Saturday 28 June - Richard Corrigan Cookathon

Monthly Cookathon Time in the Facebook group, and this month the chosen Chef was Richard Corrigan.
I don't own any of his books, but a quick Google showed a wide choice of recipes available online.

We chose Duck with Apples, Calvados and Black Pudding, and two puddings - Creme Brulee (because I can never get this right), and a Flourless Chocolate Sponge. The other advantage of these two is that I can use up some of the egg mountain that is growing in my kitchen.

I started with the brulee as this needs to be served chilled.

Cream and vanillla were heated, and then added to egg yolks and sugar to make a custard

This was poured over some fresh raspberries and cooked in a bain marie until set but not firm, and then chilled until ready to add the crisp topping.

The chocolate cake was effectively a chocolate mousse, cooked for a very short time so it set slightly.  Melted chocolate was stirred into egg yolks and finally egg white folded in before baking

 

Next the duck, we had some frozen duck breasts from Lidl which weighed 450g, so rather than serve one per person, we had one between three of us.

I deviated slightly from the recipe here due to the size of the piece of meat, and started it off skin side down to crisp it in a frying pan, but finished off in the oven. Once cook it was rested and sliced.

For the sauce wedges of apple were fried in butter, before flambeeing in calvados, then chicken stock and cream were added.

The duck was sliced and  served with some fried black pudding (the recipe called for Morcilla but we used Bury Black Pudding) and some shredded blanched leeks along with the apple wedges.

Although not in the recipe, we served some veg along with this as we had been to the allotment earlier and picked loads of beans and courgettes.

After this the Creme Brulee was finished off with a blow torch.

The chocolate cake cut into big wedges, and served alongside.

As my ramekins are quite big, the brulee would have been better with a few more minutes cooking, but considering the previous disasters I've had with this I was pretty pleased with the result!

Sunday 8 June - Spicy Bean Burgers

These bean burgers are based on a Jack Monroe recipe, but with a few little twists.
I was delighted to be able to use the borlotti beans that we grew on the allotment last year and dried. They cooked loads quicker than supermarket beans too.

The beans were mashed with grated carrot, onion, garlic, chillies, chopped pepper, and some cumin and chilli powder which were fried together until soft.

The mix was chilled, then formed into burger shapes, and  dipped in egg and panko crumbs before frying

I made burger buns, topped with sesame to serve them in

and some potato wedges, tossed in semolina and cajun seasoning before oven roasting

The burgers were chilled and fried, then served in the buns with cheese, mustard, tomato slices and gherkins, with the wedges  on the side

We made enough to be able to freeze both the buns and the burgers for another meal later in the week.

Friday 30 May - Chicken In A Cashew Nut Sauce

We have made a tradition of having curry every Friday, and getting a bit bored with the same ones every week. So I invested in a couple of Reza Mahamad books from Amazon. So far three recipes have been attempted, and all of them have gone down really well.

Tonights choice was Chicken in a Cashew Nut Sauce, and once I'd started cooking it I wondered what I was letting myself in for...

First stage was cashew nuts soaked for a couple of hours, and then blended to a paste

 

We also had to obtain the food of my nightmares -  a fresh coconut, which was grated

 

The next stage was to dry fry various spices, along with garlic, ginger and onions, and then add the grated coconut and fry for about 10 minutes.

 

The spice mix was blended to a paste with water, and then fried for 10 minutes before adding the cashew nut paste, and some fresh green chillies

 

 Finally, in went some diced chicken -  I used boneless breast here. The whole lot was simmered with some water added, and garnished with toasted cashews and fried onions.

I served with some dhal, and some greens cooked with fennel and cumin as recommended by Reza, and also some parathas - I buy these uncooked and frozen and we cook in a dry frying pan.

 

Wednesday 30 April - Pasta Puttanesca

I can't believe that I've never blogged this before, as it's one of our standby meals for when we can't think of anything else.

If I have fresh chillies and basil to hand I use those, if not dried ones work just as well.

Although I'm no fan of anchovies, they are vital in this as they add a salty and rich flavour to the sauce. I don't follow quantities here, I fry some garlic, chilli and basil, and then a big spoonful of anchovies are melted into these.

Then in with lots and lots of chopped olives and capers, and a pack of chopped tomatoes. If I'm not in a hurry I'll add a cup of water and a squeeze of tomato puree here too, and leave it to bubble away until thick.

Served stirred into hot spaghetti (dried is best here), and topped with a big handful of freshly grated parmesan. We served it with homemade garlic bread as we are greedy.

Saturday 5 April - Fish and Chips

In a bid to try and eat more fish, we thought we'd have a go at proper fish and chips. We based this meal on a recipe from Tom Kerridge, but didn't make pea puree - nothing but proper mushy peas will do for us.

These were soaked  for the afternoon, and then cooked gently with a big sprig of mint.

 

Tartare sauce was made from scratch, the addition of grated boiled eggs was something I've not done before, and it worked really well.

Next the fish - the batter was made using Bass No1 and a couple of eggwhites whisked into self raising flour.

Tail pieces of cod were dipped into this and then deep fried.

And finally the chips - these were parboiled and then fried twice - I'm not convinced that the chips taste any better for the first boiling, but it saves having to dry the potatoes.

Everything got eaten, but we all thought the batter was a bit thick and could have been crisper.  The fish was delicious though.

Friday 28 March - Pad Thai

I've not made Pad Thai for years, but found a lovely looking recipe in one of Rick Steins books, We now also have the advantage of a local Thai grocery store so all the ingredients were easy to get hold of - even the correct type of noodles. The only ingredient that took three shops to find was the bean sprouts.

Here are all the ingredients laid out before, and after preparation.

Once prepared it was simply a case of adding them to the wok in the correct order.

Starting with the garlic, chilli and raw prawns

Next the eggs

and finally all the noodles, vegetables and flavourings

Served with a squeeze of lime juice. The flavour was lovely, although we felt a bit more colour would have been nice.

For afters my new favourite thing - tapioca, but for an Eastern twist, cooked in coconut milk.

I cooked it very slowly over a heat diffuser, with a spoonful of sugar and some added whole milk.

Once cooked it was cooled and some cream was stirred in. I then layered it with another of my current favourite things - ready pureed Mango that I buy in the Indian Grocery store. This also makes brilliant sorbet with no other ingredients required!

Possibly one of the nicest things I've cooked in a long time - and plenty left over for the next couple of days too.

Saturday 8 March - Tonka Bean Icecream

Another recipe from my new egg book - I'd never heard of Tonka Beans before, and a bit of online shopping was required to get my hands on some.
They arrived this week, and despite a long day out in the garden putting up my new greenhouse, I decided to make this to use up some cream we had in the fridge.

The beans looks a bit like dried rabbit droppings, and as soon as we opened the jar we were hit by the aroma - a bit like a cross between cinnamon and vanilla.

One and a half beans were grated into a mix of milk and cream and this was heated up. The recipe said to infuse for a couple of house, but as I didn't have time to do this, I made the custard with the grated beans in the liquid and we sieved it once the custard had cooled.

 

I made the custard using whole eggs and a spoonful of cornflour as I feel it's a bit of a waste using just egg yolks - this is despite having 6 or 7 eggs a day at the moment!

Once the custard was strained we churned it in the ice cream machine.

The resulting ice cream was a huge hit with visiting teenagers - not unlike vanilla but something a bit different - definitely a flavour to try other things with.