Moving Soon

Moving the blog

Although I have written quite some updates on Blogger, I'm far from pleased with the way it works. This is also why I have not updated in quite some time, although I have plenty of updates and pictures yet to post. However, the constant irregularities in the way Blogger tends to posts headers, pictures, etc, makes writing an update a chore rather than something I enjoy. And that's not the point of this, so I'm leaving. Go home, Blogger, you're drunk.

In other words, I have decided to move this blog from Blogger to another site (yet to be determined). Once I'm completely satisfied with the way that page looks and works, I will first start by transferring all posts on here to the other site, and then I will add the new ones that have not yet been posted on here. Think of scones, lamb sliders and some other great dishes that have already been made and documented, but have not yet seen the light of a computer screen.

I'll put up the new address here when it's ready. It's going to be worth it, I promise.

Hope to see you all soon again on the other side of the web.

Dish 15: Crispy Skin Duck with Witlof

The dish

I have wanted to make this dish since I first got the book for several reasons. 

Firstly, because it is duck and I have never ever ever prepared anything with duck, although I have eaten it upon occasion and really like it.

 Secondly, because it has witlof. Now, for those of you who aren't Australian, witlof is known in most English-speaking countries as chicory or endive. But guess what? In my little country with its little but complicated language, witlof is known as... witlof. Can you even imagine how thrilled I am to see a word for a vegetable in this cookbook that I don't need to translate? For the record, "wit" means white and "lof" is another word for chicory (it also means praise in a completely different context).

I wandered off there, sorry. Finally, I have been wanting to make it, because it seems like a challenge. For once you can't just read the recipe and follow it from top to bottom. Instead, this dish is made up out of 4 different components, and you need to time them just right in order to serve your diners a warm meal.

The preparation

The four different components of this dish are:

1) Duck breasts

2) Witlof

3) Orange sauce

4) Roasted onions

In total this dish does not take a lot of prepping time at all, but you do need to make sure you time it well.

I started out by preparing my roasting tin (in my case: glass baking dish) with the onions and their seasoning. As they had to be in the oven for approximately 15 minutes, I needed to make sure they had been prepped and ready to hit the oven the moment time called for it.

Next were the duck breasts.  

Follow Andy's instructions when it comes to these. Score them properly and add the salt flakes. I found that since this was my second time ever scoring any kind of meat (the first time was the pork belly), I have yet to find out exactly how to score skin and get a perfect result. I can tell you, however, that I'm getting better at it already.

I cooked the duck in a pan until the skin was indeed golden and pretty crisp, then transferred it to the oven, together with my roasting tin with onions.The duck breasts only needed a short while, whereas the onions were allowed to stay in there for 15 minutes, so I set the timer for the duck.

I then started on the orange sauce. Thanks to a visit to the market I had all necessary spices (and even managed to get the allspice berries that I needed for the lamb curry - next time I'll be prepared!) for it. This sauce takes quite some timing, as you add its ingredients in three batches, each with a different amount of time that you allow it to simmer or infuse.

While the sauce was simmering away, I pulled the duck breasts from the oven and covered them with foil. 

I also put on a pan for the witlof, that my lovely best friend had already cut up for me before. Once again you will need a pan with a lid for this, and once again I had used the wrong pan, but this time I was aware of the leaking water/steam, so I could save it in time. Not that it needed saving this time!

I also added the final ingredient to the orange sauce, which, very surprisingly, were sliced oranges.

Approximately ten minutes later, all of my components were done, and I was ready to plate.

Before I move on the result, I would like to share the following with you. With this dish, the trickiest thing definitely lies in the planning of every component. This took the most time to figure out. In the end I managed a time schedule in my head not unlike any Christmas dinner I plan, when I only have one oven and approximately four dishes that require oven time.

In case you are bad at this, I'll narrow it down for you:

Prepare your onions first, so that the roasting tin is ready to go into the oven. Turn the oven on and let it preheat.

Prep your duck and bake it in your pan.

After the required cooking time for the duck, put both the pan with the duck and roasting tin with the onions in the oven. Set a timer to the duck time as indicated in the cookbook.

Start on your orange sauce, and after adding the second batch of ingredients to the pan, pull out the duck and cover it with foil.

