Wrap it up- Duck Ballotine, Beetroot Puree, and Fondant Potato

The weather has been particularly uncharacteristic for Birmingham the past two weeks, and this weekend Mother Nature has decided to dump almost 30cm of snow. Snow in England means stay inside. Stay inside makes Kristyn go crazy, so what to do? Get busy in the kitchen.

This weekend's challenge is brought to you by MasterChef Everyday. This book is sponsored by John Torode and Gregg Wallace and is a combination of past winner recipes and "everyday" takes on some quite complex techniques. I've tried some recipes in this book already- some successful (and will repost), others disastrous (naming and shaming the Malaysian Beef and Potato Curry by Linda Lusardi). 

I'm not enamoured by the content of the book and will more than likely pull what the recipes that work and pass the book along.Gregg and John have described the content as "great food, delivered with love from great contestants- here for you to create yourselves at home." and "fantastic flavours, wonderful textures, creating really beautiful plates of food... that takes practice.". A lot of the techniques take practice (like wrapping ballotines). To create some of the more beautiful plates, you need to plan in advance to search for ingredients that are not common stock. And speaking of stock- what a wasteful exercise for a handful of meals. The edits on the show hide this tremendously well; one risotto recipe that I tried gave you a veggie stock recipe to make, but you threw away all of the stock veg at the end of it. I know it's mainly just root veg and some celery, but I hate throwing food away, nor did I have the time to Google "what to do with leftover stock veg" after sssslllllooooowwwllly basting a risotto. In any case... this post is about an attempt at a Duck Ballotine Wrapped in Pancetta with a shot of Beetroot Puree: so Ingredients Out!

Duck breasts, pancetta (I've used smoked bacon), olive oil, butter, salt and pepper, parsley, garlic, onion/ shallot, duck breast trimmings, beetroot, more butter, and double cream. The title of this recipe says it was submitted by James Perry MasterChef 2011 final 5= high hopes for good flavours. Downside is that for this to be a "final" dish, then it is more than likely a fine-ish dining dish and I'm going to need to plump it up to be an actual dinner sized portion. Cue the fondant potato:  potatoes, more butter, more garlic, and for effect... whatever leftover fresh herbs that I have. Looks pretty!

So, how does this come together? Firstly trim the thin end of the duck and keep to the side. With a bit of exercise: taking an Jamie-style 15 Minute Meal approach, beat out the skinned and trimmed duck breast to 5mm thick with a rolling pin. Aaaaahh! Duck breast isn't cheap and I'm smashing the heck out of it. It needs to be thin for the ballotine, but I don't want to to be too thin to make it into duck leather.

In the meantime, get Kenny out and make the stuffing from the onions, herbs, garlic, and trimmings from the duck breast. There is a "simplify for EVERYday" tip telling you to use reconstituted stuffing and jazz it up with the parsley and garlic. I'm not really sure how much faster that is vs. putting some herbs and veg in the food processor. Nice try, though.

Next up, layer up: cling film + bacon layer + beaten breast + stuffing. Use the cling film to help roll up the ballotine tightly. This has brought flashbacks to sushi rolling parties I've had in the past, or any type of food that is rolled- burritos, enchilladas, etc and my inability to keep it neat and tidy. I fully recognise that this is a weakness of mine. Oh well, let's see how it ends up.

 So far so good... looks as it should.

The assembled ballotine is then poached in boiling water for 15 minutes, left to rest (for an nondescript amount  of time) while the beetroot puree is prepared. The beetroot is "freshly cooked" in the ingredient line, so I have had it on the boil while I prepared the duck. The beetroot is chopped into small chunks, and pureed until smooth with some melted butter and double cream. The recipe specifies food processor, but after blitzing until steady, the puree is a bit choppy. I tried to "puree" it in the blender, but it still didn't budge. The instructions also say to pass through a conical sieve (and to serve the juice in a shot glass). I've decided instead that the bits are small and the flavour is nice, so I will serve as a minced beetroot bed to add some fibre to the plate.

