Roast duck soup with prawn wontons & Chinese kale

This is a my version of a simple, but utterly delicious, soup I ate in Chinatown Bangkok on my last visit (see the pic in my original post here). I remember being shocked at how tasty it was - not full of complex flavours like so much of Thai food, but just perfectly balanced and with each ingredient delicious in it's own right.

I say Thai food...the boundaries between Thai and Chinese food are sometimes pretty blurred, especially in Bangkok. As far as I understand it this can be called Thai food, but the but the tastes and techniques all originate from China (but then so do so many things - almost all noodles, the techniques of steaming, stir-frying etc etc).

Whether Thai or Chinese it's a delicious dish, which is obviously the most important thing.

Ok, so, needless to say, my home-made version didn't quite reach the heights of the one eaten in Bangkok (the vendor that sold me that bowl of goodness had probably been roasting her ducks and perfecting her wonton filling for 25 years or something), but it was pretty good for a first run. So here's a general recipe....

For starters I picked up half a roast duck from Chinatown, plus some Chinese kale, oh and some fresh wonton skins (though you could use the ones you find in the freezer sections of Asian stores). Plus a handful of raw prawns (there's a really cheap fresh seafood supplier hidden in a back alley just off Chinatown...here).

I made a simple Chinese / Thai style chicken stock base - using a couple of chicken carcasses which i pre blanched and rinsed then covered with cold water and add few mild flavourings...couple of Chinese cabbage leaves, clove of garlic, couple of white peppercorns, few ginger scraps, couple of coriander roots and spring onion trims.

I then took the meat off the bought 1/2 roast duck and added the bones from that to the stock pot too.

The rest is pretty simple...for the wonton filling I peeled, de-veined the prawns and then chopped them quite fine. I added finely chopped ginger & some spring onions and seasoned with pinch of white sugar, white pepper, salt and teaspoon of light soy. Then just balled up the filling and placed on wonton skins, painted edges of the skins with little water and brought up the sides to encase.

To finish I strained the stock - it had simmered for an hour and a half or something - then added some to a pan (use the rest for soups, curries, in stir fries etc), brought it to the boil and seasoned lightly with little oyster sauce, light soy, salt, white pepper and pinch white sugar. Then added some Chinese kale pieces, followed by the wontons a minute later.

In the bottom of the soup bowls I put some sliced spring onions and a couple of coriander leaves, plus a nice amount of sliced roast duck. By this time the wontons and veg were just cooked and ready to be ladled over with the hot stock.

Few dots of roasted sesame oil shaken over each steaming bowl and the soup was finished.

Only ten years more practice and I'll be good enough to push a soup cart round the streets of Bangkok.

Pic also by Wix.

Thai quail with crispy garlic & chilli-vinegar sauce

Here's a dish i cooked recently...inspired by yes, you guessed it, the food of David Thompson (who's currently a little preoccupied setting up Nahm in Bangkok). It's actually a technique I learnt doing fish dishes at the restaurant, but works well with all sorts, like quail, which I'm a big fan of.

The sauce is a something I made after chatting to one our Thai chefs, it uses vinegar as opposed to the normal lime juice found in many Thai dipping sauces (nahm jims), works well methinks.

Garlic, coriander root and white pepper is central combo here. It's one of the fundamental Thai flavour bases, dating back to way before chillies arrived in the country (about 1500 i'm told).

Cant take the credit for the nice pic.... my friend Ben took it.

Thai quail with crispy garlic & chilli-vinegar sauce

Ingredients (serves 4 - 6 as part of a Thai meal)

• 4 quail, 'oven ready'
• kecap manis (a dark sweet soy which you can find at most asian stores)
  
• a good handful of garlic cloves, skin on (ideally the small Thai garlic cloves but about 2 bulbs of normal if you cant find)
• 5 - 6 coriander roots, washed
• a tablespoon of whole white peppercorns
  
• plentiful plain oil to deep fry with
• some fresh coriander and a lime for garnish
  

Sauce:

• 4 fresh long red chillies
• one clove of garlic
• 2 coriander roots
  
• pinch of salt
• pinch white sugar
  
• Thai coconut vinegar, failing that white rice vinegar - about 2 tablespoons

Method

Cut each quail in to 4 pieces leaving the meat on the bone. Marinate in about 3 tablespoons of kecap manis (you could use light soy plus pinch of sugar if you don't have KM) for a few hours, overnight is better still.

When you're ready to cook make your sauce first: de-seed the chillies, chop and pound in pestle and mortar with the salt, coriander roots an garlic clove until smooth. Now add the vinegar and pinch of white sugar to taste.

Next make your paste for the quail by pounding together the roots, peppercorns and garlic (yes with skin still on) until a coarse fragrant paste, not too fine is err... fine.

Get plenty of oil heated up to deep fry, when it's really hot add half your paste and then half the marinated quail. What you want to do now is wait until the paste turns to light golden crispiness, skim it off and set it aside to drain on some paper and then continue to fry the birds until they're cooked (which should take about 4-5 mins in total), then fish them out a let rest for couple o mins.

