Duck affair

I went over to my friends house last week to cook, an old friend who I hadn't seen for years actually, but a friend who joined me when a group of us dined at Billy Kwong in Surry Hills.

We were so impressed with the duck dished served, with a rich plum sauce, that we decided to try to recreate it, the only difference was that our duck would not be deep fried (something I have found out since and obviously contributes to the interesting texture and absolutely amazing flavour).

I remember having seen the recipe in a Jamie Oliver Cookbook and it very similar to Billy Kwong so the recipe I have used is an adapted version of his.

First thing was first, we needed to find duck breasts. If I had time I would have gone to a suburb where there are a lot of Asian butchers as I know their duck would be fresh and at a good price as it is so highly demanded, but I was too busy at work to leave early so had t settle for the local shopping centre, Broadway, which has an ok butcher inside.

I did find duck breast, and they weren't frozen so that was exciting. However, the price did not excite me at all. It ended up being close to $50/kg, but to try something new, I don't mind paying for it.

Now duck is perfectly complimented with fruity sauces, and some that I have tried include fruits such as plum, orange, pomegranate, grape, papaya (for Thai dishes), but it can really be pared with any fruit, just make sure the fruit is in season.

This is something we found out that day, being May, Plums are not in season. Disappointment overwhelmed us, but we weren't disheartened and chose another fruit which we both enjoyed but some may think not sweet enough. Red Ruby Grapefruit. Sweeter than the regular grapefruit, this citrus fruit can be sour at times, but can also be sweet in peak season, which falls at the end of summer, early Autumn, well I have found in Sydney.

Ok, fruit. Check. Next ingredients to go in this sauce include palm sugar, soy sauce, chilli, cinnamon quills and star anise. It is a simple dish that you pretty much throw everything into a oven proof pot and then slow cook for at least 2hrs.

Once cooked we plated and tasted. It is quite interesting to see how different people's taste buds react. I personally thought it tasted too salty and needed more sugar to offset the bitterness of the fruit, which didn't add as much sweetness as plums would. However my friend thought it was not salty enough and needed more salt to battle this bitterness.

I suppose it is something that we would not agree on as everyone's tastes are different, but we still agreed it tasted really good, thick, plump, tender flesh with the spices, chilli and (bitterness) made it an enjoyable dish.


Duck with Red Ruby Grapefruit

Ingredients

2 large duck breasts
2 tbsps soy sauce
3 spoonfulls five spice
large handful of star anise
2 cinnamon quills
1 tbsp EVOO
1 small chilli chopped (keep seeds to give it a bit of a kick)
2 large Red Ruby Grapefruits, skin on, segmented
3 tbsp Palm Sugar

Method

1. Put all ingredients into an ovenproof pot and coat duck well.
2. Cover and marinate overnight.
3. When read to cook, preheat oven to 160 degrees and cook for 2 hours.
4. Serve and enjoy : )

Celebrating Mothers Day

Today I was so looking forward to cooking for my Mum and spoiling her with a nice dinner, especially since I am never home at nights to eat with the family, as I know that is something she would appreciate.

It was a bit of a hectic day though as we were supposed to meet the rest of the family for coffee in Leichhardt, but due to the rain we went back to my Aunt's house for lunch. Better for me as I was able to bake a cake before we went, as the time got pushed back.......well I told myself I had time. Half an hour isn't that late, and I still had to take the half baked cake to finish off in my Aunt's oven.

The cake I made was a take on a fantastic banana bread recipe I had. Yes I only had two bananas, and no sour cream, but instead I added yogurt, chunks of ricotta and roasted walnuts through it. The reason I think it took a long time to bake was that I added bicarb soda to the yogurt and ricotta mixture and it fluffed up tremendously. This affected the cake whilst baking as it rose a lot and was very light and fluffy but just would not bake in the centre. It did turn out lovely and everyone dug in, but I think cooking it at a lower temperature for longer (and being patient) would have been the way to go.

After we had enjoyed lunch and dessert tragedy struck when my Yiayia, who is 86, fell and broke her wrist. Straight to hospital she went and she was put in a cast. I came home while my Mum and her sister were at the hospital, to prepare dinner. I really wanted to make Mum the lamb shanks I made a couple of weeks ago with the cous cous salad, but slightly alter the salad a bit to compliment the meat.

