Amanda's Duck and Quail Egg Salad

When my friend Amanda came into work one morning telling me about a delicious sounding salad she had made, there was only one thing to do... I shamelessly used my blog as a way of not only acquiring the recipe (and some really great photos), but also scoring  a serve for lunch, and it did not disappoint... It was reduckulously good (I know, that one was bad). Here is the recipe, make it quack smart!

Here's what you'll need (serves 6):

• 1 roast duck from your Asian Grocer. (Amanda gets hers "chop chop", and says that they will even debone it for you if you ask).
• 9 quail eggs (if you can't get hold of Leanne's itty bitty silkie chook eggs because she won't answer her phone).
• 2 bunches of watercress
• 4 sticks of celery
• 4 carrots
• 3 tbsp pickled pink sushi ginger
• Coriander leaves
• Birdseye chili (optional)

      Dressing

• 1 nip Rum
• 1 cup Coke
• 1 slice of lemon
• Ice
• Sesame oil
• Soy sauce
• Liquid from pickled pink sushi ginger
• Rice wine vinegar
• White sugar

Method:

Wash salad veg and chill in the fridge.

Prepare dressing. Start with a base ratio of about 3:2 / sesame:soy in a small jug. Mix.

Combine the rum and coke in a glass and pour over ice. Garnish with lemon. Drink (this is a very important step in Amanda's recipe. She stated that this is crucial in preparing your taste buds for the following, and who am I to argue). Add the remaining ingredients and combine to taste.

Cover the eggs with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 30 seconds then run under  cold water so they don't continue to cook.

 While the eggs are cooking slice the carrots and celery into thin sticks. Slice chili. Arrange the watercress in a bowl and add the celery and carrot sticks. Peel the eggs and halve.

If the duck is not warm, give it a quick blast in the oven. Remove the bones if not already deboned and toss into salad.

Add the eggs, pickled pink ginger, coriander and chili.

Pour over the dressing, toss salad, pour another rum and serve.

Spag to Bol You Over...

Spaghetti Bolognaise holds a very special place in my heart/stomach. Not only is it the ultimate comfort food, but it was the first thing that I ever learnt to cook. I have been tweaking my recipe for almost 5 years now and feel I can no longer keep it's deliciousness to myself....

Here's what you'll need (serves 6):

• 500g pork mince
• 500g beef mince
• 100g pancetta, roughly chopped
• 2 carrots, grated
• 2 zucchini, grated
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 200g mushrooms, sliced
• 2 small red chillies, finely chopped
• 1 cup red wine
• 1 cup beef stock
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• 2 x 400g cans diced tomatoes
• 415g tomato paste
• 1 cup of basil, roughly chopped

In a large saucepan fry the onion, chilli and mushrooms until softened. Add the garlic, carrot,zucchini, mince and pancetta and cook stirring for 1 minute. Add the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, stock, brown sugar and red wine. Season with salt and pepper and simmer over low heat for one hour or until sauce has thickened (really, the longer you have to simmer this puppy the better. Sometimes I cook it all day in the slow cooker and it turns out AMAZING). Stir through chopped basil. Serve with spaghetti (or pasta of your choice) and a liberal sprinkling of grated parmesan.



Apologies for how messy this plate looks. I was so hungry by the time I had finished cooking, and it smelled so damn good that I was in no mental state to take a good picture...







Kat's Purrrfect Fish Bake

I like to wander around my office at lunch time as people tend to offer me samplings of their lunches (I have even come back to my desk to find sandwich halves on my keyboard, true story). I always partake in these offerings because a) I'm mostly always hungry, and b) well, pretty much because I'm always mostly hungry! But the day my friend/work colleague/ fellow blogger Kat offered me a morsel of her fish bake, that's when I hit the jackpot. This dish tasted so delicious that I'm pretty sure for a moment my eyes rolled into the back of my head. I begged her to email me the recipe, not only so that I could share it with you, but mostly because I wanted to be able to make it for myself ASAP! Not only did she deliver on emailing me the recipe, but she also provided pictures, which pretty much brings her up to best friend status in my book. In her own words:"The bake has a layer of onions and fennel, then topped with a lovely layer of flaky fish, crunchy potatoes and breadcrumbs with a little cheese and cream. It is the epitome of winter warmth in your mouth".