Back to the ballotines and it's the moment of truth: have these set as one continuous sausage-looking mass or have they turned into a bacon wrapped taco? Wa wa: bacon wrapped taco, just like seaweed wrapped taco for my sushi. Oh well, nothing a bit of string can't fix. Into the pan for browning off in delicious butter.

Looks good from the top.

A bit open from the bottom.

Fondant potatoes have been on the go this whole time. I poached this recipe (and the spuds) from a few pages down from the duck and these barrelled buttered beauties are winners. This was also a new thing for me to try, and the only correction would be to use a different (smaller) pan (or pot). Potatoes on the butter and the pan filled with water until the tops are exposed, the concoction is simmered for an hour.

The potatoes are then "left to warm" whatever that means. In the case of my potatoes vs. fondant potatoes I have ordered from a restaurant, mine needed a bit of frying off. I elected to scoop the butter and herbs off of the top of the concoction in the pan and get the supds in the oven while I finished off the ballotine.

So, how was it? Tasty! Great flavours as promised by John and Gregg, but the textures were amiss. How cooked is cooked beetroot? How firm should a fondant potato be? This, I am sure, must come from the practice-element. Although, the descriptions are vague at times which I believe is a reason why the textures do go wrong. This is the challenge of getting "fine dining" into an everyday-type book. Everyday cooking shouldn't span more than a page and the shortcuts are noticed in the dish. Everyday cooking should be tasty, and this dish distinctly delivers.

15 Minute Meals- Part 4: Greek Chicken

15 Minute Meal #4: Gorgeous Greek Chicken

More gloating from Jamie in the title, but... did it deliver?! Oh god, now I am starting to sound like a food reality TV commentator. I would suspect so with all of the Great British Menu and MasterChef that I watch. Rather that, though then Shameless or Trailer Park Boys. Anyways, into the kitchen and Ingredients Out (9-ish minutes later), and what a colourful array of ingredients as to be expected from such a colourful culture.

One of the tips and tricks in this book, in addition to introducing you to all of the attachments of your food processor, is to bang the heck out of your meat in between some parchment paper to thin it out and cook it faster. I'm in two minds about this because I love a juicy thick piece of meat, but do realise to meet the 15 minutes, thin is to win. Pfaffing about with the parchment paper, grating the lemon, and sprinkling the herbs, etc has eaten into one-fourth of my time. Time to crack on with the tzatziki...

Grated cucumber + salt and pepper into a bowl and get stuck in to scrunch out the water. Mix the dried cucumber with yoghurt, lemon juice, and mint and question to myself why that took 6-minutes to do. Looks like I need to get faster at grating or else be less hesitant with getting my hands wet in squidgy materials.

Meanwhile, my chicken and herbs are frying and almost 11 minutes in, I'm thinking that this is actually a 20-Minute meal again. Probably should have taken some anger to my meat at the start.

Time to put Kenny to use again and 12-minutes in, I have roughly chopped my peppers, tomatoes, and green onions. The veg gets a quick blitz and these obligatory Greek ingredients (and part of your five-a-day) are poured on the platter. I keep reading and realise that these veggies will be cold= Fail (for the Mr). Yes, fresh veg are part of Greek cuisine, but unfortunately not part of Edge cuisine in the winter...

Blitzed veg from the platter to the pan and let's get those frozen beans (rather than peas for the Mrs.) cooking, because we technically only have a minute and a half. Eeek! There is still a whole paragraph to get through in this time.

Tear olives, squeeze juice, drizzle olive oil, fluff couscous, mix with (now lightly sauteed) peppers, beans, and tomatoes. The chicken needed an extra 5 minutes, and by the time I get everything to "the pass" a.k.a the prep counter in my kitchen, I have a 23-Minute Meal.

But, how did this one go down? Quite well. These are flavours that are not new nor is it a dish that I haven't cooked before (in my own way). Again, a good mid-week meal within an hour (prep and cooking). It goes far, fills you up, is tasty, and is good for guests. Is it Gorgeous? Well, maybe with some garlic and a slow cooked, then grilled piece of chicken we would reach the brief of Gorgeous... and there I go again with my commentator speak.

