Xmas Dinner with Duck, Roast Potatoes and Cauliflower Puree

So here it is Merry Christmas, with a slightly Asian twist, incorporating elements of Indian and Chinese cuisine.

By the way, this serves 2 and the duck alone cost 70 zloties (about 12 quid) so there's my 5 zloties bang out the window. But, what the hell.

Serves: 2

Cost: a lot more than 5 zloties

You'll need:

- a duck (duh!) plus the old giblets (I like that word!)

- around 400g of potatoes, peeled

- half a cauliflower

- butter

- milk

- veg oil

- mustard seeds

- cumin seeds

- 1 dried red chilli

- salt

- 1 shallot 

- 1 clove of garlic

- 1 glass of red wine

- 1 glass of port

- star anise

- 1 coriander plant

- spring onions

- 1 tablespoon of honey

- 1 tablespoon of  soy sauce

- 1 tablespoon of sherry

- 1 tsp Sichuan pepper corns

- 1 tsp five spice powder (Chinese)

- 2 tsp grated ginger

- rosemary

Shall we?

Stage 1 (the day before, if you like)

1. Chop the cauliflower and braise in a pan in butter for around 10 minutes to get a little brown

2. Meanwhile, make some Indian flavoured oil. Heat some oil in a pan and add 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 1/3 tsp mustard seeds and a dried red chilli. Wait for the seeds to splutter

3. Add 1/3 tsp of turmeric and immediately take off the heat.

4. Pass the oil into a bowl and allow to settle

5. When the cauliflower is starting to brown, add a little milk into the pan. Bring to a slight boil then put it on the lowest heat you can. Season with a little salt and pepper. Poach for ten minutes or until the cauliflower is soft. Keep the mix moving in the pan to avoid the milk curdling.

6. Strain out the cauliflower into a blender, retaining the liquid. Add a squeeze of lemon and enough of the liquid to blend into a fine puree.

7. When blended, add a little of the spiced oil, spooning from the top so that you only get the oil and leave the sediment in the bowl. 2-3 tsp should be fine. Ok - cauliflower puree done. Reheat the next day.

Stage Two the day before

1. Let's marinate the duck! So, first we'll crush 1 tablespoon of Sichuan pepper corns

2. Prep the other ingredients - coriander, spring onions, soy sauce, sherry, 5 spice, ginger.

3. Add 1 tsp of salt plus 1 tablespoon of honey

4. Mix them all up real good!

5. Score the duck skin without piercing the meat (try to do it neater than I did). This allows the fat to render more easily while roasting and also gets more of the marinade flavour in there.

6. Rub the marinade inside and out.

7. Keep in the fridge over night.

Stage Three (could be done the day before too)

1. Ok - I think we'll do a little red wine/ port reduction style of gravy. So, let's start of with some finely chopped shallots in a pan and a little hot oil. Give them a few minutes till translucent.

2. Add the giblets. I added the neck. If I was doing this again, I'd leave the neck out - it generated too much fat which I then needed to remove. Brown nicely along with a roughly crushed clove of garlic.

3. Don't forget the star anise!

4. Add in the port and wine. Season a little. Reduce down nicely.

5. Pass into a container. Reheat and reduce down further the next day just before serving the duck.

The Big Day

1. Peel the spuds and cut into fairly large pieces. Keep in a pan of cold water until you boil. Start to prepare around 60 minutes before serving.

2. The oven needs to be on 160 degrees more or less. You'll need to put the duck on a roasting rack on a baking tray. It will need around 2.5 hours to cook plus 15 minutes to rest. Have this in mind for when you time the potatoes. Roast the duck for 30 minutes uncovered. Then cover with foil - this stops the marinade elements from burning.

3. Every so often, pull the duck out the oven and drain off the fat - keep it. We'll be roasting the potatoes in it!

4. After the duck's been in for 1 hour 45 minutes, parboil the potatoes for 5 minutes - no longer!! Drain. Put back into the pan. Season. Drizzle over enough duck fat to cover the spuds. Add a little rosemary if you like.

5. Transfer to a roasting tray. Get them in the oven. They'll need around 45 minutes. Turn them from time to time.

6. After you've taken the duck out to rest, you can reheat the cauliflower puree and the red wine/ port reduction. After the duck's rested for 15 minutes, the potatoes will have been in the oven for 45 minutes and will now be perfect. Plate up!

7. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas! Ho ho ho!

Veggie Burgers (with potatoes and black-eyed beans)

A great left-overs dish when you've made too much mashed potato and you've got some other bits and pieces hanging round the fridge - in this case, some extra black-eyed beans.

Makes: 4 burgers
Cost per burger: 0.90 zl (0.15 GBP, 1.6 Danish Kroner)

We'll need:

- some mash
- some beans
- chopped spring onion
- a pinch of marjoram
- 1/2 finely chopped red chilli 
- salt and pepper
- some old bread
- a handful of basil leaves
- 1 clove of garlic
- rapeseed oil
- 1 egg, beaten
- a little flour

Let's rock!

