sichuan pepper roasted duck

Whilst very briefly in Beijing recently, I was sent off to a wonderfully recommended Sichuan inspired restaurant. I have only just stopped glowing and my mouth no longer hums with the aftershock more commonly associated with a pretty severe session with a hardcore dentist. As absolutely delicious as it almost all was; the mouth numbing intensity that the sweet and innocent Sichuan peppercorn offers, in combination with the fried red chilli peppers which were in glorious abundance in the dishes, there is only so much a man can take.

Hoping to take the heat and intensity down a notch here, but try and retain the fragrant element of what this amazing cuisine does offer.

Sichuan pepper roasted duck with plum and star anise

Serves 4

4 duck legs

2 tblsp crushed Sichuan peppercorns

For the plum sauce

150g sugar

3 star anise

1 cinnamon stick

450g plums, halved and stoned

Juice of 1 lime

A dash of fish sauce, plus a little to taste if necessary

Steamed rice, to serve

Preheat the oven to its highest setting. Pierce the skin of the duck all over with a fork. Combine the peppercorns with a teaspoon of salt and rub all over the duck legs so they are nicely coated. Place on a wire rack (with a tray underneath to catch the fat) in the oven.

Immediately turn the temperature down to 350F/180C/Gas 4 and cook for two hours until the skin is golden and the meat begins to flake away from the bone easily.

Meanwhile, make the plum sauce by combining the sugar in a saucepan with 200ml water, the star anise and the cinnamon. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for five minutes until slightly reduced. Add the plums and cook until they are soft and have broken down slightly (how long will depend on the size of your plums).

Take off the heat, squeeze in the lime juice and pour in the fish sauce. Taste and add a dash more fish sauce if you feel it. Spoon over the duck and serve immediately with steamed rice. Smother with a couple of dozen crispy red chillis here at your peril, this is absolutely optional.

pizza and biryani, what a combo

If ever there was a combination sure to surprise and delight, pizza followed by a killer biryani actually works, trust me as I wasn't one bit convinced to begin with either. The pizza needs a decent hit of chilli fire, obviously, and an open mind, definitely. This recipe here is only just a starting point, and there really is no pizza recipe out there that is the definitive article. Toppings are totally at everyone's discretion. This blog post is actually now so messed up that the photo neither reflects a biryani or a puff pastry based mushroom and taleggio pizza. What the photo actually is an incredibly delicious pizza had in Weymouth while watching the Olympic sailing in the Summer of 2012, that was a great combination. 

Mushroom and taleggio pizza

Serves 4

Puff pastry provides an instant base to the pizza, and the crust stays crisp slightly longer than regular pizza dough. A nice salad of wild rocket leaves with Parmesan shavings would be great with it.

25g unsalted butter
3 tblsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
450g mixed mushrooms (such as girolle, portobello, shiitake and chestnut mushrooms), roughly sliced into a similar size
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, crushed
375g puff pastry
1 medium egg, beaten
4-5 tblsp grated Parmesan
100g taleggio cheese, torn into small pieces
Handful of oregano, leaves picked and roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6. Heat a pan with the butter and olive oil. Add the sliced mushrooms and sauté for a few minutes until golden brown. (You may need to do this in two batches if your pan is not wide enough.) Season well with salt and pepper. Add the crushed garlic and cook for a few more minutes. Transfer to a plate and allow to cool.

Roll out the pastry on to a lightly floured board to a large rectangle about 3mm thick. Slide this on to a baking tray. Using a long knife, lightly score a 1cm border around the edge of the rectangle, taking care not to cut through the pastry. Brush all over the pastry with the beaten egg. Layer the sautéed mushrooms around the inner rectangle of the pastry. Sprinkle the parmesan and taleggio over the mushrooms. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry has puffed and browned. 

Scatter the chopped oregano leaves over the pizza and drizzle with a little olive oil before slicing into four and demolishing until the biryani is ready to tackle.

the home style chicken curry

You can't really go wrong cooking this curry unless you leave the pot on the stove and go on off to Sri Lanka on holiday expecting to be ticking away nicely upon return. I've found this always best with pieces of thigh meat, still on the bone; if it has to be boneless, again thigh meat will yield better results. Adding the ginger toward the end is a sweet and unique step that does nothing less than to enhance the flavour. I have cooked variations of this this recipe a thousand times - and it just keeps getting better. I brought back some incredible garam masala from my latest visit to the Indian Ocean, with 22 different spices, and most of them still whole. This mixture crushed just before use releases the most incredible headspace of aromas and flavours; something similar is well worth seeking out where possible.

 

Home style chicken curry

 

Serves 4

 

3 tsp vegetable oil
1 bay leaf
4 green cardamom, 2.5cm cinnamon stick, 10-12 black peppercorns, 1 tsp cumin seeds and 2 cloves all pounded together with a pestle and mortar
250g onions, finely sliced
½ tsp garlic, minced to a paste
½ tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp coriander powder
½ tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste
100g tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 tsp tomato paste
600g chicken, cut into 2.5cm chunks
½ tsp garam masala
2 tsp coriander leaves, chopped
1 tsp ginger, finely chopped

 

Heat the oil in a pan, add the bay leaf and pounded spices, and stir until the spices crackle and they change colour. Add the onions and sauté until golden brown, then add the garlic paste. Stir continuously and keep scraping the bottom of the pan to avoid the mix getting burnt.

 

Add the powdered spices, but not the garam masala. Mix quickly without letting the spices get burnt at the bottom.