Put a frying pan on and start on the witlof. 

Continue with the sauce while keeping an eye on your onions and witlof.

If you managed to do this, by the time the duck breasts have rested for 10 minutes, all other items should be ready as well. It's not hard, but if you start preparing this dish from the top (= the orange sauce), you might run into trouble. 

The result

What can I say? "Please sir, I want some more!"

This dish. Oh my. This sauce! As my best friend put it, "If I had a spoon, I would eat this as soup." The duck, the witlof, the onion, the orange and the sauce together, this was more than a match made in heaven. This was the perfect combination and one I am definitely going to make this again and again and again. I literally had to stop myself from running my finger through the bowl after finishing, just so I could lap up a little more of that sauce.

Andy, I take my hat off to you. Delicious.

And dear reader, if by now you still have not bought this cookbook, you are nuts. Get it here!

Next time

Next time it is Easter. This means that I am meeting my loveliest friends for an extravagant brunch. I will be providing Scones (p. 77), with cream and probably some lemon curd. Because why not? If we're having mimosas at 11 in the morning, we are having scones.

I might also attempt Ben's White Chocolate Mojito Cheesecake with Rhubarb (p. 202), but I can't make any promises.

But still, I really do hope to see you at our next elemental meal... :)

Dish 14: Smoked Salmon & Avocado Mousse Crostini

The dish

You might aware that I didn't have a lot of time, so instead of going for a bigger meal, I opted for the Smoked Salmon & Avocado Mousse Crostini (p. 100). Although they looked liked little appetisers, I figured I could make them just so they would fill a grown woman's stomach in terms of dinner.

I must say, I was weary of the amount of smoked salmon I needed, but if there is something I have already learned throughout this process, it is to trust Andy when it comes to flavour.

The preparation

This dish is perfect as a canapé, and it is actually what it ends up looking like... if you follow the recipe closely. If you do it right, you'll end up with small discs of baguette with a dollop of avocado mousse, some smoked salmon, and fresh dill.

Yeah, no such thing.

I did follow Andy's recipe for the bigger part.

I got my baguette...

I got my smoked salmon, and I got my avocado mixture going. This, dear people, involves blending with a stick blender. I can recommend not using a bowl, for you will undoubtedly splatter green muck onto yourself, and unless you are a parent of a teething baby, this is pretty much unacceptable.

Naturally this dish contains one of Andy's favourite citrus fruits, but most of it purely relies on the flavours that the ingredients offer. You don't use a lot of extra spices, you just combine amazing ingredients.

The result

It isn't brain surgery, but boy, is this delicious! As said before, I was afraid of the amount of smoked salmon you needed to use, but who knew that avocado and smoked salmon went together so well? Instead of getting an overdose of salmon, like I feared, the avocado almost neutralised its strong flavoured counterpart and made it into this delightful mix. 

It was like seeing your extrovert best friend hook up with a really quiet partner, and being absolutely astonished when it works. A match made in heaven. Don't forget to add the dill for this show stopper!

Next time

As this was such an easy one, next time I will attempt a proper real dish again: Crispy Skin Duck with Witlof (p. 172). 

Stay tuned and see you at our next elemental meal! (Is it getting lame yet? A little, huh?)

Delay in update - kitty's things first

Good evening, all ye who read this. :)

After my holiday weekend, I haven't had time yet to prepare a new dish from Andy's cookbook, and hence I'm immediately letting you and myself down by not having put up a new post yet by yesterday evening.

I was planning on preparing it tonight, but I just came back from the vet.

My cat has had a case of pretty bad breath and I fear that this bad breath in combination with her growing refusal to properly chew, means there's something wrong with her teeth. I have to say, taking my cat to the vet was a whole new experience altogether. My cat is lovely, let's start with that. And I don't know who that creature was in the vet's exam room, because that hellish vixen was definitely not my cute kitty. 

I don't know if any of you have a pet that changes 100% whenever they are at the vet's, but it's one of the weirdest things. She was purring and I got to cuddle her again the moment the vet had left the room, but when they returned, once again the ears went down and she went berserk. 

