cooking challenge week nine: roast duck leg with red cabbage

You will need:

2 duck legs
1 red cabbage
1 onion
1 small apple
3 garlic cloves
5 bay leaves
A few raspberries
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoon olive oil
Vegetables for roasting (I used squash and potato)

What to do:

For the duck-
24 hours prior to roasting the duck, place the duck in a shallow dish. Slice the onion into chunky pieces and add to the dish. Add chopped garlic, olive oil, 3 bay leaves, fennel seeds, raspberries and a sprinkle of sea salt. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 175'c. Use a small paring knife to poke a few slits into the duck skin. Replace the duck legs into a large, shallow baking tray. Add the ingredients from the marinade and a touch more salt. Add to the oven, skin side up. Set the timer. After 20 minutes, remove from the oven. Spoon the rendered duck fat over the skin and return to the oven. Do this 3 times. After 1 hour, spoon some of the duck fat into a small frying pan and reserve for the gravy. Turn the heat up to 200'c and cook for a further 10 minutes, to crisp the skin.

Make a traditional gravy by adding cornflour and water to the reserved duck fat and whisk over low heat. However, I made a redcurrant sauce by adding a tablespoon of redcurrant jelly to the duck fat, with a tablespoon of flour, a few tablespoons of red wine and 1/4 cup water. Whisked constantly over very low heat until it had thickened and reduced.

For the cabbage -
This is a very traditional dish and I absolutely love it. There are a lot of different ways you can make it and I think everyone has their own method, but I find this easy and tasty. I love dishes that you can pop on the stove and leave to bubble away for a few hours, to get richer and richer.

Core the cabbage and rinse it well (there are always slugs and bugs in the outer leaves - just rinse them and check them well). Once you're sure the cabbage is sans pests, chop it finely.

Melt the butter in a large, deep saucepan over very low heat. Add one clove of garlic, the bay leaves, and then the cabbage. Grate the apple and then the white wine vinegar, half of the balsamic and half of the sugar. Season with salt and pepper. Stir well. Leave to simmer for around 30 minutes, then check the seasoning. Add the balsamic and sugar as required, for flavour. I cooked this for around 2 hours. Once almost all the liquid has reduced, add the lid and turn the heat right down to the minimum setting.

To serve, plate up the vegetables and cabbage, top with the duck, and the onion and bay leaves from the roasting pan. Add gravy and serve.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

saturday night feast

Cooking meat is a skill most people take for granted, but I am struggling to get to grips with it. I've been vegetarian for around 13 years now, and was vegan for several of those years. While I've managed to get dairy and seafood back into my diet (and with great aplomb too!), I can't quite make the mental leap to eating meat. YET. I love the thought of hearty roasts and really rich cuts of meat, especially in winter. I'm not funny about cooking it or handling it, but I have a limited repertoire. So this week's cooking challenge might seem 'easy', but for me, it represented a great challenge.

I made a crispy duck leg with braised red cabbage, very crunchy roast potato and squash, all served with a redcurrant gravy. I had to take D's word for how it tasted, but there was nothing left except the bone!

In researching recipes for the cooking challenge, I found many varied schools of thought. Cook for 3 hours, cook for 45 minutes, cook under 200ml goose fat, crisp the skin in a pan first, don't fry it at all, bake then crisp. Very stressful! Finally, I decided to wing it (pardon the pun). I made my own marinade and checked the duck every 20 minutes or so.

For entree, we started with chilli prawns. I learned to make this when working at the restaurant. The chef (who I have already told you is one of the best chefs in the world, in my opinion) was kind enough to give me the recipe for her sauce, however she swore me to secrecy. I make the sauce often but keep the recipe to myself.


The main course (cooking challenge of the week):

For dessert, an English classic with a twist: banoffee meringue. So, so, so rich and sickly sweet but absolutely delicious.

This was a fun week and I am pleased to have made a start on learning to prepare duck. Next time, I think I will make a confit.

Happy cooking!dd.x

mushroom stroganoff (cheap and cheerful)

This is a great recipe for anyone who likes hearty meals and is on a shoe string, and it's really low fuss as well.