Repeat with the other half the paste and quail, make sure you give your oil a good skim in between to remove any gubbins that'll go black n 'orrible.

Serve the quail with crispy garlic mix and some coriander sprinkled over and then a lime wedge and dipping sauce on the side.

Thanks again to Ben for the pic.

Quail, daikon & pickled spring onion salad

This salad uses quail (which i'm a big fan of), but you could easily do it with all sorts - poussin, pigeon, chunks of tender beef or even pieces of salmon. Is just really about a marinade plus a few interesting Asian accompaniments.

Get the pickled spring onions done first (you wont nearly use them all here, but they keep for ages in fridge and can be used for all sorts).

Ingredients (for 2):

2 Quail

1-2 large ‘Dutch’ red chillies

½ a small daikon / mooli (if you cant find use another radish or even a cucumber)

Few sprigs of shiso cress (or use small coriander sprigs)

A couple of large slices of pickled ginger

Pickled spring onions (*see below)

Marinade:

2 tablespoons kecap manis (or substitute some dark soy sweetened with a little honey)

1 teaspoon Chinese 5 spice powder

1 teaspoon sesame seeds

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

Plus a pinch of chill powder if you want to spice further.

Dressing:

1 tablespoon kecap manis (or substitute some dark soy sweetened with a little honey)

The juice of ½ a lime

1 teaspoon of sesame oil

*Pickled spring onions:

2 bunches of spring onions

½ cup caster sugar

½ cup rice vinegar

1 cup water

1 star anise

1 slice fresh ginger

1 dried red chilli

- Chop spring onions in to short lengths and place in a jar, bring liquids to boil until sugar dissolves then add rest of ingredients except the s-onions. Allow to cool a bit then pour in to jar with spring onions. Leave for at least 30mins before using. Keep with a lid on in the fridge.

Method:

• Pre heat your oven to 220 degrees C.
• Take the breasts and legs off the quail (or get the butcher to) and mix in a bowl with the rest of the marinade ingredients, chuck away the carcasses (or freeze them for stock later). Leave the meat to marinate for an hour or 2 if you have chance.
• When you’re ready to cook, take the legs out of marinade, place on a small roasting tray and place in the oven for 15 mins, or until cooked though and just crisp
• Meanwhile cut the pickled ginger in to long slithers, do the same with the red chilli (taking the seeds out first).
• Cut the daikon in to v.thin slices (I use a mandolin here).
• Fry the breasts skin side down in a hot pan (with a little splash of oil) for a couple of mins on each side.
• Assemble the dish by laying out the quail pieces and placing the spring onions, radish, ginger, chilli and shiso around.
• Finish by mixing together the dressing ingredients and drizzling over.

A

(thanks to Ben Broomfield for pic http://www.benbroomfield.com)

Pigeon Ravioli

I've had a few requests for the recipe for the pigeon ravioli dish I did in the first round of Masterchef. I was going to hold out until I cooked it again to take some snaps, but right now I can’t see when that’s going to happen so here’s the recipe sans pics (might add some in later)…

Pigeon ravioli with rosemary sauce and sautéed wild mushrooms

n.B squab pigeon is a farmed pigeon – plumper & more tender than wood pigeon, but also pricier (about £7 each). As an alternative pheasant works brilliantly here (as a guide substitute 1 pheasant breast for 2 squab pigeon breasts, and use legs or carcass for the sauce).

This recipe is about right to make 18 ravioli – so a main for 3 people (6 each) or a starter for 6 (3 each).

2 squab pigeon

A glass of medium dry white wine

250g of pasta flour (type ‘00’)

2 whole free range eggs and 2 free range egg yolks

extra virgin olive oil

500 ml of chicken stock (preferably dark)

1 carrot roughly chopped

4-5 shallots , chopped

50g of diced unsmoked Italian pancetta

50ml double cream

A black summer truffle or a drizzle of best quality truffle oil

1 bay leaf, and a little fresh nutmeg

Italian tomato puree

150g butter

A few sprigs of fresh rosemary

3 handfuls of mixed wild mushrooms – such as Morels, Chanterelles, Pied de Bleu and Horse mushrooms(you can bulk things out with some cultivated types, such as chestnut, if you like)

Method:

First make the pasta dough by sieving the flour in to a blender, adding the whole eggs and egg yolks plus a pinch of salt and a drizzle of olive oil, then blend until well mixed. Empty the mix on to a work surface, push it together in to a ball and knead for a couple of minutes then cover in cling film and put aside to rest for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile make the filling and sauce. Take the breasts off the pigeons, cut the rest of the pigeon carcass in to a few pieces and put it in a pan with some olive oil over a medium-high heat to brown, turning occasionally. Then add the chopped carrot, half the shallots, a teaspoon of tomato puree and a bay leaf. Cook for 5 minutes more then pour in the chicken stock, and bring to the simmer and allow it to reduce down to a third of its volume (this takes about 30 minutes). Strain through a sieve and set aside.