Anyway, I'm back now, with an appointment to drop her off next week, where she'll have a full examination whilst anesthetised. Roxy, why can't you just be an easy cat? 

~~~

Long story short, I'm in no mood to prepare a proper dish right now, so instead I'm going to warm up some leftover soup.

Thursday I'll try out the next dish, though! I am looking forward to that, and I hope I won't be as tired then as I am now. 

See you then! =)

Dish 13: Indian Lamb Curry

The dish

Another curry! To be honest, I was looking forward to preparing this dish. Like its Mid-Week buddy, this dish takes at least an hour and a half before it's done, so I wouldn't prepare it as a last minute thing. If you have the time for it, though, do it. Now.

For me the hardest part about this dish were the ingredients. It requires ingredients such as allspice berries and cardamom pods. Over the past 12 dishes I have expanded my kitchen cabinet's spices section threefold, but these items were not there, nor were they to be found at the larger supermarkets. Next time I might go on a scavenger hunt for them, but this time I chose to use instructions on how to replace the particular flavours of these items with the spices that I did already have available to me.

The preparation

You chop up some of the ingredients, such as the lamb. Andy's recipe requires lamb shoulder, but our local butcher only had leg of lamb, so it had to do. 

And it did. I cubed it, seasoned it and browned it. Important to keep in mind is that you need to use a pan that has a lid! You don't need it just yet, but you will regret it if you use a pan without a lid.

After transferring the browned meat back into its bowl, you need to use the same pan to heat some of the spices, such as cloves and bay leaves, until they are fragrant.

You also use some of the other chopped ingredients, and put them in with your fragrant spices.

You add your tomato paste to this mixture once the onion is soft, and then also add the lamb and the stock. At this point you will need your lid, because this needs to simmer for one full hour.

I put all of this stuff in a nice deep pan for which I didn't have a lid. Instead I used a bigger lid that did cover the pan. Unfortunately most of the steam did manage to escape by dripping down to the edge of lid and seeping down.

This meant that after about 45 minutes, I had nearly burned my lamb. It started smelling overly fragrant (which I never trust), and when I checked on it, the lamb was about to blacken. Not even thinking twice I chucked in extra stock, and hoped for the best. 

Luckily, when I added my potatoes and coconut cream a little later, things seemed to be alright. I tasted it. No trace of a burnt flavour. I was a happy camper. At this point you will also have to put the (in my case absolutely useless) lid to the side.

Since you have added your potatoes by now, these are the ones that need to be cooked through, so if you are not sure that the 20 minutes the recipe requires are enough, just grab a fork and test the potatoes. If it's been 20 minutes and your potatoes are soft, you are ready to eat.

Don't forget to prepare your basmati rice in time! Top it all off with fresh coriander, and you're ready to dine. Don't forget to filter out the cloves, bay leaves and cinnamon stick!

The result

I love curries, so I was really glad that my lamb didn't burn or leave a burnt flavour.

This curry was absolutely delicious, although I probably do prefer the Mid-Week Beef Curry (p. 50) just slightly over this one, as that one packs a bit more of a punch in terms of flavour. However, if you're a big fan of lamb, this dish brings those particular lamb flavours to a new level. it had been a while since I had eaten lamb that I have enjoyed this much. True story.

Next time

Well, as I'm writing this it's Wednesday night, the 2nd of April, and it's my birthday. This means that this coming weekend, I will be celebrating with friends and family, and have not yet considered anything to make yet.

So, I will let it be a surprise or a last minute thing.

Also, I will vow not to leave the updates of this blog hanging. I will try to put up a new post every Monday night (since I usually cook things on Sunday). 

If you do not believe me, or know yourself to forget this, and you really want to know what else is in Andy Allen's cookbook, feel free to fill out your e-mail address and get notifications whenever I've updated! 

See you at our next elemental meal!

P.S. Don't forget to pay a visit to Judy's Books and Bakery!

P.P.S. Interested in purchasing Andy's cookbook? You can order it here.

Dish 12: Popcorn Chicken with Lime Mayo

The dish

If you are a normal human being, you probably sometimes have those "I need to have some fried right now" cravings.