You will need:

About 750g mushrooms
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
3/4 cup frozen peas
200mL cream
250 mL red wine
2 tablespoons paprika
spring onions/parsley for garnish
2 tablespoons butter
Salt

What to do:

Melt the butter in a large frying pan over moderate heat. Dice the onion and garlic into small cubes and fry them gently in the butter until they've started to brown slightly. Prepare the mushrooms - wipe off any soil and quarter large ones, halve medium ones and leave small ones whole. Add them to the softened onion and garlic mixture. Sprinkle all of the paprika over the top and stir well. Leave to fry for about 5 minutes, stirring half way through. Reduce the heat. The mushrooms should be coloured and softened.

Add 200mL of the red wine and leave to simmer for ten minutes. Add the cream and stir. Reduce the heat to low and cook, covered, for around 40 minutes (checking it every so often). The liquid should have thickened and reduced.

Five minutes before you're ready to serve, add the remainder of the red wine, and the frozen peas, and stir well. Simmer for another few minutes then serve!

Season to taste and serve topped with chopped onions or parsley and with basmati rice (and garlic bread, if feeling decadent!).

happy pancake tuesday!

I hope you got your pancake fix...I did! What better way to serve light, fluffy pancakes than straight off the hotplate and with lemon, sugar and butter?

green soup

After a weekend of over indulging in mayonnaise, frites, waffles, pofertjes and delicious indonesian food (in Amsterdam), I arrived home and wanted something as nutritious and virtuous as possible. I stopped off at the fruit & veg shop and got an armful of green things for this delicious, healthy soup.




You will need:

1 onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, smashed
1 small broccoli
1 bunch of asparagus (about 8 stalks)
1 cup of beans
1 zuchini
1/2 cup peas
1/4 cup capers
1/4 cup loosely chopped basil (plus some for garnish)
2 tablespoons olive oil
About 500g fresh spinach (frozen substitutes fine)
500mL vegetable stock
150mL white wine
Parmesan, freshly grated, to serve.


What to do:

Fry off the onion and garlic until lightly browned, over low heat. Chop the vegetables into smallish slices and add to the saucepan. Cook for approximately five minutes. Add the white wine and leave to simmer and reduce, uncovered, for ten minutes. Add the hot vegetable stock, and reduce the heat to low. Cook, covered, for around 20 minutes.

Once the vegetables are completely softened, remove from heat and use a hand blender to process the soup. Pour it through a colander and return it to the saucepan. Cook for an extra few minutes. Add salt and pepper to season (needs quite a bit of salt, IMO).


Serve with basil and parmesan cheese - I also added truffle oil but obviously that's optional.

Enjoy!

cooking challenge week eight: seafood paella

Paella is a very historic and traditional spanish peasant dish and can there are many, many conflicting recipes for the dish. I've made a pretty simple seafood paella and it was oh so yummy.

You will need:

3 finely chopped garlic cloves
1 large tomato
1 capsicum
1 spanish onion
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 1/2 cups arborio rice (or other medium grain)
200mL dry white wine
1 litre boiling hot vegetable stock
1 tsp good saffron strands (I really think the quality of this dish is so dependant on the quality of the ingredients - use great saffron to get a really rich colour. I get mine from Carluccios and it's the best I've come across.)
2 tsp paprika
Seafood (I used: 8 king prawns, 10 mussels, 2 squid tubes)
Curly parsley
3 tbs olive oil

What to do:

Put the saffron and wine in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Set aside as soon as it starts to bubble. Meanwhile, deseed the tomato and capsicum, then finely dice all of the vegetables.

Get a large, flat frying pan going on moderate heat and add the oil. Gently fry off the capsicum, garlic and onion until softened (approximately ten minutes - onion should be translucent). Add the paprika and stir until the vegetables are coloured, then add the tomato and fry for another few minutes. Add the rice, wine, saffron and stock and bring the boil. Do not stir from this point onwards - paella is supposed to be "flat cooked". Bring the heat right down to low and leave it to simmer for around 10 - 15 minutes.

While this is happening, prepare your seafood. Slice the squid tubes into neat 1cm thick rings. Peel the prawn bodies but leave the heads and tails intact. Lightly rinse the mussels (don't scrub them or the colour will wash off and stain the paella), chip off any barnacles, pull out the beards. If any mussels are open, lightly press them shut and if they don't stay shut, discard them.

