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Caramelized Duck Breasts

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I recently learned the best way of cooking duck breasts with the fat on is from cold. My suspicion is that it lets the fat run better. This recipe uses that method and adds a little extra flavour with an oriental twist, along with an oriental style vegetable accompaniment. This is clearly Chinese in spirit, if not in actuality.

Planning

serves: 2
preparation time: 15 mins
cooking time: 25 mins

Ingredients

  • 2 duck breasts
  • juice & zest of 1 large orange
  • 1 tbs caster sugar
  • 2 tbs soy sauce
  • 250g broccoli spears (purple sprouting works)
  • 2 cms fresh root ginger, peeled & finely chopped
  • 1 medium red chilli, seeded & finely sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, skinned & finely sliced
  • 200g Puy lentils
  • olive oil

Method

Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas 7. Mix together 1 tablespoon orange juice, 1 tablespoon soy sauce and tablespoon of caster sugar, then set aside.

Cover the lentils with cold water in a small pan, bring to the boils and simmer unsalted for 20-25 minutes until just tender. Strain and reserve the lentils.

Score a diamond pattern in the duck skin and fat (not the flesh) with a sharp knife. Place the scored duck breasts skin side down in a cold heavy roasting pan. Put the cold roastng pan over medium heat. Let the pan come up to temperature and cook the skin side of the breasts for 6-8 minutes until the skin is nicely golden brown. Flip the duck breasts over and brush the skin with the orange, soy and sugar mixture. Bang them in the top of the oven until the skin is crisp and golden, basting occasionally with the pan juices. About 15 minutes should have them done medium – still pink in the middle. Remove the breasts from the oven and rest them for 5-10 minutes in a warm place.

While the duck is roasting, steam the broccoli for 3-4 minutes until just tender, then cut into 3-4cm lengths. Heat a glug of olive oil in a small frying pan and add the ginger, chilli and garlic. Stir for a minute before adding the lentils and cooked broccoli. Stir through the remiaining orange juice, soy sauce and the grated orange zest. Heat gently until hot.

Slice the rested duck breasts on the diagonal and serve alongside the vegetable mixture. Drizzle over any accumulated pan juices.


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Posted in Poultry Tagged with:

Salmoriglio

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Salmoriglio is a bit like a variation of Salsa Verde from Sicily. Like Salsa Verde , it goes very well with plain grilled fish. The eminent Mr. Stein does it with swordfish, which I am sure is very good. I’ve tried it with grey mullet which was also very good.

The original recipe says that the addition of celery herb/celery leaves is optional but I rather think it would miss something without it. I’ve increased the lemon juice a tad in place of a splash or two more of water.

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time: 10 mins
cooking time: n/a

Ingredients

  • 6 tbs olive oil
  • 2 tbs water
  • 2 tbs lemon juice
  • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
  • 1 tbs chopped oregano
  • 1 tbs chopped celery herb/leaves
  • 1 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley
  • Salt

Method

Whisk together the oil and water until emulsified. Stir in the lemnon juice and a pinch of salt to taste. Add the garlic and chopped herbs and stir well.

Reserve until you’ve grilled your fish and serve with it.


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Posted in Accompaniments, Sauces Tagged with:

Pork Chops, Sage and Mushrooms

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I’ve always found pork chops to be rather dull and uninteresting. This is a very old standard (for us), however, which I have finally got round firstly, to figuring out how to cook properly and secondly, to documenting. It makes a very good midweek meal.

If you are desperate for a healthier version, you can leave out the sour cream – it still tastes good but misses out on that little special touch. Please resist using a dehydrated chicken stock cube but those little jelly jobs in pots are just about acceptable, if you don’t have home made chicken stock available.

Planning

serves: 2
preparation time: 15 mins
cooking time: 45 mins

Ingredients

  • 2 large, free range pork chops
  • half a bunch (10-15g) fresh sage leaves, coarsely chopped
  • 25g butter
  • 1 large onion, peeled and chopped
  • 250g chestnut mushrooms, brushed clean & quartered
  • 250ml chicken stock
  • 75ml soured cream
  • Salt & pepper

Method

Pat the pork dry of any surface moisture and sprinkle both sides of each with the chopped sage leaves. Season both sides of the chops further with freshly ground black pepper and salt. (Be careful how much salt you add if you are using stock jelly jobs.) Melt the butter over moderate heat in a sauté pan and add the pork chops to the pan. Brown the chops lightly on both sides. Remove the chops from the pan and set aside on a plate.