What is missing is an absolute staple of Greek food: garlic! Doing this again, I would add it to the chicken and the tzatziki... but more than likely at the expense of a few extra minutes to get that pesky garlic skin off. The absolute winner of this dish is the tzatziki... I have failed to find such a simple and tasty recipe in the past and this one met both. In closing and for your benefit, the tzatziki recipe:

1/2 a cucumber

250g fat-free natural yoghurt (or not fat free for extra creaminess)

1/2 a lemon

1/2 a bunch of fresh mint

(1 finely chopped clove of garlic)

salt and pepper to sprinkle

"Using a box grater, coarsely grate the cucumber- Sprinkle it with a pinch of salt, then squeeze and scrunch with clean hands o get rid of the excess salty water- Pop in a bowl with the yoghurt, juice of 1/2 a lemon and a pinch of pepper (and your garlic, if you choose), finely chop and add the top leafy half of the mint, then mix together."

No Horsing Around Lasagne- Passing it on (again).

In the wake of the "horse meat scandal" gripping Britain and the EU at the moment, I thought I'd re-post (or re-pass it on) a blog from last year. I was kind of hoping that I had posted another recipe rather than Jamie's Lasagne from the Ministry of Food book, but Sod's Law, I had. This time, though... pictures of this real favourite of mine. Slow and steady it takes to cook, but it goes far and is truly delish; especially when using fresh herbs and smoked bacon :) Our mate Rich was in the garden when I was frying off the herbs- he said that the smell was amazing coming out from the extractor fan into the garden! And the best thing about it? most (I was going to put all... but know better) of the ingredients are traceable. The tinned tomatoes are a bit dodge from the local super cheap-o supermarket, but they look, smell, and taste like tomatoes. I know that my local butcher knows where his meat is from and what he's actually mincing, so there's certainly no horsing around with this recipe.

In any case- don't set your timer, but ingredients out:

You make the bolognese yourself: 2 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, 2 medium onions, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 carrot , 2 sticks of celery, olive oil, 2 heaped tsp dried oregano, 500g minced beef, 2x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes, sea salt, black pepper, bunch of fresh basil. I know I can't fool you with the shrooms, green pepper, and spinach- these are little extras that give the bolognese a bit extra rather than carrot, carrot, and celery.

 Oh, and I forgot to mention a magic ingredient in the bolognese... wine! Only 1/2 a can, though... leaves more to drink afterwards.

Make your sauce- this takes time (it says 1 hour and 30 minutes... and actually takes that long, unlike the promises in the 15 Minute Meals), but is entirely worth every minute!

Finely slice the bacon- Peel and finely chop the onions, garlic, carrots and celery- place a large pot/ frying pan/ casserole dish on med to high heat- Add 2 lugs of olive oil, sliced bacon, oregano and cook and stir until the bacon is lightly golden (this is the smell I have been going on and on and on about).

Add the veg to the pan and stir every 30 seconds until softened and coloured (about 7 minutes)

Stir in minced meat and chopped tomatoes- Fill one tin with water and stir in with the mixture- Stir in a good pinch of salt and pepper- Pick the basil leaves off of the stalks, and put them in the fridge for later. Chop the stalks and stir into the pan.

Bring to a boil- Turn the heat down and simmer with a lid slightly askew for 1 hour stirring every now and again- Take off the lid and cook for another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally- Keep an eye on the sauce as it cooks, and if you think it's starting to dry out, ad a splash of water (or wine).... now I shortened this to 45 minutes with the lid and 15 minutes without and it worked fine.

Remove the bolognese from the heat- Tear and stir in the larger basil leaves- Taste the sauce and season with a little more salt and pepper if it needs it. This makes a considerable amount of sauce, so it is good to freeze and use again or just make a monster lasagne!

Preheat your oven to 375F/190C

Next, for the lasagne:

250g dried egg lasagne sheets (I bought the pre-cooked ones that don't need re-cooking), 100g Parmesan cheese, 1x 600mL tub of creme fraiche (or sour cream), 1 large ripe tomato, (3/4 cup wilted spinach- my addition)

Grate your Parmesan and mix it to your creme fraiche.

Spoon a third of your bolognese sauce into the bottom of an earthenware ovenproof dish (approx 25cm x 35 cm)- Follow with a layer of lasagne sheets and another third of sauce. Layer with spinach leaves (sneaky way to get in some more veg!).

