duck and fennel risotto

As my regular reader will know, we eat a lot of risotto, but curiously I haven’t made one for ages. We roasted a duck over the Easter weekend, and when I boiled up the carcass for stock, quite a lot of meat came off.

Meals for the next few days had been sort of planned, so I stuck the meat in the freezer for a rainy day.  It didn’t rain yesterday, but there was a bulb of fennel that needed eating up, so the duck was pressed into service.

For two people, use 5oz of risotto rice to 1 pint of  liquid.  For this one, I used the juice of a lemon, some rice wine (well, it was handy!) and water to make it up, with a good pinch of Marigold vegetable powder.

Sliced the fennel fairly thinly, and chopped a red onion, and set them to sauté in some oil and butter. When they were soft, I added the rice and stirred it around to coat it, then started to add the liquid a slosh at a time.  Stir it around until the rice has absorbed it, then add more.  Strictly speaking, you’re supposed to keep the liquid simmering, but I generally don’t bother.  I seasoned with salt and black pepper at some point during the proceedings.

The duck got added with the last slosh of liquor.  The whole process took about 20-25 minutes.  It was very nice.

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I love my slow cooker, I do …

It’s currently turning a duck carcass into stock, without me having to rush down every now and again and check the heat, check it’s not boiling over, etc.

And then there will be Duck Soup for lunch at the weekend.  Or possibly a Night at the Opera, or Even a day at the Races.

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pork with leek and peppers

The great freezer transfer disgorged a box of pork fillets, so I though I’d cook one last night.

I cut it into thin strips, and fried it up in some olive oil, then set it aside.  Then into the pan went a big knob of butter, a few sliced mushrooms, a yellow pepper deseeded and cut into strips, and two elderly leeks, chopped into rounds.  Fried them down a bit, while I rummaged in what’s left of the herb garden for some sage.

Finely chopped the sage and threw it in, together with about 3/4 of a mug of good apple juice.  I recommend you keep apple juice in your store cupboard - it makes a really nice change from stock or wine for cooking.

Seasoned with salt and black pepper, put a lid on it, and set it over a low heat.  I guess it had about 20 minutes in all, but the pork was well cooked before I got to this stage - I’m a bit paranoid about cooking pork well.

We had a bowl of cooked spuds in the fridge, which had been destined for an Easter fry up breakfast which never materialised.  So I cut them up, and fried them in olive oil and butter to go with the pork.

Fab.

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three pig stew

Or, I suppose, a sort of goulash :)  The transfer of contents from one freezer to another has brought forth some nice things.  There’s a whole Gressingham duck defrosting for today’s Easter feast, and there was also a couple of nice pieces of belly pork, and some uncooked chorizo sausages.

I skinned a piece of belly pork, cut it into chunks, and fried it in olive oil in batches, until the pieces were crispy.  Into the same oil went a packet of pancetta cubes, which were fried for a few minutes, then I added a chopped onion, some garlic, and four chorizo sausages, cut into slices.  Oh, and some cumin seeds, and a couple of teaspoons of smoked paprika. Fried these gently until the onions were translucent, then added a tin of tomatoes, a glass or so of red wine, and salt and black pepper.

Tipped everything into the slow cooker, added some haricot beans (which I had soaked and cooked yesterday), and waited six hours.

Served it with rice - lovely.

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a pound of mince? Meatballs!

As mentioned, we had a pound of mince to use up, as it wouldn’t fit into the new freezer regime.

I minced some garlic and a shallot, and chopped some fenugreek leaves small, while Pete ground spices (black cumin, lots of coriander seeds, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamon, allspice, black pepper), and made that lot into meatballs with a bit of sea salt.  It made 16, I think.

I cut an onion in half and half again, and cut it into thin rings, then fried it in ground nut oil (together with more garlic) till it was translucent.  Then we added more spices (more coriander and cumin, ajwain, nigella, fennel) and cooked it down for a bit.  In went a jar’s worth of roasted yellow peppers, sliced thin, and I set it to cook over a low heat.

I browned the meatballs in more groundnut oil, and tipped them (and the oil) into the pepper sauce.  Left them to cook while I did some basmati, to which I added a shallot, some cardamon seeds, and a generous pinch of Marigold veg bouillon.

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an elderly tin of butter beans

We had planned to go out for lunch today, but of course the delivery of Shelves! to sort out the shed once the big freezer is Freecycled today has not yet turned up, so we didn’t dare leave the house.  And there wasn’t much in for lunch.

So I rummaged in the tin cupboard and found some butter beans.  Drained and rinsed them, looked at the bottom of the tin … and tasted them.  They were fine.

Fried up a packet of pancetta cubes.   Into a bowl they went, with the beans, a finely chopped small onion, a packet of seeds, some parmesan shavings, some torn basil leaves, and a dressing of olive oil, walnut oil and red wine vinegar.

