Twice cooked duck and apricot

Here is how I went about it.
Pricked a large duck skin all over. Put half a roughly chopped onion, five ready to eat apricots and a small bunch of oregano into belly cavity. Tied the legs to the body. 
Put duck into a large enough pan and place into a very hot 300°C oven. Watch carefully, turn around and turn over to crisp up and brown skin. Do not let burn.

Into the slow cooker pot, one small onion, one clove and one stick of celery all finely chopped. three inch strip of lemon peel, small bunch of oregano, not more than half a piece of star anise, eight ready to eat apricots, pepper, one cup of white wine and one cup of water. Be careful the flavourings are delicate, so do not over do it. Place duck on top, cover and on the low setting set for 3.5 hours.

Meanwhile, cut a dozen fresh apricots in half and remove stones.  Sweat off on a gentle heat half a medium onion finely chopped, without browning it. When transparent, raise temperature to high, add a cup of white wine, as it bubbles add the fresh apricots, cut face down. Leave, watch, gently shake until the juices have just about reduced. Kill the heat, cover and leave on the cooling stove.

Remove duck from slow cooker pan and put back into pre-heated oven at 300°C to crisp up skin, it will be done in just a minute or so, so watch it! Set aside to carve. It will be just barely cooked, still very moist, tender with a hint of blood still in the breast. Skin not coming out as crisp as I would like shall have to see if I can improve on this.

Serve with the slow cooker pan juices, take off fat first then just liquidise all apart from the oregano stems and the star anise. Put the fresh apricots back onto a high heat and with a Tblspn of Port bring back to the boil, then serve immediately without burning them. Two contrasting accompaniments to tender, juicy duck. Enjoy

 

cabbage

Sounds boring but this is new tasty twist. One green cabbage head, split into quarters, cut out the cores and outer leafs, then slice on the diagonal into 10mm strips.
Plunge into just boiling water and simmer for about 6 minutes or until the thicker strips are just al dente but not soft. Strain, then use a wooded spatula to squeeze out as much water as you can.
In the now empty but still hot pan, put back on the ring without any heat source, and put in about three Tblspn of sour cream, leave for a moment, stir in the cabbage and two Tblspn of finely chopped basil. Mix well, turn on the heat to high is there is residual water and try to drive off, then, just as you serve pour in the juice from half a lime, mix well and serve. The dark basil makes it an attractive looking dish and the basil and the lime balance well against the 'boring' flavour of cabbage. 

Fish and Watercress Soup.

Tried this out for one of our fasting day meals. Worked so well thought I must share it. Again, no photos. Get so caught up in getting it out, the last thing on my mind is taking a snap. As I remember it, here we go: 

0.5lb of monkfish with inner skin removed. 2pt Light fish stock made from monkfish bones.

Small cauliflower. Break into florets. Take half a handful of the smallest florets, slice the bigger ones until they are even sized and good looking, set aside.

Simmer the remainder cauliflower, including the stalk roughly chopped, in the fishstock until tender.

In a hot pan with a small knob of butter, sear the monkfish on all sides, until the sides are lightly coloured. Set aside to rest. Do not worry about cooking the fish through. In the pan juices sweat off a red chilli, without seeds, cut into to small fine strips. Set aside.

Pick through about 100gm of watercress, reserve a few small neat heads for decoration, put remainder into a blender. Scoop out the cooked cauliflower and put on top, whizz, it will thicken very quickly, add a little hot stock, whizz. Continue until you have a smooth fluid paste. It will have very small flecks of green but otherwise no large pieces.

Cut the monkfish along the length into two or three strips, then slice against the grain on the diagonal into 5mm thick slices.

Put back into a pot, add more hot stock to get the consistency you think is right, bring to simmer, add the reserved cauliflorets, simmer for a minute or so to just al-dente. The longer you cook they more you will lose the watercress peppery taste. Add the sliced fish and chilli. For a finally touch stir in two Tblspn of double cream and serve garnished with the reserved watercress heads. Delicious.

