Good Food Week: Give it a go....

Good Food Week: Give it a go.... www.grazing.com.au

Give it a go....

So I really like 'Grazing' and I receive their e-newsletter each month.And normally at the bottom they provide you with a recipe for something delicious that they have created and would like to share...I see it, I think 'WOW' and then I forget about it...

Here is something that I just couldn't get off my mind and so I gave it a go - and I think you should too!

Duck Liver Parfait

• 480 - 500g duck liver, trimmed and cleaned
• 400g butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 capful brandy
• thyme sprigs
• salt

1. Line small terrine mold with double layer cling wrap. Crush thyme with pinch of salt in mortor and pestle to rough paste. Process liver, egg, thyme in a blender.
2. Pass through drum sieve and transfer to to clean blender. Add brandy. With motor running, slowly add melted butter to emulsify.
3. Pour into terrine mold. Cook in water bath in oven 150C 25-30mins - parfait should be set but with slight wobble to surface.

San Choy Bow

Phillip's parents are pretty traditional in their eating habits and by traditional, I mean traditional Croatian. Last night, it was my turn to cook at their place (which is now our place - as Phillip and I are living there whilst we house hunt).

I asked Phillip what he felt like, and he replied 'San Choy Bow' - a pretty standard week night meal for us when we were living in our apartment. It's light, it's quick and I think it's pretty easy to throw together! But it was something from another world for Phillip's parents...and I'm happy to say they really enjoyed it, I think you will too.

I removed the coriander from this recipe as Phillip's Mum thinks it tastes like washing up water, I really like coriander and would use the root in pork mixture and the leaves to top as decoration.

Quick and Easy San Choy Bow

500 grams pork and lamb mince (you can use 100% pork mince if you can find it)

1 bunch of spring onions

1 carrot

1/2 green capsicum

1/2 punnet of button mushrooms

1 head of iceberg lettuce

1/2 packet of Vermicelli rice noodles

1 can of diced water chestnuts

3 tablespoons of crushed peanuts

2 cloves of crushed garlic

1 tablespoon diced ginger

2 tablespoons of oyster sauce

2 tablespoons of soy sauce

1 teaspoon fish sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon of olive oil

Remove the core from the head of the iceberg lettuce, and carefully remove each layer (these will become the 'cups' that you put the pork mixture into to eat). Place the lettuce layers into cold water for 15 minutes to become extra crisp. Remove and drain.

Whilst the lettuce is 'soaking', place oil, garlic, ginger, pork and diced spring onions into a deep frying pan. As the meat is browning, dice the carrot, capsicum and mushrooms and add into the pork.

Boil the kettle, remove 1/2 of the vermicelli rice noodles from the packet, place in a heat proof bowl, cover with boiling water and leave for 5 minutes.

Once the meat is brown, add water chestnuts, drained noodles, oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce and sugar. Make sure that all the mixture is coated - you may need to add a little water here if the sauce is a little thick and isn't covering everything. Simmer for another 2-3 minutes.

To serve, set a bowl of lettuce leave and the pork mixture on the table. Take a lettuce 'cup', fill with 2-3 scoops of the pork mixture and wrap like a parcel to eat.

Tuscan style chicken and potatoes

These tasty little morsels were created to go with the Tuscan style artichokes that I previously posted. When creating this meal I chose specifically Tuscan flavours and used them throughout the three main meal items to create consistency of the palate – I think I just made that up, but what I mean is ‘if you share key flavours throughout your meal it will taste delicious, where as if you put together multiple flavours you are more likely to hit a clash of flavours and people wont enjoy eating your hard work.’

Ok – so what were my Tuscan flavours; olive oil, flat leaf parsley, fresh bay leaves, lemon, capers, anchovies, black peppercorns. The key is not to use all of the flavours in every dish – because you don’t want everything to taste the same, but you do want it to match.

Tuscan Style Chicken

* Whole Free-range Chicken

* 1 Lemon

* 5 Fresh Bay Leaves

* 3 sprigs of Flat Leaf Parsley

* Pepper

* Salt

* Olive oil

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (Celsius).

Wash the chicken and pat dry. Lift the skin on the chicken so that there is room to place slices of lemon underneath the skin, along with 2 or 3 bay leaves (depending on the size of the chicken).

Stuff the remaining lemon, bay leaves and parsley into the cavity of the chicken along with a 10 peppercorns. Place the chicken into a baking dish, rub with oil and salt and put into the oven for 90 minutes.

Tuscan Style Potatoes

* 12 Kipfler Potatoes ( 2-3 per person)

* 2 tablespoons of Capers

* ¼ cup Flat Leaf Parsley

* 1 clove of Garlic (crushed)

* 1 tablespoon Lemon juice

* Olive oil

* Salt

Peel the potatoes and place in a pot of salted boiling water. Boil the potatoes for 20 minutes.

Drain the potatoes and place in a baking dish with capers, parsley, garlic, lemon, lots of oil and salt (you want the potatoes to soak up some of the oil and lemon juice and become nice and crispy)

Place the baking dish into the oven with the chicken (180 degrees Celsius) for 30 minutes.

Tuscan Articokes

My Mum is the most giving and accepting person you will ever meet. She bends over backwards day in and day out to accommodate the ever demanding and changing requests of our family (which has grown dramatically in the past year to include my beautiful niece Meika and my brother-in-law Jon).

The house of ‘hussle and bussle’ has quietened over the last fortnight, with Alyce, Jon and Meika moving to Jon’s parents and me moving back to Canberra – but before I left I wanted to say ‘Thank you’. Thank you for the beautifully cooked meals, the neatly washed and ironed clothes, and the shoulder to lean on… the laughter, the love and the light.

I made these Tuscan Artichokes with a Tuscan inspired chicken, potatoes and a tiramisu (subsequent recipes to follow later).

Tuscan Artichokes

* 3 Jerusalem Artichokes

* 1 can of Butter Beans

* 2 Lemons

* 3 Anchovies

* 5 Fresh Bay Leaves

* 5 whole Black Peppercorns

* ¼ cup Flat Leaf Parsley

* 100 ml Olive Oil

* 300 ml water

Start to remove the outer leaves of the artichoke until you come to the inner ‘yellow-ish’ leaves. With a peeler, remove the hard skin from the stalk and rub with lemon juice. Cut the artichoke heart into quarters and then rub with lemon juice (make sure that all the surface area is rubbed with lemon juice otherwise the artichoke will discolour).

Into a heavy based saucepan (which also should have a lid), place the artichoke quarters, anchovies, bay leaves and peppercorns. Cover with oil, water and remaining lemon juice. Put the lid on the saucepan and cook over low heat for 30 minutes.

Add in the can of butter beans and continue to cook for 30 minutes. Once the 30 minutes has passed, test the artichoke stems with a fork – they should be soft, if so, remove from the heat and stir through the fresh parsley.

I served this with Tuscan style chicken and potatoes – but this side could accompany any Italian/ Spanish style dish. I think it would even be tasty on crusty sourdough bread.