Dollop a third of your creme fraiche mix- Sprinkle with a good pinch of salt and pepper and top with another layer of lasagne sheets.

 Only Sgt Pepper will do.

Spoon over the rest of the bolognese sauce and another third of the creme fraiche- Finish with a final layer of lasagne sheets and top with the rest of the creme fraiche- Scatter over some extra Parmesan- Top with some slices of tomato and fresh basil leaves- Cover with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes- Remove the foil and cook for another 20 minutes until the lasagne is bubbling and golden- Serve with fresh green salad.

Try it out and pass it on!

15 Minute Meals- Part 3: Mexican Chicken- Well Wicked?!

 

Episode number three: Mexican Chicken with Wicked Mole Sauce... Sceptic alert!!

Wicked Mole Sauce?! Surely no author should be describing their own sauce as wicked? Would Michel Roux self glorify his recipes in writing? Do the critics think it's wicked? Wickedly sinister and an abomination to fine cuisine, perhaps.  I suppose the majority of official food critics use more traditional and romantic words to describe food and also would not dare to comment on Jamie's recipes. But Jamie doesn't cater to these official critics rather to the masses of normal people who use wicked in their vocabulary and although I wish I was in the class where I would be cooking a Michel Roux dish on a mid-week night, I am in fact working my way through 15 Minute Meals. So: Ingredients out- kettle boiled ad 8 minutes and 34 seconds later I can reset the timer and get cooking.

I can say that this is a very curious set of ingredients, and passing by the kitchen before the cooking started caused Craig some alarm when he saw me setting out the peanut butter, banana, and chocolate (for the wicked mole sauce). Staying true to recipes 1 and 2 thus far, Jamie has pulled together ingredients that I would not think go in one dish.

5 minutes in and I have finely sliced some carrots, trimmed spring onions, and they are boiling in some stock with a chopped pepper, smoked bacon, and fresh thyme. Two joys to my nose while I am standing over the hob and to my taste buds when eating the dish are including fresh herbs and smoked bacon. The aroma of sautéing fresh herbs really makes me happy in my heart, and I believe that some of that happiness is from actually reaping the reward of growing the plants yourself. I will never do justice to describing the smell and my advice to you is to grow your own and get cooking! As to the bacon, well, it adds the droo-mami (drool + umami) factor when you add it in. These 15 Minute Meal recipes call for bacon/ pancetta quite often and I suspect it's a way of boosting flavour so to not purposely add the abundance of salt that Jamie traditionally requires. Remember, these meals are healthier (typed with sarcasm).

 

It's time to get Kenny out and blitz the spring onions, peeled garlic and chillies with the cumin seeds, PB, some boiling water, salt and pepper (interestingly not in the outlined ingredient list). This mix then goes into the frying pan to simmer. 

 

I am going to moan here because I ate up a huge chunk of my 15 minutes (like, just over 2 minutes! and was angry and forgot to take a picture) by peeling the stupid garlic! Remembering my Fresh is Best mantra and that pre-chopped jarred garlic is never the same, I immediately thought back to living with my Dad and his two brilliant ways of having fresh garlic:

1) this Italian supermarket in Edmonton sells fresh peeled whole garlic cloves (short shelf life, non-preserved). I really wish I had some of that now.

2) I used to hate it but for the purposes of 15 Minute Meals, wish I had this silicone tube that you put the clove(s) in and roll it in between the palms of your hands until- voila! the cloves are peeled.

 

While the paste is simmering, it's time to get a lid on it- the okra (never to be found in B31), peas (never give peas a chance), thus green beans and chicken are into the first frying pan to cook down. But, I have got to this point at 10 minutes, and if I know anything, it's that chunky strips of fresh chicken will take longer than 5 minutes to cook through.

In the meantime... I'm asked to:

Add the breakfast/dessert ingredients to the paste that has been simmering and cue a classic Jamie cooking tip- one that is possibly even better then describing how to make gnocchi (...you just know when it's right...) season until it's INCREDIBLE.