Arrange the seafood over the top of the rice and steam it (with a lid on) for five minutes. Add all the peas, some finely chopped parsley and steam for another minute or so. Serve immediately (check the mussels are opened and discard any that aren't. The prawns and calamari should be completely white). Serve with lemon wedges and more parsley to garnish.

a spanish fiesta

Apologies for being a day late. I've just come back from the most amazing long weekend in Amsterdam, so whilst I undertook the cooking challenge on Thursday evening, this is the first chance I've had to upload the pics and recipe.

The recipe of the week is a seafood paella and we absolutely loved it. I've never even eaten a paella, but it's such a romantic and famous meal that I was looking forward to making it. I got great seafood from my local fishmonger and organic fruit and veg from the local grocer.

We started with crumbed spanish olives and a saffron mayonnaise:


Then, the paella (with prawns, mussels and squid):


Then, the Crema Catalana (which we didn't love):


Okee dokie, here's the recipe for the paella!
love,dd.x

fennel and asparagus veloute

The first veloute I ever had was at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant in the uber-deluxe Claridge's. It was an amuse bouche of "fennel veloute with apple". Basically, a very smooth, rich sauce, served as a dainty soup, with tiny cubes of diced apple in the bottom. The apple was very tart and this beautifully cut through the richness of the veloute.

The second veloute I had was also at Claridge's, and that is the sum of my experience. I loved both and wanted to learn to recreate the taste at home. Imagine my surprise, then, when I started researching recipes online and in cook books, and couldn't find a single Gordon recipe that followed a traditional recipe (Veloute is a "mother sauce" in French cooking and is historically a blonde roux mixed with a good quality stock for flavour). In any event, as the flavour I wanted to replicate was what I'd experienced at Claridge's, I opted for a recipe more akin to Gordon Ramsay or Heston Blumenthal.

You will need:

2 medium fennel bulbs
10 stalks of asparagus
3 cloves of garlic
A bouquet garni of fennel seeds, thyme and sage
A few extra thyme stalks
1 small onion
75g butter
200mL dry white wine
150mL double cream
500mL hot vegetable stock

What to do:

Finely slice all the vegetables.

Melt the butter in a large frying pan, over medium heat. Add the chopped vegetables, boquet garni, garlic and thyme and season with salt and pepper. Sweat the vegetables for approximately 25 minutes, until softened and slightly golden. Turn the heat up and add the white wine. Once the liquid has evaporated by half, add the vegetable stock, a ladle at a time. Leave to simmer until again, reduced by half. The soup should be taking on a nice pale green colour by now.

Switch the heat right down and add the cream. After a few minutes, remove from heat and strain through a sieve (or even a colander). Press the vegetables with a spoon to squeeze as much liquid out as possible. Remove the boquet garni and the thyme. Pour the veloute into a saucepan and return to a medium heat. Simmer for 10 minutes or so until slightly thickened and reduced.

Serve as a soup or a sauce (goes brilliantly with poultry or fish).

NB I couldn't handle the thought of tossing the vegetables, once I'd strained them. I added them back to the frying pan and made a delicious, delicious risotto (added blue cheese and spinach). I would never usually let cream touch a risotto but this was better than wasting it all!

cooking challenge week seven: croquembouche (french wedding cake)

This cooking challenge was fantastic. I had a great time with the various phases involved. Although it sounds sort of complex, it's totally worth it, and for "wow" factor, you can't go past it. Plus, who doesn't love pastry puffs with sweet, sweet custard?!

Profiteroles.

You will need:

75g unsalted butter, cubed

3/4 cup water (room temp)

3/4 cup plain flour, sifted

a pinch of salt

3 eggs

What to do:

Preheat oven to 200'c.

Put the water, salt and butter into a large saucepan and bring to the boil. As soon as the water starts to boil, remove from the heat immediately and whisk until the butter has melted.

Return the water mix to a very low heat and add the sifted flour. Beat enthusiastically with a wooden spoon until it forms a thick dough and holds together.