See lamb recipe

As pomegranate's are going out of season and aren't very good at the moment, I decided to do a Moroccan style cous cous salad which was simply chopped dates, roasted almonds, olive oil, and lemon juice. It was a nice and fresh salad which could be enjoyed by itself, but was the perfect sponge to soak up the juices from the lamb.

One last thing I wanted to try, since I had quite a few garlic bulbs, was roasted garlic. So I put 2 bulbs in a ramekin drizzled with olive oil and roasted them in an oven at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes. After 10 I placed alfoil over the top so they would not burn. They turned out sticky and caramelized with a texture that makes it hard to not get them stuck in our teeth or at the top of our mouth. They were devoured by all of us and it was the one thing my Dad actually said he really enjoyed from the meal......well at least that is one tick.

Although we were all a bit preoccupied taking care of my Yiayia, we all sat down at the table together and enjoyed a meal, which is something we haven't done in a long time, and I'm sure Mum would have appreciated that.

Happy Mothers Day

I wrote this post also to share with the viewers of Kopiaste, written by an amazing and passionate foodie, Ivy. I am constantly on her site looking up other ways of preparing traditional Cypriot recipes, which I know my family and especially my Mum would love.

I hope you all like the post.

A night in Lebanon

I feel really compelled to write tonight. I just had a really good friend over for dinner, someone I have known for years. I wanted to cook meat, as I know I don’t eat it enough and need to make time to prepare it. As my favourite cuisines are middle eastern I decided to do lamb and use the following base ingredients which are very prominent in this style of cooking: garlic; lemon; parsley; pomegranate; almonds; and cumin.

I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare anything amazing, so I had to think of something which was easy to whip up yet still impressive. My friend, Brad, was bringing over cous cous and greens so I figured I’d do a simple salad with the cous cous however, I couldn’t try to add to many flavours to both as they could possibly clash and overwhelm each other.

Once I went to the butcher to buy the meat I decided how to do the lamb. I bought lamb shanks (which I have cooked before Moroccan Style) and this is similar but Lebanese use a few different spice mix. While Moroccan is generally cumin, paprika, cinnamon, lemon, red chilli and olive oil, for a standard spice mix, Lebanese uses cumin, garlic, lemon, green chilli and olive oil. I also added green olives and let the shanks just braise for about an hour, till they were soft and the liquids had reduced to a thick sauce.

The cous cous honestly took about 7 minutes to prepare, quicker if I hadn’t forgotten about the almonds toasting in the griller….which I smelt after they were well and truly charred.

Such a simple, healthy meal which is full of amazing flavours, and is impressive if you have time constraints. I am so satisfied after enjoying it too, I didn’t even want dessert, which is very rare for me.

The one thing I did not do however, was take photos. I was enjoying the cooking and the conversation that I didn’t want to take time out to set up the shots this particular time….but don’t worry, I’ll be cooking tomorrow night and will definitely document that in images.

Lamb braised with garlic, lemon and green olives

3 cloves garlic
½ Spanish onion
1 green chilli, with seeds
2 lemons
Cumin
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
1 ½ cups Chicken Stock
3 lamb shanks

Method

1) Chop garlic, onion and chilli finely. Sautee in a pot with EVOO on a low heat until onions translucent.
2) Add lemon juice, cumin, stock to pot and then season. Add shanks and mix around so they get coated in liquid. Simmer with a lid on for at least an hour. (You must monitor the amount of liquid and every so often turn the shanks so they are immersed in liquid. If it starts to dry up, add extra water).
3) Serve with cous cous and greens (see below)


Pomgranate, Almond, Parsley and Lemon Cous Cous

½ pomegranate
1 ½ cups almonds
parsley
1 lemon, juiced
1 ½ cups cous cous
EVOO

Method

1) Clean Pomegranate seeds into a bowl.
2) Toast almonds until browned, then once cooled, crush or cut coarsely.
3) Chop up parsley very finely.
4) Put cous cous in a large bowl and add 1 cup boiling water, a generous drizzle of EVOO and lemon juice then mix until absorbed well. If it is too dry, add more water. Should be moist and fluffy.
5) Add pomegranate, almonds and parsley to cous cous and stir through, adjusting amount of lemon juice to your liking.