 

Really?! I'm not sure which is worse? Self-describing your dish as wicked or telling someone to season until it's incredible. As the person following the instructions, I was hardly going to season until it's alright or sub-par. Of course I am going to season until it meets the desires of my palate. Also, I would think (and can attest based on actual perception in my own home) that no amount of seasoning was ever going to make that sauce incredible for some people. But all this natter aside, my scepticism was met and I can honestly say that this sauce was well-sick! Interpret as you will: I loved it... others didn't.

Plodding on and I have met the critical time: 15 minutes and as I suspected, my chicken is still pink. I even pre-cut my chicken to strips to make it cook faster before getting it into the pan- something that the recipe did not ask to do. This is the only thing that I am waiting for, so I might as well tidy up for the next 4 minutes before my dinner is ready.

19 minutes and 32 seconds later, Mexican Chicken with Wicked Mole Sauce, Rice, and Veg is ready. I've opted not to serve it as the picture suggests because dinner needs to come on a plate in my house rather than in bits and bobs. It looks like you are supposed to have some weird soup thing, but the broth drizzled over the rice mixed with the veg tastes just as good. And I do mean good- not wicked; mind you, it's only the incredibly seasoned sauce that is truly wicked. The rest of the dish was a refreshing turn from a tired mid-week meal.

 

 

15 Minute Meals- Part 2: Mustard Lamb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15 Minute Meals attempt number two... Mustard Lamb.

I'm always looking for new lamb recipes, and even better if it's meant to be cooked in 15 minutes, rather than a nicely slow-simmered hot pot. But my scepticism runs high in reading the ingredients list: cider?! I would not suspect cider to be in a lamb recipe. With an open mind, let's get cooking...

 

Ingredients Out (six minutes later).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A really positive thing I can say about this book and it's speedy philosophy is that it is making me become well acquainted with my food processor. The only action Kenwood (from now on to be known as Kenny) has seen until now is the bowl blade chopping various forms of hummus and a few attempts at curry paste. This recipe calls for the thick slicer and coarse grater. Exciting! And the six minutes of pre-work did not include my time searching for the attachments and instructions and figuring out how to assemble them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four minutes in, my lamb is split and seasoned and sizzling away in the frying pan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next: Tip on a platter with watercress. Roughly chop and add the top leafy half of the mint. By roughly chop, I don't think that Jamie meant the extra bit of protein  from the top of my finger. Oops. I solely blame this slip up on Kenny. Had I hand chopped the potatoes earlier as a warm up, my mind would have been in diligence mode rather than speed mode, and my fingertip might have been spared. I would like to clarify that it wasn't that bad... I did manage to slice through one layer of dermis but I promptly wrapped the wound in a cloth to carry on. Although, the next morning when I cleaned the wound, my knees did wobble. With the obligatory 5-a-day drizzled and plated, let's carry on:

 

Six minutes in and I have switched from the slicer to the coarse grater (just flipped it upside down) to chop (or grate) celery faster than I have ever chopped celery before.

 

 

Ten minutes in: Kenwood sliced potatoes and leeks boiled, ready for mashing and I am nearing the end and coming to the third paragraph. With the way most recipes are "organised" (you all know that Jamie is not really organised) into three paragraphs in this book, it looks like I am well on track to finish on time.

 

 

Back to the lamb, which needed a bit of extra cooking because I didn't slice it as finely as Jamie outlined, and it is now time to use the cider to make the sauce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lamb juices, residual mustard powder, cider, and mint sauce (voilà, source of scepticism) into the pan to reduce. Four-ish minutes later, the sauce has boiled so it does not resemble cider. I can confirm that the extra 5 minutes was certainly worth the wait. 20 minutes later, my 15- Minute-Meal is finished and definitely scrumptious! I really do recommend this recipe. I've mustard-coated pork before, but never lamb. The mustard boosts the umami of the lamb and coupled with the sweet cider glaze, this was salivatingly satisfying.

 

 

One last thing to mention about this way of cooking is the disaster area that it does create in your kitchen, irregardless of how tidy you normally are. I do suppose that it could be a balance of competitive edge in trying to cook in time vs. tidying as you go. Over-boiled leeks water and overflowing washing up bowl below as an example.