Whisk one of the eggs in a small bowl and then add to the dough. Stir well. Repeat with the second, and then the third. This should form a glossy, moist dough.

Put the dough into a large piping bag with a neat nozzle and squeeze golf ball size portions onto a greased baking tray. If you don't have a piping bag, you can just use spoons. Space them evenly as they will swell in the cooking.

Bake for 25 minutes. The profiteroles should be puffed up and bronzed. Remove from heat and poke a tiny slit in the base of each profiterole to let the hot air escape. Store in an airtight container until ready to pipe the custard in.

The Custard

You will need:

2 cups full fat milk

6 egg yolks

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup plain flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence or slit vanilla bean

1/2 teaspoon other flavour (optional - I used almond essence)

What to do:

Bring the milk and vanilla essence (or vanilla bean) to the boil in a large saucepan then remove from heat.

In the mean time, combine the sugar and egg yolks in a mixing bowl and whisk until doubled in volume (about 2 minutes). Sieve the flour over the top and stir until combined.

Pour the now warm milk into the egg mixture. Add additional flavour if using now. Return to the saucepan and over very low heat, whisk manually until the custard has thickened to your preferred consistency. Refridgerate until the day you're making the croquembouche.

The croquembouche:

Finally, to pull it all together, pipe the custard into the base of the profiteroles. This takes practice and can be a bit messy, but you'll get the hang of it. Each profiterole should "puff" up about .5cm as you fill it with custard. Yum yum.

To make the toffee, put a cup of caster sugar in a bone dry saucepan and set over low heat. don't stir, or add water, just leave it to sit until almost all the sugar has turned into bronze goo. Only then can you whisk any remaining caster sugar (it's a fine balance as you don't want to burn the sugar but if you stir the raw sugar into the melted too early then it will go lumpy). Be very, very careful when working with hot toffee. Set the saucepan onto a safe surface. Dip the base of each profiterole into the toffee and place on a comport or round cake board. After you've placed the first layer, use a spoon to drizzle some more toffee over the tops. Carry on until you've formed a pyramid. (It may become necessary to return the toffee to very low heat again if it gets too hard to work with).

Now, here's the fun part! Poke any decorations of your choosing in between the profiteroles (rose petals, blueberries, mint leaves, raspberries etc) or just leave plain. Using two forks twirl toffee around the outside of the croquembouche. It will form little toffee strands that give it a mystical look.

Just before serving, drift some icing sugar over the top. Delicious!

love, sweet love (happy valentine's day)

Well, friends, this is Valentine's day and love hangs sweetly in air. When thinking about the cooking challenge for arguably the most romantic day on the calendar, I kept coming back to one thing. I wanted to make a dish perfect for lovers to share. Something light and fun yet somehow sensual too. And something traditional and really, really special. What better gift for my valentine then than a Croquembouche... for two. This is often times served as a french wedding cake, and is essentially a delicate pyramid of little pastry puffs stuffed with rich, silky custard, drizzled with sticky toffee to hold it in place. Some bakeries will pour the profiteroles into a cone, then drizzle the candy, however I much prefer a more higgledy piggledy look.

And by now, I suppose you must know that I can never stop at just one meal for a Saturday night. So, here's the photographic history of our foody Valentine's Day. Recipe for the croquembouche coming tomorrow (too much lovely champagne to try to type it accurately tonight!). Here's a hint though: If you're planning a wedding and are on a budget, you really can't go past a croquembouche as a low cost, super high effect wedding cake. The choux pastry (literally "cabbages" in French) is easy peasy and can be prepared in advance, and while the custard takes practice, once you've got the recipe under your belt I don't think you'll regret having it in your repertoire. The assembly needs to be done on the day but is the easiest part of the sweet. Remember, what I made tonight is seriously mini - for two to share. For a big wedding, you would use a cone, and frame the profiteroles around the exterior to make it really tall and elegant. Oh, and it tastes absolutely fantastic.

For lunch, we started with moules mariniere and frites. I love my le creusset love heart dish.



Our entree for dinner: Roast beetroot with goats cheese, caramelised endives and balsamic reduction. I love, love, love the choggia beetroots (the pretty candy stripe ones).