Moroccan Braised Lamb Shanks with Soft Polenta

Preparation time: 30 mins
Cooking time: 4hours

Ingredients
- 3 Large Lamb shanks
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 onions
- 1 cup water
- 400g (1 can) diced tomatoes
- 400g chickpeas
- 3 cups spinach leaves
- 1/2 cup polenta
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 1 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp grated Parmesan

Morrocan Spice Mix
- 2 tsps cumin
- 1 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsps crushes coriander seeds
- 1 1/2 tsps dried chilli

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. Saute garlic, onions and spice mix in olive oil until onions go translucent.
3. Add tomatoes and water and bring to the boil.
4. Place lamb shanks in an ovenproof dish and pour tomato mixture over the lamb and cover tightly with either aluminium foil or a lid so that the liquid does not evaporate. Cook for 2 hours.
5. Add chickpeas and then reduce temperature to 150°C, then cook for another 2 hours.
6. Half an hour before serving make the polenta by bringing the chicken stock to boil, then add the polenta in a thin stream, stirring constantly. If the mixture gets too dry too quickly, add extra water and cook over a medium heat for 10 minutes.
7. Stir butter and parmesan into polenta.
8. Take lamb out of the oven and stir through spinach leaves.
9. To serve, place half the polenta into each bowl then top with lamb shanks and some liquid from the casserole dish.

Catching that rabbit

Upon the day I was to arrive home from apartment sitting we were having a long family lunch so we can all catch up around a table, talk and enjoy good food.

I wanted, as per usual, to cook with a meat I have not used before but in particular some sort of game. I was tossing up between Quail, Duck and Rabbit when my choice was made for me. I walked into Black Bull Butchery, Potts Point. I had had duck the night before for dinner so I was not too interested in cooking with it so soon. So my choices narrowed. I walked to the fridge where the game was kept. No rabbit. No Quail. I inquired. There was quail available in the freezer at the back and were frozen in packs of two OR the butcher had just gotten in a fresh whole rabbit that day that he was happy to prepare for me however I would have liked it. Now really the choice stops here, fresh produce or frozen meat.

Even though I was quite set on cooking quail wrapped in vine leaves on a rocket salad with feta and a pomegranate sauce, and had gone into Fratelli Fresh for a week straight asking when they were getting pomegranates in again, I was very excited that I was given such a piece of game. I could do anything with it, stew it, grill it, slow roast it, stuff it, roll it.........
I needed some inspiration so I went over to the bookshop and looked through a few Italian cookbooks. As it was a warm summers day I did not want to make a stew or a roast so I was immediately limiting my palate of styles. I came across a Ligurian recipe for a stuffed and rolled whole rabbit which was to be poached and then pan fried.

This seemed very interesting and had scope to be played with a bit. So I walked back to the butcher and asked him to de-bone and butterfly the rabbit for me. Once done I had to go shopping for ingredients. I remember the first time I had rabbit it was rolled into the shape of a cigar and wrapped in filo pastry. Although a very strong flavoured meat I fell in love with its earthy characteristics and how well it worked with the crisp and buttery filo, so I wanted to integrate this into the recipe.

The stuffing was made of pistachio's, parsley, lemon thyme and garlic. I ground it up in the mortar and pestle and laid out my beautiful rabbit. I smeared the stuffing all over the meat and then rolled it as tightly as I could trying not to let it unroll. I then wrapped it in this strips of pancetta and tied it tightly with butchers string. At this point I was supposed to poach it but I was wear of poaching the pancetta and thought it to be silly to add the pancetta after poaching as it would be very fiddly to attached so I instead wrapped the whole roll in filo pastry, which were only lightly oiled as the fat from the pancetta would seep through whilst I baked the whole log.










I added diced baby fennel to the baking dish as this is a vegetable which works excellently with game due to its strong flavours which some find unattractable whilst raw, but when roasted they soften slightly and become sweeter and not so strong in aniseed.




Once baked I cut the log into slices and then pulled out the string. I actually forgot about the filo part of my plan while tying, but that is ok, it was easily fixed. This was the end result. I will admit that due to not being used to a fan forced oven I might have slightly overcooked the meat, which was not as soft as I imagined, but still very tender and with an amazing flavour, not too strong as it was not a wild rabbit...........but possibly comparable to chicken (Jaime Oliver's words, not mine)