This dish, Popcorn Chicken with Lime Mayo (p. 106) is the perfect solution to that. Want to eat chicken fillet but are sick of preparing it the same way you always do? Fry it, Andy says. And whenever Andy says something, we listen. (Except when he says, "gracias señoritas".)

The preparation

As you may have understood from its name, this dish has two components. One the one hand, we have our fried chicken, and on the other hand the lime mayo.

Let's start with the mayo, as once you've prepared this, you've got your hands free to get down and dirty with the chicken.

There. That's that done. Andy wants you to use Kewpie Mayo, but I don't think they sell that in the Netherlands, so I just used your ordinary every day mayonnaise. Add some lime juice and lime zest (see? told you he likes citrus) and mix it all together. Put it in the fridge while you work on the chicken, and send your best friend out to get some fries from the local cafeteria (the irony is not lost on me).

Fact is, I don't own a deep fryer and unless I inherit one or get one as a gift, I don't think I ever will own one. Frying stuff makes your house stink. Maybe if at some point I have a garage or barn or some kind of creepy filled-to-the-brim-with-spiders shed I will fry stuff there.

For now, I will suffer through the recipes that require deep frying, and once the weather allows, I will open up all windows when doing so.

But anyway, you get your chicken and you chop it into the most evenly sized cubes you can master.

I know. I'm kind of impressed, myself. 

Kiddink, kiddink.

But yes, you then get your conveyor belt style line-up ready:

1) a bowl with flour

2) a bowl with egg and milk

3) a bowl with breadcrumbs

Get this show on the road. After a while, you will end up with your chicken looking somewhat like this:

Brilliant! In the meantime you should have already got your sunflower oil going, so it's time to check the temperature. 

Get the oil up to 180 degrees Celsius and drop in some of your chicken pieces. I used a skimmer, because I wouldn't like getting hot oil splattered all over me. Naturally it depends on the size of the frying pan you use how many pieces you put in there together.

These little buggers brown up quickly, but don't pull them out until you've counted to 120 (or set a timer, what you will), because we don't want to give anyone salmonella. 

Don't they look delicious? It takes some time, and if you're on your own I'm not quite sure it's worth going through the trouble. On the other hand, if you want to satisfy your need for something fried, this isn't the worst thing you could do.

The result

Add two and two together, and you end up with a crunchy but tender bite of chicken, coated in fresh lime mayo. 

And my best friend's verdict? "De-li-cious."

I think that says it all.

Next time

Time to get back into the groove with a proper full fledged dinner dish: Indian Lamb Curry (p. 46). I would love for you to join me on this ride.

See you at our next elemental meal!

Dish 11: Mushroom Sauce

The dish

If you do not like mushrooms, you'd best stop reading now, because this dish is not for you. To quote You've Got Mail (and technically Shop Around The Corner): 

"Well, if you don't like Kathleen Kelly, I can tell you right now, you're not going to like this girl." "Why?" 

"Because it is Kathleen Kelly."

The preparation

One takes mushrooms. Several kinds of mushrooms.

You chop and tear them up, and then you get to do what I love: chuck them in a pan. Naturally you add about 10 other ingredients to this pan, including some stock and you add your other ingredients in the order that Andy tells you to. 

You end up with something that looks like this (or at least, I did!):

I know, it may not look as appetising as you may have expected, if you expected anything at all. But, the proof is in the pudding and not in the way it jiggles.

And naturally there is something that makes everything look better. Tasty garnish! Add some parsley and voilà, a tasty looking mushroom sauce.

Not too shabby, right?

The result

If you have not realised this already: Andy Allen loves his citrus. Almost every dish I have made up until now has had lime/lemon juice or zest through it. Sometimes I find that the acidity can dominate the other flavours a little, but in this sauce, it is amazing; the saltiness of the stock combined with those delicious mushrooms and the freshness of the parsley just fits perfectly alongside the sour lemon juice..

And if, like my best friend and I, you like your mushrooms next to a good piece of meat, you could try combining it as follows:

A good piece of steak, oven baked potatoes and green asparagus. Delicious.

Next time

I don't think I can avoid the fried food for much longer, so get ready to get your deep fryer out of the garage or from the attic (because surely you can't use it that often?). It's time for some Popcorn Chicken with Lime Mayo (p. 106).

See you at our next elemental meal!