For main course, parsnip and potato gratin with a fennel and asparagus veloute and organic scottish salmon fillet. The veloute was really, really yummy.



And then came the croquembouche.....




To serve it, I broke the croquembouche into profiteroles and made a toffee sauce (used yoghurt instead of cream to break through the sweetness) and added fresh berries.


Finally, just when we thought we would never eat again.. for petit fours, I picked up this divine heart shaped camembert. Ironically, it's from France, and I'm pretty sure they're disdainful of valentine's day. Nonetheless, it was a cute gimick. I also made dark chocolate love heart "freckles" because dark chocolate is my valentine's favourite.

And that was it! Recipe for croquembouche coming tomorrow but if you want recipes for anything else, just email or message me.

Wishing you a very loving and lovely Valentine's day,

dd.x

cauliflower, parsnip and cheddar cheese pie

You will need:

Head of 1 small cauliflower
2 medium parsnips, peeled

2 cloves of garlic

1 small onion

1 cup skimmed milk

2-3 tablespoons cornflour

2 heaped tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup loosely packed grated cheddar (NB you can substitute any grateable cheese - cheddar, parmesan, gruyere would all work great, pardon the pun)

A few gratings of fresh nutmeg

1 tablespoon mustard seeds (optional)

1 sheet of ready rolled puff pastry

What to do:

Preheat oven to 180'c.

Chop the cauliflower into small florets and slice the parsnip into slim rounds. Bring some water to the boil in a saucepan and add the vegetables. Boil for about 4 minutes, until just al dente. You don't want them to go mushy as they'll continue to cook in the oven. Strain once cooked and set aside.

Finely dice the onion and garlic. Put a small amount of butter in a frying pan and sweat the onion and garlic. If you are using mustard seeds, fry them off with the onion and garlic. Remove once translucent (about five minutes) and set aside. Return the frying pan to the hob, on low heat, and add the remaining butter. Once the butter is all melted, sieve the flower into the pan. Stir with a wooden spoon until combined. Slowly pour half the milk into the mix and stir. Add 1/2 the grated cheese. Stir. Add some more milk and continue stirring. Once your white sauce has achieved the consistency of thickened cream, add the strained vegetables, the onion and garlic mix, the remaining cheese and grated nutmeg, salt and pepper to season. Combine well.

Pour the mix into an oven proof dish and lay a sheet of pastry over the top. Decorate with leaves if you'd like. Cut a cross in the middle of the pastry to allow the vegetables to steam. Run an egg wash or some olive oil over the pastry to give it a nice gloss.

Bake at 180'c for approximately 30 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and flaking. Serve with worcestershire sauce, ketchup, mustard, or any condiment of your choice. Great comfort food on a rainy day.

cooking challenge week six: pappa al pomodoro

You will need:

2 kilos of ripe tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 handful of basil
1/4 cup olive oil plus extra for drizzle
Approx 4 - 5 slices of bread
Approx 1 litre boiled water
1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated, plus extra for serving
Salt and Pepper to season

What to do:

Slice your tomatoes in half and deseed them (use a dessert spoon to scoop out the seeded flesh). Some recipes will tell you to use tinned tomatoes but I never have and wouldn't suggest it. This is a great fresh dish. Reserve the tomato pulp for another recipe. it will keep in the freezer.



In a large saucepan, over moderate temp, heat some olive oil and the finely chopped garlic cloves. Sizzle until just about to brown. Reduce the heat right down and add the halved tomatoes. Season with some salt and pepper and a tablespoon of olive oil. Stir well to mix. Add the lid and leave to reduce for approximately half an hour. You might want to check on it every five minutes or so and give it another stir... and it smells so good!

Once the tomatoes have mostly lost their shape, add enough boiling water to cover the tomato mix by abot 2cm. Return the heat to high and leave to simmer for about 10 minutes. If you're making this in advance, take it off the heat at this stage and leave it to rest.

Slice or tear the bread (remove any crusts from store bought bread) and add to the soup. Roughly tear the basil leaves (reserving some for extra garnish) and add them, with the parmesan cheese and olive oil. Stir well and leave to reduce for a further 20 minutes or so. The bread should have completely lost its shape and the soup should basically look like a thick gluggy red mess. Delizioso!! This is called a soup but it has more the consistency of a stew. If there is literally no moisture in your creation, feel free to add a little more water. Just don't go overboard; it's not meant to be runny.


