Spanish Goat and Asparagus Risotto
If you haven’t had goat before it’s very similar to lamb in both how you cook it and how it tastes although it’s a lot leaner and sweeter meat than lamb, cheaper too. The recipe I made with one of the steaks is a quick marinade with a spanish twist to it with some lemon. It only needs an hour in the fridge too. I wanted to make a pilaf to go with this but I only had arborio rice so a quick risotto it was. I’ve made that here before so I won’t go into it again today and obviously, if you can’t find goat, just use lamb.
Boston Baked Beans
Boston Baked Beans - Serves 2-4
250 grams of cannellini beans
1 teaspoon of mustard powder
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons of maple syrup
1 tin of tomatoes
150 grams of pork speck
1 onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves
1 bay leaf, torn
Salt and pepper
Heat oven to 180ºC. Soak the beans overnight. In a large saucepan,
fry the onion, speck, cloves and bay leaf until the onions are
transparent. Add everything else except the beans and simmer for 10
minutes to reduce the liquid a little.
Drain the beans and add. Put a lid on the saucepan and bake for
three hours, stirring occasionally. Serve.
Roast Tomato and Risotto Soup
Roast Tomato and Saffron Risotto
Soup
Roast Tomato and Risotto Soup - Serves
2
6 ripe tomatoes
1 onion
1 capsicum
2 bay leaves
6 sprigs of thyme
6 cloves of garlic
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
1 Liter of stock (I used rabbit)
2 cups of leftover
risotto
Pre-heat your oven to 170ºC. Into a roasting pan, slice the
tomatoes and capsicum in half and the onion in quarters. Add the
herbs and spices and a dash of olive oil and toss them all together
to coat. Roast in the oven for about an hour or until the tomatoes
have dried and started to caramelize.
In a saucepan, heat the stock to boiling and add in the roasted
vegetables (remove the bay leaves). Heat the roasting tin over the
stove and when it’s started to simmer, splash in some of the stock
and deglaze the pan. Scrape up all of the juicy bits and add them
into the pot with the stock. Simmer for 10 minutes then whizz up
with a stick mixer or a blender until it’s a little your preferred
texture (I like mine thick, thin out with more stock if you
want.
EIther, re-heat the risotto in a frying pan and spoon into your
soup bowl and pour around the risotto, or add the risotto to the
soup and mix through to re-heat before serving.
Saffron and Pea Risotto with Pancetta Scallops
I’ve made saffron risotto a couple of times before but I’ve never been satisfied with the yellowness of the end result. In magazines and on TV it’s always almost fluorescent yellow but today it seemed to come out just about right. I guess I used twice as much saffron as usual and let it steep into the stock before I cooked it into the rice.
Fresh Pea and Saffron Risotto with
Scallops cooked with Pancetta
Saffron and Pea Risotto with Pancetta
Scallops - Serves 2
2 liters of fish stock (or vegetable)
1 teaspoon of saffron threads
½ white onion, diced
1 Tablespoon of butter
1 cup of arborio rice
½ cup of fresh peas
2 rashers of pancetta (or bacon)
10 scallops (or prawns, lobster etc)
Bring the stock and saffron threads to simmering point. Fry the
onion in the butter until it’s translucent and add the rice. Fry
until the rice has turned white and one ladle at a time add the
stock and stir until the stock has been absorbed. Continue until ¾
of the stock has been used and the rice has begun to soften.
In a separate pan, fry the pancetta until crisp and the fat has
rendered, do not discard the fat from the pan. Dice the pancetta
and add that along with the peas into the risotto. Continue adding
the stock until the risotto is cooked through.
In the same pan as the pancetta was fried, add the scallops and fry
for one minute each side or until the surface is caramelized and
the flesh has turned opaque.
Pile the risotto on a plate and scatter with the scallops, or if
you’re feeling a little wanky, shape the risotto in a ring then
arrange the scallops around the edge.
An Adventure on the Korean Peninsula
Dak Busut Jim (Braised Chicken and
Mushrooms) and Oyi Namul (Cucumber Salad)
Every meal is served with rice and one
or more small side dishes that can be used to add variety to the
taste and texture of the main course, especially the ubiquitous
kimchi which is style of
pickling vegetables that includes a fermentation process and
usually starts with a base of cabbage. As you’d expect for a
national dish, every region and every grandmother has their own
recipe. If you can’t wait the several weeks it takes to make, good
asian supermarkets sell fresh kimchi in the chilled foods section.
