Sunday 13 January - Chelsea Buns

As we are trying lots of bready things, we decided to give Chelsea buns a go this afternoon.

The dough was enriched with egg and milk, and a little bit of butter. I started this in the bread machine as it's so cold at the moment that this was a quick way of getting it to rise.

This was then rolled out into a rectangle.

The dough was brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with dried fruit, sugar and cinnamon.

It was then rolled up a bit like a swiss roll.

And cut into slices and placed in the tin, and left to rise again.

It was then baked for 30 minutes and finally brushed with warm honey to glaze the buns.

Saturday 12 January - Magrets de Canard

We had a hunt through some books for something new, as we are in a bit of a rut, and Bob found a recipe for duck cooked in red wine and chocolate sauce which looked pretty good - we had a duck breast in the freezer that was big enough to serve three of us, so we decided to go with this from Rick Steins French Odyssey.

The sauce was made by frying chopped onion, garlic and carrot, then a whole bottle of red wine was added, brought to the boil and the alcohol flamed off.

 

Some bay, thyme and cloves were added to the sauce and it was simmered for another 10 minutes before adding the seared duck breast to it - we cooked this for around three minutes each side, then kept it warm while the sauce was enriched with a square of dark chocolate, then sieved and some soaked prunes were warmed through in it.

The poached duck was thinly sliced.

 

The duck was served with potato puree, green beans with crushed poached garlic and some PSB

For afters, we used up the wonderful Panettone that we were given for Christmas, in the form of bread and butter pudding.

This was sliced and lightly buttered - in between the layers I added some dried fruit which I'd soaked in Brandy. A custard of eggs, single cream, milk and lots of vanilla bean paste was poured over and it was left to soak, before sprinkling with sugar and baking in the oven in a water bath.

This was served with a scoop of vanilla icecream.

Monday 7 January - Soft Pretzels

After yesterdays bagel success, George demanded to move onto New York style soft pretzels.  I had no idea where to start with these, so asked on the food board, and AZCook sent over several links - we used the New York Style pretzels as not much access to lye in Gosport on a Monday evening.

First a basic bread dough was made, and left to rise until doubled in size

This was then expertly shaped by George, and the pretzels were left to rise again.

They were then boiled, in a similar way to the bagels, but bicarbonate of soda and sugar were added to the water. They were then left to drain on a cooling rack - something I would do next time for bagels as this stage seemed to prevent them sticking to the trays.

The boiled pretzels were then brushed with egg, sprinkled with salt and baked for 15 minutes until brown.

Next time I'll start the dough in the bread machine to save on rising time, but overall pretty pleased with these for a first attempt.

Sunday 6 January - Bagels

Not a meal as such, but a plan to get George to eat breakfast as school starts back tomorrow.

The basic dough was the same as a normal bread dough, but with a bit more sugar than normal.

 

After rising, the dough was divided into 8 portions, and shaped into rounds.

The holes were then formed using the handle of a spoon.

The bagels were then cooked in boiling water, with a couple of spoons of sugar added to it for 2 minutes

The soft partially cooked bagels were placed on a baking sheet, brushed  with egg and sprinkled with our choice of topping - poppy seed (the only suitable thing we had to hand).

These were then baked in a hot oven for about 20 minutes - the hardest part of the process was removing them from the baking sheet!

 

These will be frozen and taken out for breakfast as required this week.

Friday 4 January - Chinese

Had a break from cooking and blogging due to Christmas bugs, and diy mayhem.

At last the bathroom work is finished, and I have my kitchen back properly, so it being a Friday, we decided Chinese Food was required.

I love the Gok Wan book, and have yet to cook anything out of it that we haven't liked - we chose Ginger Beef and Garlic chicken and served this with some egg fried rice that I added some pancetta and spring onions to.

Both recipes were fairly similar - starting with the meat coated in cornflour and fried, then flavourings and sauce added at the end.

The only change we made to the recipes was that George asked for the beef to be a bit spicy, so we added some chilli bean sauce to the soy and sugar mix that was added at the end.

Both dishes were pretty quick to cook, and were delicious - for once we got our quantities right and every bit of food got eaten. I'm going to try to cook my way through this book this year.

Thursday 20 December - Oiseaux Sans Tetes

Some rather nice looking Topside slices, along with a post on the Food Board about Beef Olives reminded me of this recipe - perfect for a cold, wet winters day - and the first day of the Christmas holidays for me.

The beef was bashed out, and spread with mustard.

This was then topped with a slice of parma ham, some sliced cornichons and some red onion.

 

Rolled up to look like little sparrows without heads, and tied with string.

 

They were cooked in a sauce made from finely sliced leeks, white wine and stock, until tender. The stock was finished with 3% creme fraiche that I mixed with some cornflour to stop it splitting in the hot stock.

These were served with diced potatoes which I cooked for 10 minutes, then tossed with a mix of semolina, chopped garlic and fresh rosemary and then roasted in olive oil

 

 

These came out beautifully crispy, and went really well with the beef.

Saturday 8 December - Mexican Pork and Red Sauce

Pork Loin was Lidls special offer this week, and I found a recipe for pork loin with 'red sauce' so we decided to go with a version of this.

The sauce was tomatoes, onions and garlic which we roasted in a hot oven until blackened, and then whizzed with chipotles, vinegar, oregano and some water. The pork was simply roasted.

We made some tortillas to serve with this - these are just masa harina and warm water then fried in a dry pan.

We also made some bits and pieces to serve with the meat and sauce - black beans, guacamole and some red onions pickled in lime juice.

We probably didn't need the meat, as the rest of the meal was pretty tasty without it!

For desert a chili chocolate fondant - this had some cayenne and also a chopped red chilli added to the mix. Served with some vanilla ice cream. Will be doing this one again - was perfect after a Mexican style main course.