 
Here's what you'll need (serves 4, or just 1 if you plan on spending a night in, eating in front of the TV):

• 400g potatoes, scrubbed and finely sliced
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic peeled and chopped
• 1 onion, peeled and sliced
• 1 bulb of fennel, trimmed and sliced (Kat uses leek as a substitute)
• 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
• 4 medium or 8 small fillets of trout, pin boned (Kat has never actually cooked it with trout, She uses 2 fillets of salmon - skin on)
• 285mL single cream
• 2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra for sprinkling
• 2 anchovy fillets
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 handfuls of fresh breadcrumbs (sourdough bread is perfect for this)
• 2 lemons halved

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C.

2. Parboil the sliced potatoes in salted boiling water for a few minutes until softened and then drain in a colander.

3. Place a 20cm casserole type pan on low heat, and add oil, garlic, onion, fennel (or leek) and fennel seeds.

4. Cook slowly for 10 minutes with lid on, stirring every so often

5. Take pan off the heat. Lay trout (or salmon) fillets skin-side up over the onion and fennel.

6. Mix together your cream, parmesan and anchovies, season with salt and freshly ground pepper and pour over fish.

7. Toss the potato slices in a little olive oil, salt and pepper and layer these over the top of the fish.

8. Place in the oven for 20 minutes, sprinkling with the breadcrumbs and a little grated Parmesan 5 minutes before the end.

9. Serve with lemon halves.

Most Eggsellent Pumpkin, Broccoli and Mushroom Frittata

A couple of weeks ago, my work colleague Leanne generously (and most kindly) gave me a dozen eggs laid by her very own Chinese Silkie hens.

Not only are these hens the most adorable little chickens I have ever seen (I just want to pick one up and give it a cuddle), but the eggs they lay are just as cute...

Cute and also delicious, which is how I prefer all my food to be. To take full advantage of this most eggseptional gift I decided to make an eggstremely tasty frittata.


Here's What You'll Need (Serves 4):

• 1 1/2 tbs butter
• 1 1/2 tbs brown sugar
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 500g piece butternut pumpkin, cut into 2cm pieces
• 2 heads of broccoli, roughly chopped
• 200g mushroom, sliced
• 1/2 cup thickened cream
• 6 eggs
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan

Melt the butter into a frying pan over low heat. Add the sugar and stir until it dissolves. Increase the heat and add the onion, garlic and mushrooms. Cook, stirring for 10 minutes or until onion has softened and caramalised. 

Meanwhile, add the pumpkin and broccoli to a saucepan of salted boiling water and boil for 5 minutes or until tender. Drain and then add to onions in the frying pan.

Whisk the eggs and cream togethe and season with salt and pepper. Pour mixture over the veggies and cook uncovered, over low heat for 10 minutes or until egg mixture is almost set but the top is still runny. 

Sprinkle the frittata with the parmesan and cook under the grill for 5 minutes or until the top is golden. Take out of the grill and let it rest for 5 minutes. Eat with the realisation that it doesn't matter what came first the chicken or the egg, because either way you end up with something delicious.

Drink This if You Know What's Good For You

My yogi friend Muz (or as I like to call him NaMuzte),  introduced me to this wonderful Turmeric concoction. Before this I had been completely unaware of the many wonderful health benefits of Turmeric. Not only is it a natural liver detoxifier and painkiller, but it also aids in fat burning, who knew? Needless to say, I now sip on this deliciously warming Turmeric drink first thing every morning and expect to live until at least 125.

Here's What You'll Need:

• 2 teaspoons of ground turmeric
• 2 teaspoons of organic honey
• juice of half of a lemon
• grated ginger to taste

Mix the turmeric in a mug with a little hot water to form a paste. Add the rest of the ingredients and top up with hot water (you may need to add more honey, ginger or lemon depending on your own tastes). Sip on this refreshing drink while justifying to yourself that you can indeed have some more chocolate because turmeric aids in fat burning, right?