Citrus Salsa

Trying out a lime salsa inspired side dish to go with my John Dory fillets.
Peel and cut pith off one juicy lime. Over a bowl to catch juices, cut the flesh out of the segment membrane, then cut into small pieces. Peel a 2inch of cucumber, cut in half, scrape out the seed then roughly chop. Take a ripe tomato, skin, cut into quarters, deseed and then roughly chop. Finely chop about two tablespoons of red onion. Very finely chop two inches of green chilli, without the seeds. Combine all together, leave to marinate for a couple of hours. Cut lime with walnut oil, about half teaspoon, to taste, you want to keep the tang of the lime fresh, then serve as an aside with the fish.

Spinach Cheese

Chanced on this very good combination, excellent for a starter. Yet again no photo, when will I learn?
It is very fast, so get everything ready before starting. Watchpoints: onion en-dente, dry spinach and do not leave the cheese to heat.

Take about 200gm pre-spring-water washed young spinach leaves. Pick over, nip off any thick stems, discard any spoilt leaves. Grab into one tight bundle and cut across in 1/2inch strips, do not worry if the odd leaf escapes. 

Pre-heat a large and deep covered pan. Medium chop one large white onion, so you have strips say about 5mm x 20mm. Coarsely grated about 2oz of Gruyère cheese. Cut two thick slices of a very good wholemeal loaf, crusts off, toast and set aside to keep warm.

Into the pre-heated pan, a smear of oil, throw in onion, cover over a low heat and watch. No colouring, just turning transparent, test, until soft to bite but still retains crispness. Turn pan to highest heat, off with lid, get the chopped spinach in as soon as possible, turning over with spatula, blend with the onion, as soon as the dry spinach wilts, loses it shape, (it should not throw off any water if the spinach is dry and has not been washed again) take off the heat. Strew with Gruyère, keep turning and let the residual heat of the spinach melt the cheese.

In the meantime soft boil and shell two quail eggs!
Serve immediately on the brown toast, a pile of spinach cheese all topped off with a soft boiled quails egg. Yummy

Crab Rolls

I love Red Mullet, firm sweetish flesh with that shellfish tang. Have not yet come up with the right accompaniment. Getting closer, try these crab rolls. 

Take a large red Karyatis roasted pepper from a jar. Slit along length and open out. Place its length across the top edge of a sheet of cling wrap. Spread a layer of white crab meat along the length leaving 10mm clear of the long edges. Take two kingsized prawns. Lightly cut, no more than halfway through from the inside curl about every15mm so they open out and lay flat. Place along the centre, cut side down. Put two or three stems of chives on either side. Take an anchovy, split in two long lengthways and place alongside the prawn.

Now from the top edge carefully roll the clingwrap, turning the pepper into a roll. Twist off the ends to really tighten up the roll. Place carefully into no more than a soft rolling fish stock, just for a few minutes to warm through. Lift out, set aside to keep warm. When your fish is ready, cut the roll into 20mm discs, slip off the cling wrap and serve.

Aha, remembered to take a photo this time.

crabroll in clingwrap

crabroll with red mullet

Stirfry courgette

On a medium juliet manadolin slice one small carrot, then a medium courgette. Keep separate. In a hot pan over a just off high heat, put in half tablespoon of a mild olive oil. Toss in carrot stir around to soften without colouring. Then add courgette, carry on stirring until it just begins to soften. Then add thin crescents of two ripe sweet tomatoes, stir occasionally in the dying heat, adding 1/8th teaspoon of paprika, a teaspoon of walnut oil and a tablespoon of chopped parsley. Serve immediately. Do not overcook as it will turn mushy, just catch it when the courgette is still slightly al dente. Gave the quantities as I used them. You will need to adjust quantities. The ratio of vegetables to aim at are 1 carrot: 3 courgette: just under 2 tomato.

Remember to take a photo before eating, unlike me. It looks great and has sweet clean flavour.