Dealing with duck

As I have said before, duck is my favourite meat but it is expensive. It is also surprisingly lacking in meat when compared to a chicken of the same size. Nonetheless, when I buy duck I like to make the most of it in order to get good value for money. For a start, when Lidl's have them in I buy frozen whole duck from them as this is the cheapest way I have found to buy it. It doesn't come with any cooking instructions but I know by now that from thawed it will take 2 hours as 200°C. Before hand I push some sage, onion, celery and maybe a mushroom or two into the cavity to add to the flavour. It is also brilliant to cook roasted potatoes under a duck because the duck fat is so tasty. The trick here is to have the duck on a rack out of the fat and to allow the potatoes to cook in the fat but to drain the fat off (into a container to keep!) when the duck is taken out to rest. Return the potatoes to the oven for 10 minutes to crisp up.

We usually eat the two breasts with a roast dinner. If you can manage it, try to cut the breasts off whole, rather than slicing them as you would for chicken. A breast each for an adult is great but we have two small children so we usually cut some of each breast off to give to the children so it feeds all four of us. What we'll do when the children are bigger I'm not sure.

So after a roast dinner we still have both legs and wings left. Later this week I striped the meat off the remaining bird and boiled up the carcass and stuffing to make stock, which I jarred and stored for later use. The meat I divided roughly in half. One half of the meat we cooked up as a Chinese-style meal last night for my husband and me. Whilst I prepared vegetables for a stir fry he concocted a sauce to go with it. I don't know exactly what went into the sauce but it was loosely based around oyster sauce. The stir fry contained leek, shallots, carrot, celery, mushrooms and some large slices of root ginger. Then, once the vegetables were just about cooked, we threw in the duck meat and finally added the sauce. This was served with some plain boiled rice.

Earlier that day I had used the other half of the duck meat to make some duck rolls. These are loosely based around duck spring rolls but to be honest I have tried making that pastry spring rolls usually come wrapped in but have never succeeded. I think the problem lies in them needing to be deep fried and I don't own a deep fat frier and I'm too frightened of a fat fire to do it on the hob. I have tried filo pastry too, which is fiddly to use and has a tendency to shatter in the freezer. So now I use puff pastry, which is not only very tasty, but is easy to use and freezes well. To the duck meat I added one large closed cup mushroom, very finely chopped and some grated carrot. I make these for my children so I like to get a few extra vegetables on their plates without them realising! Finally, I added a tablespoon of hoi sin sauce and mixed it all up. Then I rolled out half a block of ready made fresh puff pastry and cut it in half. Then I dolloped the duck mixture all along it. Using milk to stick it together, I rolled the pastry over as if I were making sausage rolls. Finally, more milk was used as a glaze and then they were cut into sausage roll size lengths. This makes about 12 rolls, which will feed my two children 3 times. I froze the lot. They can be cooked from frozen at 200°C for 25 minutes until golden. Last night I served them with some rice, a few noodles and some carrot and cucumber sticks and they were eaten with enthusiasm.

So from a whole duck costing approximately £8, we had a roast dinner for 4, two adult Chinese-style meals, 12 duck rolls, a tubs of duck fat and several jars of stock. OK, a chicken would have been cheaper but I don't think that is too bad for the money.

Cranberry Flapjacks

Next month the soft fruit will be ready for harvesting again and that means a return to jam making season. So this month I need to try to clear my backlog of homemade jams and preserves.

There is only so much jam you can eat on toast during any given week so I do try to find ingenious ways to incorporate jam into recipes. With this in mind, I managed to invent a cranberry flapjack using up stocks of homemade cranberry sauce. Brilliantly simple because the sauce is both a fruity flavouring and a source of sugar so no need to add extra.

Cranberry Flapjacks

4¾ oz (135g) margarine or unsalted butter
4 oz (110g) cranberry sauce
2 oz (55g) golden syrup
8 oz (225g) oats
¾ oz (20g) sunflower seeds
1¾ oz (50g) raisins

Preheat oven to 190° C (gas 5). In a large saucepan, gently melt the margarine or butter with the sauce and syrup. Removed from the heat then add the remaining ingredients. Spoon the mixture onto a small baking tray and press down with wetted fingers. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Mark out the flapjacks before allowing it to cool in the tin.

Tiffin

If there was ever a good way to make use of leftovers then tiffin has got to be it. Take some stale biscuits, add a few stock cupboard ingredients and a bar of chocolate and hey-presto you have transformed something inedible into something delicious! It is very rich so not so great in terms of nutrition but brilliant in terms of food waste, especially as it keeps for ages. Horrah! Let's eat tiffin and save the planet!

