everyday experiments with food
Yesterday I got out the battery-operated rotisserie for the summer. The chicken was dusted with Herbie’s Lebanese Baharat spice mix, which is has wonderful Middle Eastern flavours. The chicken was stuffed with half a lemon, 2 garlic cloves and a knob of butter. I put more butter under the breast skin.
I cooked it for about 90 minutes and checked the temperature with a probe along the way. During the cook I drizzled it with fresh lemon juice.
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The is duck recipe comes from Diane Holuigue’s “The French Kitchen.”
The figs are poached for 2 mins in a syrup of 2 tbsp sugar, 6 tbsp water and 1 tbsp brandy.
The duck was pan-cooked and then baked. As always I had some difficulty getting the duck right.
The sauce was made in the duck pan with most of the fat drained off. Add 2 diced eschallots and 30g butter and fry very briefly, then add 4 tbsp ginger wine and 300ml chick stock and simmer to reduce to half. Finish by adding 40g butter and season.
I served the duck in cauliflower puree with baked cauliflower, carrot puree (cooked in orange juice), peas and beetroot.
This is the first time that I’ve cooked something form Neil Perry’s “Spice Temple“, although admittedly I changed the recipe somewhat. I got the book just before Christmas. The recipes look fantastic, the photography is stunning, and I can’t wait to dip into it. I highly recommend that you check it out.
The duck came from the book and I made up the salad to go with it. The duck is marinated overnight so plan ahead.
Bring the following to the boil.
1 litre water
1/3 cup sea salt
1 tbsp Szechuan peppercorns, roasted
10cm knob of ginger, bruised
4 cloves garlic, bruised
Place the duck breasts in (I cooked 2), then put it in the fridge to steep. Neil says 18 hours but I went for 12. Take out the breasts and dry them off with a paper towel.
I smoked the duck in a wok lined with a few layers of foil with a wire rack inside. The smoking mixture is 100g jasmine green tea, 100g brown sugar, 100g jasmine rice. Mix together well and place in the wok.
Fire up the gas (do this on an outside gas cooker) and place the wok with lid on top. When it starts to smoke, add the duck breasts, put the lid back on and cook for 15 mins, then turn it off and leave for another 3 mins. My duck seemed a little undercooked. I put it back on the heat for another 5 mins but we all felt later that the smokiness was a bit strong. So if it seems underdone, put it in the oven for a few minutes.
The salad was made from zucchini ribbons, tomato, red onion, snow peas, cucumber, mango, diced chilli, coriander.
I used Neil’s dressing mixture which was 1 tbsp dijon mustard, 3 tsp soy sauce and 3 tsp white vinegar.
As I said, the smoke flavour was a bit strong but I can fine tune that next time. Otherwise a pretty good balance. I only used a little cucumber.
There you have it.
Our Christmas meal is naturally something of a feast, with bits of preparation happening over several weeks, starting with the marinating with the fruit for the Christmas cake. It has become a bit of a tradition to produce a menu as follows (printed back to back and folded).
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