Add the chopped onion to the same sauté pan and stir round to deglaze. Cook until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the quartered mushrooms and cook for 3 mins or so, stirring occasionally.

Move the veggie mixture to the sides of the pan and snuggle the chops back in to the middle of the pan. Meat juices will have accumulated on the plate used to reserve the chops – add it to the pan along with the 250ml chicken stock. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for about 40 minutes by which time the liquid will have reduced a little. Stir in the soured cream – a tad awkward with a pan full of pork chop 🙂 – and simmer for another couple of minutes.

Serve this with a green vegetable, such as steamed savoy cabbage or tenderstem broccoli.


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Posted in Starters Tagged with:

Lamb Shoulder with Ras el Hanout

Posted on by JC — 1 Comment ↓

I’m not at all sure this is a genuine Moroccan approach but the intention is clearly Moroccan. Very slow cooking is definitely my preferred method with lamb shoulder ‘cos it makes for a meltingly tender result. The Moroccan flavourings used here give an interesting little twist to a popular cut of meat compared to the usual garlic and rosemary approach.

Planning

serves: 6
preparation time: 20 mins
cooking time: 5 hrs

Ingredients

  • For the lamb shoulder:
  • 1 whole large shoulder of lamb, on the bone
  • 2 tbs ras el hanout
  • 50ml olive oil
  • 2 large onions, roughly chopped
  • small bunch fresh thyme sprigs
  • 6 cloves garlic, unpeeled
  • 3 tbs clear honey
  • For the couscous:
  • 350g couscous
  • 1 chicken stock cube
  • 1 small red onion, finely chopped
  • 10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
  • 2 tbs raisins
  • 2 tbs flaked almonds
  • 2 tbs freshly chopped flat leaf parsley
  • 2 tbs freshly chopped coriander leaves
  • juice of ½ lemon
  • 2 tbs olive oil
  • Salt & pepper

Method

Preferably the day before cooking, prick the lamb shoulder all over with a skewer or sharp knife. Mix the ras el hanout with the olive oil and some salt & pepper. Rub this mixture all over the shoulder and set in the fridge overnight, loosely covered, to absorb some flavour. If you can’t do it the day before, give it at least 2 hours.

The lamb. On the day of cooking, preheat your oven to 150°C/300°F/gas 2 [originally 140°C/275°F/gas 1]. Place the onions, garlic and thyme on the bottom of a lightly oiled roasting pan and sit the lamb on top. Cover tightly with foil and bake in the oven for 3 hours [originally 4-5 hrs]. (Check every hour or so to ensure the onions and garlic are not burning – lower the heat if they are.) Drain the fat a couple of times during cooking. Remove the foil for the final 45 minutes of cooking.

The couscous. Here is my only use of dehydrated stock powder/cubes. Dissolve a chicken stock cube in 400mls boiling water. Put the coscous into a large glass bowl, tip in the liquid and give it a good stir. Cover with cling film and let it soak for 5 minutes. Fluff up the grains with a fork, then sir in the remaining ingredients. Adjust the seasoning.

Lift the lamb onto a chopping board and shred the meat off the bone using a couple of forks. Pile the couscous on a large serving dish and top it with the shredded lamb. Drizzle over the honey and serve.


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Posted in Meat Tagged with:

Crab Linguine

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I’ve been after a decent crab pasta recipe for a while after failing to make notes on a more complicated spider crab recipe by Gary Rhodes. This is certainly much simpler and looks worth a try, not that there appears to be much to go wrong with it. I suspect the fresh white crab meat would normally be from a freshly opened can.

It’s always struck me that there should be a good way of incorporating the delicious brown meat from a fresh crab into a dish such as this. I must engineer the chance to experiment.

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time: 10 mins
cooking time: 15 mins

Ingredients

  • 300g fresh white crab meat
  • 300g linguine
  • 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
  • zest & juice of ½ lemon
  • olive oil
  • ½ fresh red medium chilli, finely chopped (seeds or not, as you prefer)
  • 4 spring onions, chopped
  • handful fresh parsley, coarsley chopped
  • ~50ml white wine/Noilly Prat
  • Salt & pepper

Method

Cook your linguine appropriately depending upon whether you are using dried or fresh pasta. If you’re using fresh pasta, you may want to start the crab mixture first. Either way, remember to reserve some of the pasta cooking water.

While the linguine is cooking, heat a coupe of tablespoons of olive oil in a deep frying pan/skillet. Toss in the garlic, chilli, onions and lemon zest and coook for a minute or two before stirring in the crab meat. Heat through for a minute then glug in about 50ml white wine (I might try Noilly Prat). Bubble until most of the wine is evaporated.