Tiffin

8 oz (225g) stale biscuits

4 oz (110g) butter

1 good tablespoon golden syrup

8 oz mixed dried fruit

2 oz glace cherries, chopped

200g milk chocolate

Place the biscuits in a bag and bash with a rolling pin until crumbed. Melt together the butter and syrup in a pan over a low heat. Combine the biscuit, butter mix and fruit and stir well. Grease a suitable tin and press the mixture into it and level. Refrigerate for at least half an hour until solid. Melt the chocolate over a pan of hot water then spread over the biscuit base, level out and return to the fridge. Once solid, cut the tiffin into small squares and transfer to an airtight container. Keeps well.

A friend's visit

The lemon and sultana cake lasted impressively until Tuesday, by which point it was on the verge of being stale anyway. Now my husband has started measuring his waistline once a week and he's been getting more out of his gym membership for the past fortnight! So last night when confronted with a box of carrot and orange muffins he tried very hard to limit himself to just one. He nearly managed it too but succumbed to another later in the evening. Maybe eating them a couple of hours apart helps to lessen their effect!

Today a friend of mine came over to buy a few jars of homemade jam from me. Whilst here I offered her a drink and a muffin, which she accepted. The drink she chose happened to be a glass of homemade blackcurrant cordial. She enjoyed both her drink and her muffin and went home with 4 jars of jam too! It doesn't often work out like that but it was nice to have my homemade products appreciated!

Carrot and Orange Muffins (makes 10)

4 oz (110g) light muscovado sugar
5 fl oz (125ml) sunflower oil
2 eggs
7 oz (200g) plain flour
2 oz (55g) wholemeal flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 orange
6 oz (170g) carrot
4 oz (110g) sultanas

Preheat oven to 200°C, gas mark 6. Mix the oil and the sugar together then beat in the eggs. Sieve the dry ingredients into the oil mix. Grate the peel off the orange and add that to the bowl then squeeze the juice from the orange and add that. Grate the carrot and fold that into the mix, along with the sultanas. Spoon into cases in a muffin tin. Cook for 20 minutes and test with a skewer. Cool on a wire rack.

My husbands fat tummy!

Every night when my husband is getting ready for bed he catches sight of himself in the mirror. This causes him to stand up straight, draw in his breath and suck in his tummy. Then he pats it, says, "I must get rid of this." He's not particularly fat, you understand, he just has a mental image of himself as a fit 18 year old and the sight in the mirror always comes as something of a surprise!

Whenever he talks about dieting he always sees having "afters" as either the biggest problem or perhaps as the easiest area to tackle. He likes to have something sweet after dinner, as is so often the case, something we seem to get trained into somehow. I know that after dinner he will go looking for the cake tin to see what delight I have cooked up today.

At first sight it would appear that if I stopped making cakes, flapjacks and biscuits for him he would stop eating them and this would help his belly. As obvious as it seems, that solution doesn't work. I know, I've tried it! Instead, when he finds the cake tin empty he opens the food cupboard and sees what else he can find. This often results in him eating something a good deal more fattening than the relatively health bakes I make, such as shop bought shortbread fingers.

I have pointed out to him that what I make is supposed to last 4 to 5 days not the usual 2 to 3!This week we have agreed upon serious rationing - just 2 flapjacks a night. He did well, managing to eek out the batch of flapjacks from Monday to Thursday.

So today the cake tin stands empty again and this afternoon I have friend popping over for a chat. So at the moment the appetising smell of lemon and sultana cake cooking fills the air. I wonder how long the cake will last?

Lemon and Sultana Cake

1 lemon
4 oz (110g) sultanas
5 oz (145g) caster sugar
3 fl oz (85ml) corn oil
2 eggs, beaten
7 oz (200g) plain flour
2 oz (55g) wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons oat bran

Preheat oven to 180°C (gas 4). Grease and line a loaf tin. Place the sultanas in a bowl and cover with the juice and zest of the lemon, made up to 6 fl oz (170 ml) with warm water. Set aside. In another bowl, sift together the flour, salt and raising agents. Make a well in the middle. To the fruit mix, add the sugar, oil and eggs. Carefully stir the wet mix into the dry mix. Add the oat bran and combine well. Spoon into the loaf tin and bake for 55 to 60 minutes and test with a skewer.