An Outs-Dan-Ding evening

I was lucky enough to be invited to my friend Daniel's house one evening for dinner. As much as I love to cook there is something wonderful about eating a meal that has been prepared for you, and when I found out that Beef Wellington was on the menu (something I had never tried before), I admit I may have shed some tears. I'll also confess that my eyes started to well up when Dan described the delicious layers that make up a Beef Wellington, but crying over food is something I have no control over! I'm not one to cry over spilled milk, but I am one to cry over a delicious meal, especially when it looks like this:



Dinner consisted of Beef Wellington, honey carrots and creamed spinach. The beef wellington was everything that I imagined it to be and the carrots I could have continued eating all night. The fact that the main course was followed by chocolate mousse, let's just say if I had died that night, I would have been one very happy lady!

Here's what you need to cook one Outs-Dan-Ding meal:

Beef Wellington

 

• 500g beef fillet 
• 500 g mushrooms
• 8 slices of Parma ham
• Dijon mustard for brushing beef fillet
• 400g puff pastry
• Egg wash
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• 1 glass white wine
• Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
• Extra virgin olive oil

Method

 

Preheat oven at 220\'C.Season beef with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Heat a pan with olive oil and fry beef on high heat until is brown. Let to cool.In food processor mix mushrooms, onion and garlic. Add this puree on the pan and fry for a few minutes. Add a glass white wine and let to evaporated alcohol.On the plastic foil put first layer Parma ham, then mushrooms puree and beef (brushing beef with mustard). Easy roll all in plastic foil and keep on fridge for 30 minutes.Unwrap the meat from the cling film.. Roll out the pastry and put the meat on the center. Egg wash the edge of the pastry and roll up the pastry. Turnover and egg wash over the top. Mark the pastry using the back of a small knife to make a cross hatch.Baking at 220\'C for about 30-35 minutes. Rest a few minutes before using.

Honey Carrots

 

• 2 kg large carrots
• 150g butter
• 50g brown sugar
• A few big dollops of honey

 

Method

 

Pre-heat oven to 150OC. Peel and chop carrots 1-2 cm thick. Place roughly in an oven proof dish. Chop butter and place on top. Sprinkle sugar over the carrots and butter. Place in oven for three hours, taking out and mixing through every half an hour. If carrots start to burn turn the oven down slightly. After three hours take out and drizzle honey over the top. Mix through and place back in oven for a couple of hours. Carrots will be ready when they are dark (but not burnt in colour), slightly shriveled, and chewy.

Chocolate Mousse



300g good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken into small pieces
sea salt
8 large eggs, preferably free-range or organic
100g caster sugar (4½ heaped tablespoons)
300ml double cream


Method


Place the dark chocolate and a tiny pinch of salt in a heatproof bowl and sit it over a pan of gently simmering water, making sure the water doesn’t touch the base of the bowl. Leave to slowly melt, stirring occasionally.


Meanwhile, separate your eggs so you have the whites in one bowl and the yolks in another. Add the sugar to the bowl of yolks and beat until the sugar has dissolved and its silky and smooth. Whisk the whites with a tiny pinch of salt until they form soft peaks – you should be able to hold the bowl upside down over your head without them falling out! In a third bowl, beat the cream until slightly thick and just whipped.


Once the chocolate has melted, carefully lift the bowl out of the pan. Tip in the cream and mix again, then fold through the melted chocolate until it’s well combined and a gorgeous colour. Finish by tipping in the egg whites, then keep folding, from the outside in in a figure-of-eight until the mix is smooth and evenly coloured. It will look a bit dodgy at first, but trust me it will come together. Spoon or ladle the mousse into a big serving bowl or divide between little glasses or cappuccino cups and pop in the fridge for an hour or two until set...

 

 Daniel is in the process of getting his own catering business up and running, and if the above meal was anything to go by, it is going to be a great success. Watch this space, as I'm sure there will be plenty of delicious recipes of Daniel's to follow (If it sounds like I am trying to wheedle my way into having another meal cooked for me... You would be correct).