If you can only find the commercial version in a jar, you might
want to skip it unless someone can recommend one to me?
Unlike Japanese food that tends to take 1 teaspoon of a dozen
ingredients that you’ll never use again and are only sold by the
kilo, the only thing I was missing from my cupboard for tonight’s
meal were bamboo shoots that you can pick fresh at good asian
supermarkets or either canned and vacuum packed, all for around
$1.
The braised chicken and mushroom was great with the black pepper
being the surprise front runner and the chinese mushrooms giving a
good mix in texture. The cucumber salad had a nice refreshing but
not overpowering sourness that was needed against the strong
flavours of the chicken, but with some cayenne pepper, keeping a
spicy note.
Dak Busut Jim - Serves 4-6
(Braised chicken and mushrooms)
10 dried mushrooms
1 x 1kg chicken
3 Tablespoon light soy
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper of chili powder
½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 white onion, in 8th and layers separated
125g bamboo shoots, sliced thinly
4 spring onions, sliced, including greens
2 Tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
Cooked white rice to serve
Soak mushrooms in boiling water for 30 minutes then remove stalks,
slice and return to soaking water.
Cut chicken into joints then into small bite sized pieces,
including the bones, place in a bowl. Add in the soy, sesame oil,
garlic, cayenne and black pepper. Mix together and marinade for 30
minutes.
In a wok, add the drained chicken (keep the marinade) and fry until
brown. Add the mushrooms, the soaking liquid and the reserved
chicken marinade. Simmer for 15-20 minutes. Add the remaining
ingredients and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Garnish with toasted sesame
seeds.
Oyi Namul - Serves 6
(Cucumber Salad)
2 large green cucumbers
3 teaspoons coarse salt
1 Cup of water
2 Tablespoons mild vinegar (eg: rice)
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 spring onion, sliced
3 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
Peel (if desired) and as thinly as possible, slice the cucumber and
put into a bowl with the salt and water. Let stand for 15 minutes.
Drain off all of the water then add all of the remaining
ingredients, combine well and serve chilled.
Fried Wild Rice with Crispy Duck
0900 Breakfast with Puppet
1100 Orthopantograph (full mouth dental x-ray)
1200 Optometrists Appointment
1400 Meeting with new employer
1530 Pick up remaining belongings from existing employer
1600 Pick up washing from laundromat
1700 Hardware store - new light bulbs
1730 Clean kitchen
1900 Cook dinner
2000 Clean kitchen again
2030 Blog about dinner
So with that schedule, I wanted something quick and easy for dinner and with left over crispy skinned duck in the fridge and a packet of wild rice in the cupboard a jazzed up fried rice was great choice. Simple and easy and best of all, using those little bits of stuff you’ve got laying around.
Fried Wild Rice with Crispy
Duck
Fried
Wild Rice with Crispy Duck -
Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side
2 eggs
2 cups of wild rice
2 cups of cooked duck, shredded
4 rashers of bacon, diced
½ cup frozen stir-fry veg (or peas, carrots, corn etc diced)
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
1 star anise (optional)
Whisk the eggs together and fry in a wok, swirling around to create
a thin omelette. Turn the omelette out and dice.
Cook the rice and leave to cool.
Fry the spices, duck and bacon until the bacon is crispy, add the
vegetables and fry until almost cooked and add the rice. Fry until
the rice is loose and not clumping any more, add the egg and heat
through. Serve.
Mirin-Glazed Salmon
It only took 10 minutes to make from start to finish and was damn tasty! This is definitely going in the keeper list. Okay, I did make a couple of minor changes, I added some peas to the rice (edamame would have been better but it's hard to find here) plus I was out of Mirin so I used Sake instead, but it's all rice wine right? Right?
Mirin-Glazed Salmon - Serves 4
60mL Mirin
60mL Soy Sauce
50g Brown Sugar
4x 125g pieces of Salmon
2T rice vinegar
2 Spring Onions, sliced into long strips
Jasmine Rice
Mix the mirin, brown sugar and soy sauce in a shallow dish that will take all four pieces of the salmon, and marinate the salmon in it for 3 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the second. Meanwhile heat a large non-stick frying pan on the hob.
Cook the salmon in the hot dry pan for 2 minutes and then turn the salmon over, add the marinade and cook for another 2 minutes.
Remove the salmon to whatever plate you're serving it on, add the rice vinegar to the hot pan and warm through.
Pour the dark, sweet salty glaze over the salmon and top with the spring onion strips. Serve with rice.