A LAKE District hotel is expanding its restaurant menu with the creation of intercontinental smoked delicacies.

The Wild Boar Inn Grill & Smokehouse, a traditional coaching inn set in a valley close to Windermere, will be offering pastramis and cured meats using its own recipes.

The Wild Boar’s own spice mix is based around mustard seeds and paprika, with garlic, coriander, black pepper, cloves and all-spice helping to bring out the flavour of the meat.

Prime cuts of beef are initially soaked and cured in a briny mixture of salt, sugar and water before a dry mix of around a dozen different herbs and spices are added.

The meat is then given time to rest and marinate before it is cold smoked at around 16 degrees centigrade for 24 hours to ensure that all the flavours are maximised and locked into the meat. The pastrami is completed with a hot smoking and is then ready to serve.

Miroslav Likus, the head chef at the inn owned by English Lakes Hotels Resorts & Venues, said: “The introduction of cured meats and our very own pastrami is a natural extension to the range of produce we already smoke here at the Wild Boar, and our chefs are taught by the very best: the team from Smoky Jo’s in Penrith."

The Wild Boar Inn has its own smoke house, which supplies the restaurant with meats, cheeses and fish and offers food smoking courses.

"We were really enthused to create our own beef pastramis with a range of tastes and textures for our diners to enjoy," Mr Likus said. "A good pastrami is all about preparation and you can make it as spicy or salty as you wish. We’ve been inspired to try lots of different recipe themes before settling on the perfect mix of ingredients to make a top quality pastrami which appeals to our guests."