Duck with Pastis and Honey

I bought a French farmer duck.

I checked my handwritten recipe book and found out that I´ve made that recipe the last time on the 28th of March 2013.

Now it is time to prepare it again. The preptime at the beginning is pretty small, the most time the duck needs in the oven. But you have to be around, because it needs its brushing with Pastis and honey every 10 to 15 minutes. That is the time your kitchen will start smelling awesome and a bit smokey.

I served it with a cauliflower and potato mash,

recipe:
1,7 kg  free range duck

1 whole apple
5 shallots
5 big cloves of garlic
1 sprig of sage
1 sprig of rosemary
some pimpinelle
100 ml Pastis
2 tbsp honey
chicken seasoning

1/4 cauliflower
3 large potatoes
3 tbsp creme fraiche
1 tbsp butter
nutmeg, salt and pepper
the squeezed out middle of the roasted shallots and garlic

Heat up the oven 200 C fan.
Wash the duck and take off the fat that is hanging around. Dry and put salt and pepper in the cavity. Rub the duck outside with chicken seasoning.
Wash the apple, but don ´t peel it.
Peel shallots and garlic. Fill the herbs and 2 shallots and 2 huge garlic cloves into the duck and close it with the apple. Hold the apple in place with 2 toothpicks.
Mix Pastis with honey and brush the duck with it.

Bake in the oven  for 45 min, breast side down. Brush regularly with the Pastis honey mix.
Turn the heat down to 170 C fan and turn the duck. Brush again and cook for 30 min.
Check it the juices run clear.
Let the duck rest for 10 min.


Cook potoatoes and cauliflower together, drain mash and add butter, creme fraiche and spices and the roasted veg.

Cauliflower Potato Stew with Curry

This is not a Curry! This is not a Soup! It is a bit like a vegetarian stew with an Indian theme.

I needed to get more of my cauliflower into a dish. I had no idea what to prepare and just brought all things together I laid my hands on.

I used 3 different kinds of mild curry powder as the main flavour and just like in any good Indian dish, garlic, ginger, onions and chili. Lots of onions to speak of, they make more then the base of this stew. Just two potatoes to thicken the whole thing a bit and give more bulk to the dish. Coconut cream makes it rich and that made it good food for a cold October day.

recipe:
1/2 head of cauliflower
2 potatoes
1 large white onion
2 spring onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 knob of ginger
1 mild red chili
2 tbsp Ghee
1 tsp mild Java curry
1 tsp mild Madras curry
1 tsp red fruity curry
3 cherry tomatoes
1 tsp dried lovage
1 tsp chili flakes
400 ml coconut cream
100 ml veg stock ( I wanted to use beef stock but stayed vegetarian)
3 tbsp parsley
salt and pepper

Rip the cauliflower apart into bite size chunks, peel potatoes, onion, garlic and ginger, take the seeds out the chili.
Cut the white onion into half rings, set the spring onion slices aside for a bit later.
Heat up the Ghee in a wide pan with a lid and toss all 3 curry spices in. Give them a while, then add the white onion, garlic and chili. Cook for a couple of minutes.

Squeeze out the juice from the cherry tomatoes over the pan - be careful not to be splashed with tomato seeds yourself!
Add stock and then the cauliflower and stir well, then potatoes and coconut cream. Last the spring onions go in. Season. Stir well, bring to a boil and put the lid on, reduce the heat and cook until potatoes and cauliflower are tender.
Finish with some dried chili flakes and fresh rough chopped parsley.

Roasted Cauliflower with Mac & Cheese

I haven´t had M&C for ages!

I wanted to prepare it with some Chorizo, but checking through my fridge I found a bit of cured and smoked pork ribs from last Sunday. It would have been a shame to throw them out.
I bought a big white cauliflower on my trip in France. It was a good bargain and I took the smallest of the lot, still a lot to eat for a single person.
I was playing different ways to prepare it in my head on the way back  from work on the Autobahn, but a combination of pasta and veg sounded good. Having nasty and stormy weather called for some comfort food.

recipe for 2:
half head of cauliflower
salt and pepper
olive oil

350 ml chicken stock
200 ml milk
150 g old Parmesan cheese
1 spring onion
2 tbsp Noilly Prat
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
nutmeg
salt and pepper
220 g pasta
150 g cured and smoked and cooked meat

Break some florets off the cauliflower, wash them and place them on a baking sheet with salt, pepper and olive oil and roast them at 170 C fan for 20 minutes.
Dribble some chicken stock over them.