I filled a couple of wheaten wraps with the result, which promptly fell apart - I have no idea how you get these things to behave.  Made a very nice change.

“How old were the beans?” I hear you ask.  Um … best before November.  2002.  Oops.

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freezer consolidation

The new freezer has arrived, been unpacked, stowed under the stairs, left to stand, and then switched on till it’s properly cold.

We have transferred everything from the old (bigger) freezer - of course there was far more stuff in there than we realised, and so some stuff has been left out to cook in the next couple of days, and  the kittins will be very pleased that we have found some lamb offal for their Easter treat.

So look out for posts on:

• one small piece of gammon - very salty, if I recall correctly, so it’s soaking now, and I’ll change the water several times
• one pound of mince, which will be tonight’s supper in some shape or form, providing it thaws sufficiently
• one piece of belly pork, which I think I might try in the slow cooker with lentils, but haven’t decided yet.

And we have enough beef to open a market stall (but it did all go in)  …

Now then - if anyone in the Bristol area would like a nice 3/4 height freezer, it’s theirs for the taking away.

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pineapple upside down cake

This always seems to me like a very 80s thing, and indeed I got the recipe from a cookbook printed in 1977 (The Dairy Book of Home Cooking).

We had half a pineapple left from making pork and pineapple, and decided an upside down cake would be a good thing to do with it.  It was already chopped up, and I decided against the glace cherries too, but it was jolly nice nonetheless.

Take 2oz of soft brown sugar and 2oz butter, and melt together in a pan.  Tip the resultant gloop into the bottom of a greased, 20cm round cake tin.  Put the pineapple on top.

Put 8oz self raising flour, 1 tsp of vanilla essence, 2 eggs, 4oz butter and 4oz caster sugar into the food processor and blitz.  I guess you could use a food mixer - cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla essence, fold in flour.

Transfer it to the cake tin, bake at 180/gas 4 for about 1hr 10 minutes.

Very retro :)

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chickpea and vegetable tagine

Sorry for the lack of posts - too much work, combined with end of year accounts and VAT return due - and the new freezer due for delivery at the end of this week (hurrah!) has meant that  we are eating out of the freezer, mostly.  It’s stuff we’ve cooked and frozen, but not very exciting to write about.

Anyway, we had a running about day on Saturday, so I thought I’d do a slow cooker thing for when we got home.  I soaked a stack of chickpeas on Thursday night, and slow cooked them on Friday in readiness.

Then on Saturday morning, I fried up a chopped onion in olive oil, while Pete roasted and ground some spices (cumin, coriander, allspice, and can’t remember what else). I whizzed up some garlic, fresh ginger and a red chilli and added that to the pan, then added a chopped up aubergine and yellow pepper to the pan (both of which were getting close to their end), together with the spices, and stirred it about until the veg were all softened and coated with spices.

Into the slow cooker they went with the chickpeas and some vegetable bouillon, and out we went.  When we came back, I sneaked a little taste and it was very hot - the chilli was mild so I left the seeds in, and it was a tad vicious.  I soaked some dried apricots in boiling water for ten minutes, and hurled them in, and added a little honey, then we rushed off out again.

That sweetness made all the difference - ’twas lovely.

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a weekend’s cooking

We had already set aside Saturday evening to make a batch of Pete’s Wondrous Chilli - the beans were boiled and slow-cookered on Friday night, and we set to and made it yesterday afternoon.  4lbs of lovely Dexter stewing beef was turned into 10 really rather generous portions; we shall have  some for supper tonight, and four tubs have gone in the freezer.  We cooked it overnight in the slow cooker, and the smell drove us quite demented.

Yesterday, Pete sallied forth with his bicycle and trailer to do the shopping, and returned bearing (amongst lots of other things) two huge bunches of herbs; one of coriander, and one of fenugreek, which I’ve never seen before in its fresh form.

The coriander was easy - we found four chicken breasts in the freezer (we are really getting it under control now!) and a batch of lemony coriander chicken is in the slow cooker now.

I’ve never cooked with fenugreek before, but we put some leaves in the chilli (well, why not?!).  I also minced up the last of the breast of lamb we had last week, grated up carrot, celery and onion, chopped garlic and fried it up with the lamb. Added my version of the Ras El Hanout spices I love so much*, and bunged in about a cup full of lentils. And more fenugreek. That’s currently cooking slowly downstairs on a diffuser, for a moussaka in the week.

I’ve had enough now, although I might just whip up a pear and chocolate crumble, as there are pears that need eating. (Pete has just said “ohmigod”).

* I should have made a note, but I used lavender, rose petals, paprika, cloves, cinnamon, ground ginger, galangal, coriander seeds, cardamon seeds, peppercorns, mace.  It might not be authentic, but it smells nice.

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