When the pasta is done, slacken the crab mixture with a little of the pasta water, then stir in the drained pasta and parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper.


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Posted in Seafood, Untested Tagged with:

Seafood Laksa

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One stemming from the New Forest, where we found a kit for a Singaporean Laksa and enjoyed it. At home, I wanted a more genuine recipe without short cuts and this is the one that appealed to me. It must be reasonably genuine because it uses galangal and shrimp paste, so I have a high degree of confidence in it. Besides, it has the Delia stamp of approval.

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time: 30 mins
cooking time: 25 mins

Ingredients

  • 24 raw tiger prawns
  • 500g fresh mussels
  • 110g medium white rice noodles
  • 400ml tinned coconut milk
  • 50g shelled, unsalted peanuts
  • 1 tbs groundnut oil
  • 50g cucumber, peeled
  • 110g beansprouts
  • juice of 1 lime
  • a small bunch fresh basil, leaves roughly shredded
  • a small bunch fresh mint, leaves roughly shredded
  • For the paste:
  • 3 medium red chillies, deseeded & chopped
  • 1 dessertspoon dried shrimp paste
  • 4 shallots, peeled
  • 2 stems lemon grass, roughly chopped
  • 2-3cms piece fresh galangal or root ginger, peeled & roughly chopped
  • 1 dsp ground turmeric
  • Salt & pepper

Method

Prepare the seafood. If necessary, peel the prawns, then run the point of a small, sharp knife along the back of each one and remove any black threads that may be present (Personally, I tend to buy bags of frozen prepared king prawns from my favourite supermarket.) Now scrub the mussels under cold running water and remove any barnacles and pull off the little hairy ‘beards’. Discard any mussels that are broken or don’t close when given a sharp tap with a knife.

The Noodles. Put the rice noodles in a bowl and cover with boiling water, then leave to soak for 10 minutes. They won’t need any further cooking, just re-heating. Drain the noodles in a colander when they are ready, then rinse in cold water and set aside.

Make the laksa paste. Place all the paste ingredients, plus a tablespoon of water, into a liquidizer and blend until smooth. (It is said that you could use a food processor instead but I have doubts.)

Making the dish. Place the peanuts in a medium saucepan and dry-roast over a medium heat until golden brown, then remove to a plate to cool a little. Add the oil to the same pan and, when warm, add the prepared paste and cook over a medium heat for 2 minutes. Add the coconut milk and stir, then leave to simmer gently for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the cucumber into four slices lengthways, then cut each into four long strips. Now roughly chop the cooled toasted nuts. When the coconut-milk mixture is ready, add the noodles, cucumber, ¾ of the beansprouts and the lime juice. Now season with salt to taste before bringing back to a simmer. Add the mussels and cook for 2 minutes, then add the prawns and cook for another 3 minutes. The mussels should have opened – discard any that do not – and the prawns be pink. Now add half the shredded herbs.

To serve, first mix the remaining herbs with the chopped nuts. Now ladle the laksa into bowls before sprinkling over the remaining ¼ beansprouts and the herb & nut mixture.


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Posted in Seafood Tagged with:

Dill and Cucumber Sauce

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Odd though this may sound, I find salmon a little dull. Maybe this is because of the amount farmed and that it has become one of the cheapest fish on the market. The wild stuff is good, the organic farmed stuff is OK but the regular farmed stuff is usually a flabby disappointment. Generally, salmon needs livening up, giving some interest, and here is a sauce that I think would do just that.

I intend to try it with simply steamed salmon. (Now how boring would that be on its own?)

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time: 10 mins
cooking time: 15 mins

Ingredients

  • 500g cucumber
  • 2 tbs chopped fresh dill
  • 30g butter
  • 75 ml crème fraîche
  • 1 tbs lemon juice
  • Salt & pepper

Method

Pare the skin off the cucumber. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon. Cut the flesh of the cucumber into 5mm dice.

In a small saucepan with a lid, sweat the cucumber over low heat in the butter for about 10 minutes, covered. Stirring/shake the cucumber occasionally so it does not burn on the bottom of the pan. It should end up cooked but retain a little bite. Stir in the chopped dill, the crème fraîche and most of the lemon juice (retain a little to adjustment down the line, if necessary).

Blitz half the sauce in a liquidizer or blender and mix this with the other, chunky half of the sauce.

Season to taste with salt, pepper and the retained lemon juice if necessary.