Friends after school

My daughter invited a friend over after school this afternoon. It was arranged before the Easter holidays so she has been looking forward to it for about 3 weeks. She was quite clear that she wanted some cakes to share with her friend. Certainly not a problem in our house so this morning I made a batch of orange choc chip muffins. To add to the interest, I also whipped up a bowl of orange butter icing and got out the last of the mini eggs left over from Easter. So when they got home, I shared out 12 cakes between 3 girls and they dolloped on butter icing and finished off with a mini egg. OK so the Easter theme was a bit late but they were pretty little cakes. The girls enjoyed the activity as well as eating a cake there and then and my daughter's guest had 3 cakes to take home to Mum too.



Orange Choc Chip Mini Muffins

(makes 12-16)


110g (4 oz) self-raising flour
25g (1 oz) wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
55g (2 oz) caster sugar
Grated rind of 1 orange
1 egg
150 ml (5 fl oz) milk
2 tablespoons juice from the orange
60ml (2 fl oz) oil
25g (1 oz) chocolate chips
40g (1 1/2 oz) butter or margarine
55g (2 oz) icing sugar
Rind and juice from half an orange
12 Mini Eggs

Preheat oven to 200°C. Sift together the flours and baking powder then stir in sugar and orange rind. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg, milk, juice and oil. Combine the dry and wet mixes until just mixed then stir in the chocolate chips. Spoon into fairy cake cases and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. In the meantime, cream together the butter and the icing sugar in a bowl then add the orange rind and juice and stir well. Add butter icing and one mini egg to each cake.

Too many bananas

Bananas are a funny old fruit. I don't like them as it happens, which I often regret. I find myself every now and then wanting to eat a banana. They are the perfect snack - wrapped in a colour-coded skin that lets you know exactly how sweet it will be, an individual portion of high energy, high fibre nutritious food. If I'm starving hungry just before dinner I think to myself how perfect a banana would be - an energy boost to get me through the food preparation without it spoiling my appetite. Nonetheless, whenever I try them I only confirm that I don't like the texture nor the flavour. What's funny is, I like banana flavoured things such as milkshake, and I like bananas in food such as banana cake.

So the ever present bananas in my fruit bowl are there for my children and my husband and so whenever any of them say, "I'm hungry," I can reply, "Have a banana." But I find that some weeks they snaffle the lot and in other weeks they slowly turn brown without even a sniff of interest. Apparently you have to be in the right mood for a banana.

Last week was a definite 'off' week and when we set off to Granny's for the Easter weekend there were 6 bananas in the fruit bowl already showing their first flecks of brown. When we arrived at Granny's we discovered that she too had filled her fruit bowl with a fine hand of bananas. Despite the occasional nibble over the course of the weekend, by the time we were packing the car Monday morning there were still 4 bananas left. As always Granny busied herself with loading a bag full of various bits and pieces of food from her cupboard (she hates to think we might go hungry!) and I knew it was likely the bananas would find their way into the bag too. But as it happened just before we left I was met with calls of "I'm hungry!" and you can guess what I suggested!

Back home the 6 bananas in my fruit bowl were very definitely ripe and I figured if they stayed there much longer the fruit flies would start to circle! So the next day when I went shopping I bought some extra thick double cream and by the afternoon 3 bananas were magically transformed into banoffee ice-cream.

Banoffee Ice-cream

1½ oz (45 g) brown sugar
1½ oz (45 g) butter
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
3 large over ripe banana
7½ fl oz (210 ml) milk
10½ fl oz (300 ml) double cream

In a saucepan or in the microwave, melt together the sugar, syrup and butter then set aside to cool. In the meantime, blend the banana with 100 ml of the milk in a food processor until smooth. Pour this mix into the remaining milk, add the toffee mix and the cream and stir well until fully mixed. Pour into suitable containers and place in the freezer for 2 hours. Remove from the freezer and beat then return to the freezer. Repeat every two hours until solid.

By the next morning the remaining 3 bananas had been used to make a banana loaf. What a fantastic fruit the banana is - a handy snack and a versatile cooking ingredient.

Banana Loaf

7 oz (200g) plain flour
2¼ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
¾ ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons wheatgerm or oat bran
2½ oz (70g) margarine
4 oz (110g) caster sugar
3 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 180°C (gas 4). Grease and line a loaf tin. Sift together flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir in the wheatgerm. In another bowl, cream together the margarine and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the mashed bananas and eggs to the creamed mix and stir well. Add the dry ingredients and blend evenly. Spoon into the loaf tin. Cook for 50 to 60 minutes and check by inserting a skewer. Cool in the tin.