Make the roux.
Chop the onion fine and saute it in butter, add the flour and a little of the warm stock, dissolve, then add milk a bit and a bit so you wont get lumps. Make a smooth sauce.
Grate nutmeg and pepper and add a little salt and then the grated cheese.
Melt the cheese and add fine chopped meat.
Last the cooked pasta.
Serve together with the cauliflower.

Banana Cashew and Coconut Bake

I ate a dessert a long time ago which contained banana, cashew and coconut. But I have no idea what went into the dessert that had to bake in the oven.
I made a pancake batter and mushed a ripe banana and mixed it with a lot of crushed cashews and dessicated coconuts.

Bake at 170 C fan for 20 min.

recipe:
1 ripe banana mashed
1/3 cup dessicated coconut
1/3 cup cashews chopped
2 eggs
5 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch vanilla seeds
150 ml milk
1 tbsp melted butter and some for the dish

Make the batter with melted butter and let it rest for 30 min.
Preheat the oven to 170 C fan.

Mix mashed bananas with coconut and cashew and fill it in the buttered form.
Top with the batter and bake for 20 min.

Tartiflette

Today is the 3rd of October, Germany´s Reunifikation Day and that means a holiday.
When this day does not fall onto a Sunday I use it to go grocery shopping in France. That means to get out of bed early to beat the masses that will stream into the French border regions after 10 AM.

I always decide what to cook when I am in the supermarket and look for offers or special things I can´t get here or that are to expensive here. A nice piece of Savoy cheese caught my eyes, a Reblochon. The dish for today was decided after that.

More nice things went into my shopping cart and will come up here as blogs soon.

recipe:
240 g Reblochon
800 g potatoes
250 g smoked bacon
1 red onion
1 white onion
2 spring onions
4 clove of garlic
150 ml double cream
1 tbsp creme fraiche
130 ml white wine
pepper, paprika and dried herbs

Peel the potatoes and pre boil them for 10 minutes. Drain and cut into thin discs. 

Put the bacon in the pan first and get out some of the fat. I usually drain it on kitchen paper halfway  

through cooking. It gets a lot crosser that way in a shorter time.

Chop all onions and garlic and add it to the pan.
It will take about 10 minutes to soften them.

Preheat the oven 170 C fan
Mix cream and creme fraiche, season with pepper, paprika and dried herbs.
Use an oven proof dish and pour a little of the cream mix on the bottom.
Now put half of the potato slices in, add all of the onion bacon mix and top with the other potatoes.
Pour the wine and the cream mix over.
Scrape the red off the cheese and cut out the inlaid cheese lable.
Half the cheese into two round discs and place them on top of the potatoes.
Bake for 15-20 min until the whole cheese is melted and you have some brown edges.

Mussels in Italian vegetable sauce

Fresh mussels are one of my favourite kinds of seafood. Now season for organic grown mussels from the North Sea has started again.

I used a yellow and orange carrot and the green rest of some leek and a couple of cloves of garlic.
No white wine to pour into the pot, instead I used some rose bubbly water. German Sekt.

recipe:
1 kg mussels
4 cloves of garlic
1 yellow carrot
1 orange carrot
1 green of leek
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp tomato paste
salt and pepper
250 ml rose sekt or champagne
1 tbsp creme fraiche

Just wash the mussels and check if there are kaputt ones and discard them, the open ones knock against a board and check if they close again.

In a large pot start the olive oil and toss is the veg and the tomato paste, give a couple of minutes, add the sekt and cook for 5 min.

Add creme fraiche and the mussels, close the lid and cook it for 3 min.
Done

Carrots with Hummus Sesame Sauce

This salad is an hommage on Oriental dishes. The hummus is not eaten on its own as a dish but is used to add a lot of flavour to the carrots.
You can use a spiralizer to make carrot spaghetti or just thinly slice them.

recipe:
500 g carrots, prefarable different colours
3 spring onions
1 tbsp white sesame seeds
1 tbsp black sesame seeds
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 clove of garlic
250 g drained chickpeas
3 tbsp tahini
1 lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
100 g Greek yogurt
100 g creme fraiche
salt and pepper
chives

Slice the carrots into thin discs ans set aside.

Drain the chickpeas, chop onion and garlic and toss that in a blender.

Add olive oil and lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Pour in the Tahini and soy sauce and mix it up to a fine paste. Now add creme fraiche and yogurt.

Dry roast the sesame seeds.

Get them in the bowl with the carrots and add sesame oil.

Bring them together and you have your salad ready to eat. Top it with some chives.