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Posted in Sauces, Untested Tagged with:

Carne en Salsa de Almendras

Posted on by JC — 1 Comment ↓

Many years ago, I always used to cook recipes for the first time in vengeance, i.e. for guests. My theory was, and still is to a large extent, that one concentrates more the first time through a recipe and tends to do it right; it’s the second time through when complacency and, therefore, possible errors creep in.

More recently I’ve tended to cook tested recipes for guests, perhaps because I’ve become lazy at seeking out new material, though I was intending to revert to my old ways with this new recipe this past weekend. As fortune would have it, our numbers changed and so, so did my catering arrangements. However, I did subsequently try out this recipe using just ourselves as guinea pigs and it has instantly shot into the charts as one of my favourites.

As usual, I found two slightly differing versions of this dish, one from Casa Moro and one from Rick Stein’s Spain (which was, IMHO, his best TV programme after branching out from his fish mastery). What follows is inevitably a combination of the two. I commend it to the house!

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time: 30 mins
cooking time: 2½hrs

Ingredients

  • 6 tbs olive oil
  • 8 fat cloves garlic skinned, 4 finely chopped, 4 left whole
  • 30g sliced white bread (no crusts), cut into ~4cm squares
  • 75gms whole unblanched almonds
  • 1kg rindless pork shoulder, in ~2cm/¾in cubes
  • 1 tbs plain flour (for dusting)
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 1 large sprig fresh thyme
  • 2 bay leaves (fresh, if possible)
  • 1 tsp sweet paprika
  • ½ tsp smoked paprika
  • 400ml dry white wine
  • 1 large tomato, halved & grated (discard the skin)
  • 1 palmful fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
  • Salt & pepper

Method

You can cook this in a cazuela for authenticity but it needs to have a lid. Mine doesn’t have a lid but if yours does, or you feel you can improvise, fine. Otherwise use a large skillet with a lid.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in your chosen pan over moderate heat and fry the 4 whole cloves of garlic, the almonds and the chunks of bread. You want lightly golden as your finished colour, which takes about 2 minutes. Remove them from the oil and set aside.

Season your chunks of pork, then dust them with the flour. (I find a large plastic food bag just perfect for his kind of dusting operation.) Add an extra couple of tablespoons of oil to your pan and seal the cubes of pork on all sides without colouring them too much – they should remain quite pale. As they seal, remove them to a plate and set aside.

Add the remaining two tablespoons of oil to the pan and toss in the chopped onion, bay leaves and thyme. Cook for about 5 minutes to begin softening the onion before adding the chopped garlic. Cook this mixture for a further minute then stir in both paprikas and cook for a couple minutes more, being careful not to burn the spices. If it seems to be getting too hot or too dry, adjust the heat and/or the oil. Stir in the white wine and bubble to drive off the alcohol. [You might as well start drinking the rest of the bottle, if you haven’t already. 😀 ] Add the tomato mush and stir in a little salt and pepper. Cover and simmer gently for 2 hours.

[Continue drinking the remaining white wine.]

After two hours, [all the remaining white wine should have been drunk and] the meat should be nicely tender. Put the parsley leaves into a blender/liquidizer along with the browned and reserved whole garlic cloves, almonds and pieces of bread. Add a couple of ladlefuls of the cooking liquid and blitz to a paste. Stir this picada back into the pork, adjust the seasoning to taste and simmer very gently while you make some accompanying vegetables (15 minutes or so). Pick out the thyme stalk and bay leaves before serving.

[You’ll need another bottle of wine to serve with it.]


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Posted in Meat Tagged with:

Rabo de Toro con Rioja

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The Spanish have got a bit of a bull fixation so perhaps it’s not surprising that Rabo de Toro [oxtail] is very popular there. Technically, I believe, “anything de Toro” should be from a fighting bull – clearly one that lost – but oxtail is a rather more delicate, not to say more humane, substitute … and that may be the only time the words oxtail and delicate have been placed in the same sentence.

Buying oxtail in the UK seems to require a stroke of luck, being in the right place at the right time. One day recently I saw a wonderful looking tray of the stuff in our local butchers. I salivated but didn’t buy it because Carol claimed not to like it. The following day I returned but the oxtail had all gone – every scrap. I kicked myself. Still, as my mother so succinctly put it, “there’s only one tail on any ox.”

I’ve enjoyed oxtail in Spain prepared in what was supposedly a chocolate-containing sauce, though I couldn’t actually discern any chocolate. Being a seasoning, that’s probably quite right, though. Keen to try it at home myself and having finally tracked down some oxtail, this is the recipe I found in Casa Moro , and very good it was, too. This converted Carol, whose dislike had been based upon childhood memories of canned oxtail soup.

