback pigs of his own. But his passion has brought him to North Yorkshire where he is now fulfilling his dream of breeding and rearing his own animals in order to create top quality produce, all the way from the field to the fork.

The traditional three bedroomed stone farmhouse on six acres of land, set in magnificent rolling countryside, is a far cry from the busy, close-knit housing estate where he grew up. Today he is part of the 2,000 acre Swinton estate, where he will be supplying Swinton Park luxury castle hotel with his own, home-grown hams, salamis, porchetta, sausages and bacon.

Jimmy came to Swinton Park's attention when he prepared some meat cuts for owner, Lord Masham. "I didn't realise who he was, he was just someone who brought two pigs to be butchered," he says. "I made him some Parma ham, pancetta, and stilton and garlic sausages." What Jimmy produced was so exceptional, Lord Masham offered him a job, along with a farm of his own on the estate, which he moved to in April.

Jimmy's wife, former theatre nurse Corinne, whom he married in August in a romantic ceremony at the Druids Temple on the estate, has now happily switched careers to join him on the farm as a swineherd. Full of pride, the couple introduce me to their new piglets, recently born on the farm. "They come from the best Saddleback line in the UK," says Jimmy, as we stroll around the fields, watching his prize porkers playfully rolling about in the mud.

As Jimmy tends to the herd, including prize boar Hamish, son of the Scottish champion, and two breeding sows, which he selected himself from a renowned Saddleback pig farm in the Lake District, it is clear these are very special animals to him. But it's when he gives me some of his lovingly prepared porchetta, made to his own recipe with cracked black pepper, garlic, thyme and crushed fennel seed, that I realise just how special. Jimmy treats both his animals and his meat with the sort of tenderness and care you can actually taste. This was, simply, the best porchetta ever to pass my lips, and that includes what I have eaten in Italy.

His award-winning sausages, including steak and Guinness with leek and red onion, have always been best sellers. One of his customers, says Jimmy, tells him he's like a drug dealer. "It's the sausages he can't give up. He can't eat any other now," he laughs.

With his passion, bordering on obsession, for creating the best possible recipes, constantly pushing boundaries and developing new ideas, Jimmy is the Heston Blumenthal of the meat world. He has travelled all over Europe, learning how to make the best chorizo in Spain and developing his curing techniques in Italy and Germany. "No matter where I go in the world, I will find butchers and slaughter houses and introduce myself, often ending up working there, even while on holiday. There are so many ways of curing, but I have developed my own style by taking a little bit from here, there and everywhere."

Jimmy, who won nine gold awards at the 2011 Harrogate Show for his sausages and other products, including his black bacon, cured in Guinness and black treacle, loves to create new recipes. "I like to be different, to be a bit special," he says.

From his smokehouse and cutting and curing rooms housed in converted outbuildings on his new smallholding, he will produce his own sausages, chorizo and hams for Swinton's restaurant, cookery school and estate shop, as well as providing a traditional butchery service for farmers on the estate.

He rails against cheap meats, where animals have been fed with steroids and pumped full of water. "I am passionate about doing things the old-fashioned way, it is more honest," he says. "When meat and charcuterie is mass produced, quality suffers."

And Jimmy is certainly qualified to make such a comparison. Over the past 38 years, having started out as a schoolboy, he has worked in all areas of the meat industry, including large-scale supermarket production.

Although Jimmy's mother, a factory worker, thought he was destined for university and had ambitions for him to become an accountant after he did well in his O Levels, he had other ideas. "I had a Saturday job in the local butcher's which soon took over the school holidays and everything else," he explains.

Before he turned 14, he was making sausages, haggis, back pudding and boning beef, lamb and pork. "There wasn't anything I couldn't do," he says. "It was a traditional old butcher's, and we used to slaughter on site too."

By the time he got his O Level results, he was working at the butcher's full time. "My mum thought I could do a lot better, but I loved it," he says. "It is a real skill, turning a living animal into something you can put on a plate and enjoy. The story of how it gets there, of the different cuts for different things, it all fascinated me."

His first boss, Charlie Grub, was amazed by his abilities. "You have got a very strange talent with this. It's as if you were born to do it," he told him. Before long, Jimmy was crowned Young Butcher of the Year at London's Smithfield Market.

By the time he turned 16, Jimmy was running the back of the shop, in charge of men in their forties and fifties. But he soon tired of retail work and began to travel the world working as a contractor in large meat production plants and abattoirs.

"There was a lot more money in the industrial side, mechanical slaughtering. I had to do it because I needed the money. But also, I wanted to develop as a butcher and I needed to know how the other side worked."

As a single dad with two sons, he eventually settled in Blackpool, where he worked in an abattoir. But once the boys left home, he was free to travel again and worked in a range of butchery businesses until he was offered a job at Jimmy's Farm, helping tend 850 rare breed animals and running specialist courses in butchery and sausage making.

He took some time out after one of his sons, who had joined the Army, was injured in Afghanistan and he moved to the North-East to be near him

It was while working for Langthorne Buffalo in Northallerton, which specialises in rare breeds, that he met Lord Masham, which led to him being able, at last, to realise his dream.

Jimmy didn't accept the first farm he was offered but reckons that this one, with access to open fields and 12.5 acres of woods full of roots, thistles and nettles, enabling his pigs to enjoy as natural a life as possible, is perfect. "My pigs will all be born, raised and butchered here. There is full traceability, from the field to the fork. They have a great life, which comes through in the quality of their meat," he says.

He chose the Saddleback because it's a durable, hardy breed, which thrives outdoors. "Most cross breeds are created to get a good yield of return. I'm not bothered about that as long as I get the ultimate, quality product," he says. "I don't do this for money, this is all about my principles now and doing things right."

He and Corinne, who confesses friends thought she was "absolutely off my trolley" when she said she was going to be a swineherd, aim to have 400 pigs eventually. "It has been hard work," says Jimmy. "But when the piglets were born, it hammered home to us that this is what it's all about. This is where the story begins."

Corinne, who used to work at the James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough, casts her eye over the spectacular view. "This is where I come to make calls from my mobile. It's my office now and it's wonderful," she says.

It's the start of a new life for both of them. Jimmy points to the pigs. "We are building the foundations of something really special here."

Tips for cooking meat from Simon Crannage, head chef at Swinton Park

1. Resting of meat is essential to the cooking process. Cover cooked meat with foil before carving, and let it rest for around 25 mins per kilo.

2. Large roasting joints cook better if tied with butcher?s string to an even shape.

3. Small steaks/joints are enhanced by basting in hot butter with thyme and crushed garlic.

4. Start joints with a skin (whole chicken/pork loin) at a lower temp, then turn the heat up towards the end of cooking to get a better crisp to the skin.

5. Take all meats out of packaging the night prior to cooking (leave unwrapped in the fridge). This dries the outside a little, giving a better finish.

6. Always buy the best you can, go to a proper butcher.

7. When braising don't forget to baste every ? hr.

8. Keep the braising liquid and reduce it to form your sauce, sieve it first to get a clear end result.

9. Keep the fat out of your trays, pass through a fine sieve and keep in jam pots in the fridge for your roasties next time.

10. Don't be afraid of having a go with the cheaper cuts ? shin, cheek, belly all give a fantastic flavour. Just make sure to use a recipe that suits the cut

Website: swintonpark.com