1. You'll need some mash and beans

2. Add the spring onion, chilli, marjoram and season with salt and pepper

3. Mash it all up

4. In a food processor add some bits of old bread, basil leaves, 1 clove of garlic and season with salt and pepper. 

5. Blitz to make the breadcrumbs. Now you'll have two bowls looking more or less like this:

6. So, now we'll make the burgers. Grab a handful and form a burger. Lightly coat with flour

7. Dip in the beaten egg so it's all coated on all sides

8. Dip in the breadcrumbs and make sure it's well coated. 

9. Oil in a frying pan. Medium heat. Burger in

10. After around 2 minutes, flip and fry the other side for 2 minutes.

11. I like it served simply - with mustard in a bread roll

Magic!

Cost:

- the burger mix: 2.50 zl
- the egg: 0.50 zl
- the bun: 0.30 zl
- the rest: 0.30 zl

total: 3.60 zl
per burger: 0.90 zl

3 bean chili (chili sin carne)

No cows were killed in the making of this. We've swapped the beef for a cunning mix of brown lentils, black-eyed and kidney beans. You won't miss the cow, I promise - or your money back.

Serves: 4
Cost per person: 2.50 zl (0.43 GBP, 0.60 Euros, 44 Indian Rupees)

You'll need:

- a mix of lentils/ black-eyed and kidney beans soaked overnight and then boiled in unsalted water for around 30 minutes for the lentils and 2 hours for the other beans
- a tin of tomatoes
- 1 red pepper chopped up
- 1 green chilli finely chopped
- 1-2 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
- 1-2 onions finely chopped
- 1 tsp paprika powder
- 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- rapeseed oil
- salt

Let's boogie!

1. Chop what needs to be chopped. Get the spices ready

2. Drain the beans and puree the tomatoes with a hand-blender

3. Glug some rapeseed oil in a saucepan. Heat to medium. Onions in. 10 minutes. Sweat down. Garlic in.

4. Give it another 5 minutes and add the green chillies

5. Spices in

6. Mix it all in and enjoy the aroma!

7. Tomatoes in. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Beans in.

8. Red pepper in. Cook for 1-2 minutes and take off from the heat. This way, the peppers will retain a nice crunch.

9. Looking good!

10. Serve with rice, chips or jacket potato. Go crazy if you like and add some grated cheese over the top!

Costing:

- lentils/ black-eyed and kidney beans: 1.50 zl
- a tin of tomatoes: 2 zl
- 1 red pepper chopped up: 2 zl
- the rest: 1.50 zl
- whatever you're serving it with: let's say 3 zl

Total: 10 zl
Serves: 4
Per person: 2.50 zl

Chay Pho (Vietnamese vegetarian noodle soup with tofu)

Ate something similar to this in Laos and damn tasty it was too! It's better known, though, under the name of its Vietnamese counterpart - pho. Rice noodles in a fragrant broth. 

Went a little over budget, basically because ingredients like tofu and rice noodles are fairly expensive here in Poland...

Enjoy!

Serves: 4
Cost per person: 5.50 zl (0.95 GBP)

What do we need?

- a pack of tofu
- a leek
- a white radish or kohlrabi or other such vegetable
- a carrot or two
- an apple
- an onion or two
- 2 inches of ginger sliced up
- salt and sugar
- 1 piece of cinnamon
- 1 star anise
- 2-3 cloves
- 1 tsp pepper corns
- 2 black cardamons
- rice noodles
- mung bean shoots
- fresh coriander
- 1-2 green chillies deseeded 
- 1 lime
- soy sauce
- spring onion chopped

It looks daunting, but it can be broken down into convenient stages.

Stage One - the stock

1. Dry roast the onion, ginger and spices in a pan on low-medium heat until the onion starts to brown nicely (15 mins approximately)

2. In the meantime, chop up the stock veg (and apple).

3. Wack them into a large pan and cover with boiling water

4. Salt and sugar in

5. Check those dry roasted onions. Get them in!

6. Cover and simmer for around 75 minutes.

7. Drain the liquid through to a new pan. Discard the veg

8. You'll end up with a fragrant light brown liquid.

So, you can do this the day before. Makes life easier.

Stage Two - the tofu

1. Cut up the tofu and leave on kitchen roll to draw out some of that moisture.

2. Now, that's not dry enough. You need to put these pieces on a plate (round the outside rim works best - the water then drains to the centre) and microwave in 3 minutes stages, checking dryness after each stage. You're looking for a fairly dry result without massacring the tofu.

3. Oil in wok - heat up to high. Tofu in. Fry for a couple of minutes.

4. Splash in a good amount of soy sauce to season the tofu. Cook down for another 30 seconds. Take off the heat.

Stage Three - the rice noodles

1. Soak them in cold water for 10 minutes

2. Boil in salted water for 5 minutes or until reasonably soft (or al dente). Drain

Stage Four - assembly

1. Get the bean shoots, lime, chilli, spring onions and coriander on a plate. Looks like I took the photo before I added the spring onion and coriander. Trust me - they were there in the end!

2. Put some noodles in the bottom of a deep bowl.

3. Add around 6 pieces of tofu per bowl.

4. Ladle over the broth (obviously this needs to be reheated for this stage)

5. Add a handful of the raw stuff - spring onion, bean shoots, coriander, chilli - and squeeze a little lime over

Eat!

Costing:

- a pack of tofu: 8 zl
- veg for broth: 4 zl
- rice noodles: 4 zl
- mung bean shoots: 4 zl
- 1 lime: 1 zl
- the rest: 1 zl

Total: 22 zl
Serves: 4
Cost per person: 5.5 zl