Don’t be put off by the rather daunting looking list of ingredients. They are split into two parts because it was recommended to cook this over a 2-day period.

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time: 20 mins
cooking time: 3 hrs (over 2 days)

Ingredients

  • DAY 1:
  • 3 tbs olive oil
  • 1.5 kgs oxtail, in 5cm/2in chunks
  • 1 carrot, chunked
  • 1 onion, chunked
  • 1 rib celery, chunked
  • 10 black peppercorns
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 4 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 4 cloves
  • 3 cloves garlic, peeled & quartered
  • 1 bottle red Rioja
  • stalks from a bunch of fresh parsley
  • DAY 2:
  • 2 tbs olive oil
  • 1 onion, finely diced
  • 1 carrot, finely diced
  • 120g chorizo, halved lengthways and cut to 1cm
  • 2 tbs plain flour
  • 1 tsp sweet paprika
  • ¼ tsp hot paprika
  • ½ tsp fennel seeds, ground in a pestle & mortar
  • 2 tbs tomato purée
  • Salt & pepper

Method

On DAY 1, select a heavy pan with a lid that will ideally take either a complete single layer of oxtail or two complete layers. Complete layers help to keep the oxtail submerged when it comes to the casseroling. Once you’ve got your pan, heat the oil in it over medium high heat. Season the oxtail with salt and pepper and brown on all sides. You’ll need to do this in batches.

Remove the oxtail from the pan and pour of any excess fat prior to adding the onion, carrot and celery. Fry the vegetables for 5 minutes until beginning to colour. Add the peppercorns, bay leaves, thyme sprigs, cloves and garlic, and fry for 2 more minutes. Pour in the Rioja with the parsley stalks and boil off the alcohol. Return the oxtail to the pan and top up with fresh water to cover everything. Bring back to a very gentle simmer, reduce the heat to low and cook for about 2 hours. (I covered it mostly with the lid, leaving a crack to let some steam out and stop it cooking too fast.) The meat should be able to be pulled from the bone but not be falling off by itself.

Transfer the oxtail to a bowl or other suitable container and strain the cooking juices over through a sieve. Leave it to cool and keep it overnight in the fridge.

Begin DAY 2 by removing as much solidified fat as possible from the surface of the chilled oxtail and juices. Heat the olive oil over medium high heat in your selected pan again and, when hot, toss in the onion and carrot. Cook the vegetables for about 10 minutes until they begin to caramelize, stirring occasionally. Add the chorizo pieces and cook for 5 minutes more. Now stir in the flour and cook for another 2 minutes before also stirring in both paprikas, the fennel and tomato purée. Return the oxtail and stock to the pan and bring to a simmer. Adjust the seasoning and cook, almost covered, for 30 minutes.

The Spanish seem to like fried potatoes with this but mashed potatoes works very well with all that juice. A green vegetable would be healthy, too.


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Posted in Meat Tagged with:

Pulled Pork

Posted on by JC — No Comments ↓

Some friends of ours made this for us and it was great. I haven’t tried cooking it yet but when I see a suitable joint of pork and a few friends are coming round, I must remember it.

The recipe comes from The Fabulous Baker Brothers . I assume the basic idea originated in America since no other self-respecting nation would use American pale ale. I’m also sure a substitute (better) beer would be perfectly acceptable.

Planning

serves: 6-8
preparation time: 24 hrs
cooking time: 8 hrs

Ingredients

  • 1 large joint of pork, e.g. a hand
  • 2 tbs honey
  • 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 tsp smoked paprika
  • 2 tbs olive oil
  • 1 head of garlic, crushed
  • fresh thyme (plenty), leaves stripped
  • fresh rosemary (plenty), chopped
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ black pepper
  • 330ml American pale ale

Method

Score the skin of the pork as if making crackling and place it in an oven tray.

Mix all the remaining ingredients together then cover the pork with it, rubbing the marinade into the slits. Leave the pork in the refrigerator to marinate over night.

The following day, heat the oven to 230°C/450°F/gas 8. Cook the pork in the very hot oven for 20 minutes (or until it develops a good colour). Remove the pork and cover it with foil while you cool the oven to 140°C/275°F/gas 1. Return the pork to the cool oven for about 8 hours. It should pull away from the bone and be very tender – mind you, so should a horseshoe.


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Posted in Meat Tagged with: