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Duck with Blood Orange and Star Anise

September 27, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi are my favourite chefs at the moment. Not only are Ottolenghi’s restaurants famous, the cookbooks are sensational. Here’s our second experiment with blood orange.

One my aims on this blog is to share my own inventions, but also to share one great recipe from one of the cookbooks on my shelves and encourage you to go an buy it!

Here’s the recipe on his website. It’s the kind of thing that you’d expect from Kylie Kwong, except that she uses blood plums.

The website has lots of sensational recipes here.

I served it on top of a carrot and sweet potato mash, with asparagus and Jerusalem artichokes, and a chilli as garnish. Very, very yummy.

Blood Orange Sorbet with Strawberries

September 27, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

Our blood orange tree is bearing fruit for the second year. Last year we had one orange, but this year we have about 60, although they’re not too large. I love the look, smell and flavour of blood oranges, so we hope to have many years of discovering what we can make with them.

Giorgio Locatelli is my Italian food hero. This sorbet recipe is from his book “Made in Sicily“. Clean, simple and delicious. I’ve described his wonderful magnum opus “Made in Italy” here. Both books are excellent, not only for the recipes but for the local background and stories, and insight into both the produce and restaurant-quality cooking techniques.

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp blood orange juice
Grated zest of 1 orange
1 cup dextrose (we used glucose syrup)
1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp caster sugar

Stir 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp orange juice plus orange zest and dextrose/glucose until smooth. Heat in a pan over low heat, stirring, and bring to 40 degrees C. Whisk in sugar and bring to 85 degrees C.

Take off the heat and put into another container. Out it into the fridge to cool down for an hour or so, then whisk in the remaining orange juice.

Cool in the fridge for several hours or in the freezer for a shorter time.

Use an ice-cream maker to churn until the mixture thickens sufficiently.

We served it with fresh strawberries, halve and mixed with sugar. Next time I’ll try adding some brandy, Cointreau or Grand Marnier.

The colour is spectacular and it was a lovely taste combination.

(Locatelli mentions optional sorbet stabiliser, but I have no idea where you get this.)

Duck Prosciutto

September 27, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

I’ve just made by first batch of duck prosciutto, thanks to a simple recipe in Feast Magazine (Issue 36, October 2014). Tastes excellent.

Duck Prosciutto

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Author: Feast Magazine

Recipe type: --

Cuisine: European

Ingredients

Two 40cm muslin squares
Kitchen string
Wire rack
2 Duck breasts
750 g Coarse sea salt
1 tbsp Fennel seeds (crushed)
1 tbsp Coriander seeds (crushed)
1 tbps White sugar
1 tsp Black peppercorns
5 x 5 cm Orange peel strips
8 Thyme sprigs
8 Sage leaves

Instructions

Rinse duck under cold water and dry with paper towels. Combine salt, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, sugar, black peppercorns and orange peel in a bowl. Find a container that will fit the mixture and the duck snugly. Put halt of salt mixture in container, add duck breasts, then the other half of the mixture, Make sure that all of the duck is well covered, and ad more salt if necessary. Cover and refrigerate for 48 hours.
Rinse duck well under cold running water and dry with paper towel. Place half of the thyme and sage leaves on each piece of muslin. Place each piece of duck skin side down of a piece of muslin. Wrap duck in cloth and tie with kitchen string.
Place duck on a wire rack in the middle of your refrigerator for at least 2 weeks. Ensure that there is good airflow around the duck and turn it every couple of days. Once opened, it will keep for up to 2 weeks.