 

Add salt, the tomatoes and the paste and cook on slow heat, stirring slowly. As the tomatoes melt to form a sauce, add the chicken and cook on a slow heat for 20-25 minutes until the chicken is almost cooked.

 

Sprinkle on the garam masala and simmer to finish cooking. Add coriander and sprinkle over ginger.

the magic of the biryani of the dubai

Honestly, we all know the biryani isn't precisely local here, but really what actually is? This is by no means an ultra traditional number and I'm not here to divide nations and have battle lines drawn up, I just kind of know what I like. I think it would be proper to have it cooked under a pastry crust, which I'm not going to, so there's my first group offended. Here is simply my take on what has long been a downtown Satwa favourite. If you can do anything which might offer some authenticity to your buryani, do marinate the meat overnight as this helps massively to tenderise it

 

A Mutton Biryani

 

Serves 4-6

 

500g mutton, diced into bite-sized pieces

15g Greek or natural yoghurt

1 tblsp freshly grated root ginger, plus a 2cm knob of fresh root ginger, peeled

1 crushed garlic clove, plus 2 cloves, peeled

1 tsp mild chilli powder

1/2 green chilli, seeded and roughly chopped

1 tsp coriander seeds

Pinch of ground turmeric

2 tblsp olive oil

1 small onion, sliced

100ml single cream

Squeeze of lemon juice

Few drops of rosewater

Handful of coriander leaves

 

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 tbsp olive oil

250g basmati rice, rinsed

2 cinnamon sticks

4 star anise

4-5 cardamom pods, lightly crushed

Peel of 1/2 orange and 1/2 lemon

600ml hot lamb or chicken stock

Knob of butter

 

Marinate the mutton in the yoghurt, grated ginger and crushed garlic for at least 2 hours or preferably overnight.

 

Place the remaining ginger, garlic, chilli powder, chilli, coriander seeds and turmeric in a food processor and whiz to a fine paste. If necessary, add a little olive oil or water to get the paste moving in the processor.

 

Heat a large heavy-bottomed pan or a cast-iron casserole with a little olive oil. Tip in the onion and cook over a medium heat for 4-5 minutes until softened. Stir in the spice paste and cook for 2-3 minutes until fragrant. Add the mutton and yoghurt to the pan and season well. Stir in the cream and cover the pan with a tight-fitting lid. Cook over a low heat for 11/2-2 hours until the mutton is tender. Stir the mixture occasionally and add a splash of water if the mixture looks too dry.

 

Now start preparing the rice: preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6. Sauté the onion in the oil in an ovenproof pan for 4-5 minutes until soft. Tip in the rice, cinnamon, star anise, cardamom and peel. Season and stir over a medium-to-high heat for 30 seconds. Add the stock, bring to the boil and cover with a tight-fitting lid. Transfer the pan to the oven for 20 minutes.

 

Remove the rice from the oven and leave to stand for 5 minutes. Mix through a knob of butter and season, fluffing the grains of rice with a fork to separate them.

 

Pile the rice on top of the mutton and sprinkle over the lemon juice and rosewater. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and return to the oven for 10-15 minutes to warm through.

 

Bring the pot to the table to serve. Stir through the coriander leaves and mix the rice and mutton together before piling on to individual plates.

Cockles, leeks and many spices

I recently had some okayish mussels, in a quite predictable setting with a rather pedestrian style but this time with an unexpected finale. Well, I guess if you're going to have them without an R in the month, a bit of time spent on the toilet is what you deserve.

This hasn't put me off. Foolishly we're now experimenting with cockles out of season, and I can assure that this number has been tried and tested in a few guises, thus far without the bathroom being a part of the recipe.. I recall first making a version of this as the soupy bit for a steamed turbot dish, but was so happy with the flavours that I thought it deserved its own moment of glory. 

Cockles are one of our more underused native shellfish, and it is a shame that they are more recognisable all crinkled up in the pain of a vinegar pickling by the seaside. Do try with cockles as I'm telling you to, but don't stop there with what our craggy shores offer. Maybe just wait till September or there abouts to throw all caution to the sea wind.

Cockles leeks and many spices
Serves about 6

800g leeks (you can use baby ones if you've got some)
2 tblsp olive oil

3 large red chillis, chopped

2 small green chillis, sliced into rounds

Pinch each of cardamom, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne and caraway seeds

1 lemon grass stalk sliced

1 thumb of ginger, peeled and sliced
500g fresh cockles (in the shell)
2 glasses white wine
300ml fish stock
100ml double cream
20g parsley (rough-chop the leaves, and discard the stalks)
20g thyme, chopped
70g butter (unsalted and at room temperature)
black pepper

Boil a pan of salted water. Trim the leeks, and blanch for 6-8 minutes until al dente. Run them immediately under cold water until they reach room temperature (they should feel neither hot nor cold), then cut into thick rounds, or if using baby leeks, into halves or thirds. In a deep frying pan heat the olive oil until nearly smoking. Chuck in all of the spices and aromats apart from half of the red chilli, and toss quickly for half a minute.

Throw in the cockles, then a minute later the white wine, and put the lid on. Cook for 3 minutes. Add the fish stock, toss in the leeks, and reduce the liquid by half. Lower the heat, stir in the double cream, rough-chopped parsley leaves and chopped thyme. Whisk in the butter in knobs and season with black pepper (it should not need any salt). Serve in shallow bowls, discarding any cockles that are not open. Sprinkle the remainder of the chilli and prop the bathroom window open to enjoy properly...