Check the seasoning and add more salt and pepper if required. Serve garnished with an extra drizzle of oil, a grate of parmesan cheese and a few extra shreds of basil.


These quantities should serve four (or two generously!). Enjoy.

the night of the bread soup feast

This week, I found it really hard to get out of Italy. There's something about the simple and fresh flavours of rustic Italian cooking that I absolutely love. And I'm a fiend for Olive Oil. So for this week's cooking challenge, I made a really traditional and simple Italian dish: Pappa al Pomodoro. Babylon online dictionary defines the soup as follows, "The quintessential country dish and one of Tuscany's most famous soups, pappa al pomodoro is made of stale bread and ripe tomatoes...". It's a quintessential Tuscan flavour and relies on the freshest of everything: ripe red tomoatoes (you know the ones, all plump and juicy, yum), garlic, good Olive Oil and fresh basil leaves. The one exception is the bread which can be dry and stale, or straight from the freezer. I used some week old focaccia to avoid wasteage.

To complete the Italian theme for the night, I made a starter of Aubergine Bruschetta. Believe it or not, the best Bruschetta I've ever had is in a French restaurant, in Australia. And it was Aubergine, not the more popular Tomato bruschetta.

For dessert, what else, but Zabaglione? This dessert is said to have originated in the court of the Medicis, in the 16th century, and is another Tuscan favourite. I first tasted Zabaglione when I was 15 and working at one of the most amazing restaurants in the world (imo). Except there it was called Sabayon - the French name. I was surprised by how simple this was to make, though quite the arm workout.

Now onto the recipes..

dd.x

sticky date pudding with hot butterscotch sauce

This is one of my favourite pudding recipes. It's very quick and easy and the ingredients are usually on hand. Plus it stores so well. You can make it in a cake tin, or in muffin trays for individual puddings, and it freezes and reheats great (just wack it in the microwave and it actually gets better!). The sauce lasts really well too. This is a great dinner party dessert - I don't know anyone who doesn't absolutely love this recipe.

You will need:

300g dried dates
2 1/2 cups water
2 tsp bicarbonate soda
150g butter
140g caster sugar
Juice and zest of 1/2 an orange
4 eggs
300g self raising flour

What to do:

Put the dates and water in a deep saucepan and place it on a hob over high heat. Once it comes to the boil, remove from heat and add the bicarbonate of soda. This will fizz (and boil over if you haven't removed it from the heat). Put a lid on the saucepan and set aside.

Cream butter, sugar, orange zest and juice for 5 minutes, until pale in colour. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Sift the flour over the butter mix and gently fold in.

Make sure the bicarb soda has properly dissolved in the date mix, so that there aren't any lumps, then pour into the butter mix. Fold through until well mixed.

Pour into a greased cake tin and bake at 180'c for 40 minutes. Check it's done by inserting a skewer. If it comes out clean, it's cooked. This is a pudding and is meant to be quite moist, so the skewer has always come out a little sticky for me.

For the butterscotch sauce, put equal portions each of cold cubed butter, double cream and soft brown sugar into a saucepan and whisk constantly over low heat. Serve with ice cream or cream.

rummy strawberries (perfect for a wintry night)

One of my favourite recipes for a wintry dessert is rummy berries. It's quick and easy and oh so yummy.

You will need:

1 punnet of organic strawberries, or other.

2 tablespoons of vanilla scented caster sugar

1/4 cup rum

40g butter

cream, ice cream or custard to serve.

What to do:

Melt the butter in a large frying pan, over high heat. Rinse and quarter the strawberries. Once butter is sizzling, add the strawberries and then the sugar. Leave to sizzle for a few minutes, then shake the pan. Add 1/2 the rum and reduce the heat to moderate. After a few more minutes, add the rest of the rum (to taste).

I've served it with homemade vanilla bean ice cream, which I shaped in my very adorable new loveheart silicone muffin trays, and I've also served it with Fortnum & Mason lemon shortbread, but it goes very well with cream or custard as well.