Take a frying pan and fry the pigeon breasts in a little olive oil, after a minute or so scatter over half the chopped shallots and the pancetta. Cook for a minute more, then turn the pigeon breast and cook for another 2 mins. Remove the pan from the heat, roughly chop up the breasts and place everything into a small blender. Add 2 tablespoons of double cream, some salt and pepper, a little grated nutmeg and a drizzle of truffle oil. Blend until a rough paste.

Now take the pasta dough, split it in half and roll it out to the thinnest setting on a pasta machine (you can just roll it through the settings but if you want the real deal you gotta do the folding and turning thing - see Giorgio's excellent guide here).

Do the same with the other half. Place a large teaspoon of the filling at intervals along half of each sheet then use a pastry brush and a little water to wet around each filling and fold the other half of the sheet over, pressing around the filling to seal. Cut out the ravioli with a pasta cutter and squeeze out any air with your fingers. Repeat with the other length of pasta - you should be able to get 9 out of each sheet without much trouble.

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and then put in the ravioli. Meanwhile season your mushrooms and fry in olive oil and a little butter until just cooked – about 3 minutes.

Take out the ravioli and drain.

To finish the dish take a large frying pan, put it on a high heat, add some butter and fry a handful of rosemary needles for 30 seconds then pour in your reduced pigeon stock. Allow to bubble 7 reduce for 1 minute then throw in the drained ravioli, toss for another 30 sec together and divide them and the wild mushrooms between the plates (ravioli around the edge, pile of 'shrooms in the middle looks nice) with the sauce from the pan poured over the pasta.

Taking some proper food pics (spiced fish soup & duck with chutney )

As you may have noticed my camera is rubbish and i'm certainly no photographer. Hence the snaps on this site vary widely - from woeful (mine) to pretty good (not mine!).

But! I'm lucky enough to have a few friends who know one end of a camera from the other. So i sometimes get them over and exchange food for photos (works a treat - everyone's happy).

Here's few recent snaps taken by Ben Broomfield - who's a proper quality freelance photographer sort of thing (see his site here: http://www.benbroomfield.com).

I did a couple of work-in-progress recipes of mine: spiced fish soup with baby fennel, and then duck breast and confit with a pear and saffron chutney and accompanying veggies.

Below are a sample of the snaps (pretty good i think you'll agree) along with a rough overview of the recipes.


Spiced fish soup:

So, for enough soup for 2, i used a small-medium sized seabass - would have prefered 2 red mullet (i am mad for mullet!) but couldn't get any (it was a monday).

Ok, so, i filleted the bass, then took the neatest 1/3 of each fillet, trimmed it up and set it aside. The rest i skinned and chopped in few large pieces.






Then in a pan i sweated some diced fennel, onion, carrot and celery with a bay leaf and some parsley & coriander stalks (if you have). Then added pince of saffron strands, pinch of cayenne pepper and some seasoning...

Next a couple of large glasses of decent white wine with i let boil down. Added 3 or 4 large good tomatoes which i'd roughly chopped and put in the seabass skinned off cuts.

Just covered with water and simmered for 15 mins.

Pour it all (minus the bay leaf) in to a blender and whizzed up well. Push it well through a sieve and then return to pan, reduce a bit, taste, adjust seasoning, dash of cream, nob of butter, squeeze of lemon etc.




I then gathered some green garnishy things ...a few micro herbs - fennel or coriander cress would be perfect but i could nae find them that day (fennel or dill fronds would work well too here).

I braised a couple of baby fennel in some stock (or use butter and little salted water) until tender.

Finally I quickly pan fried the neat bass portions, plus a couple of scallops each...











...and presented all, plus a drizzle of olive oil, in a wide bowl - like this:

















and this:































Next was a work in progress duck dish...

It was spiced duck breast, with confit duck leg (which was cooked in a low oven covered in duck fat, salt and spices - for about 2hrs).














I served it with some green beans - dressed with toasted hazelnuts & hazelnut oil, and a warm potato-coriander-spring onion salad.

As an extra I made a little duck sauce over the breast - just browned duck bones with little veggies and stock, reduced until rich and dark.

Oh and in the middle i put some of my favourite (favourite - as in being additiced to) pear and saffron chutney - i will definitely put a recipe for this up soon...as it's features in quite a few of my recipes.


A final aerial snap from Ben before we tucked in.










Thanks Ben!

http://www.benbroomfield.com

quail and quince

Spiced quail with cous cous, quince paste and pistachios (pictures by www.davidxgreen.com)

I’ll probably do a couple of quail recipes on this blog, as am a big fan. This would work well as a light lunch or starter.

You can find the ras el hanout spice used below in spice shops & good supermarkets or seasoned pioneers do a very good one (or you could even make your own).

Serves 2

2 quails

MARINADE
1 garlic clove

1 heaped teaspoon ras el hanout moroccan spice mix

A pinch of cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons of olive oil
A small handful of pistachio nuts roughly chopped

Salt and black pepper

QUINCE SAUCE

3 tablespoons quince paste (you can buy this from Italian and Spanish delis)
A pinch of salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon olive oil
A squeeze of lemon
sea salt and black pepper

A few dried rose petals, if you have them

COUS COUS

150g of cous cous

1 medium onion

Handful each of fresh parsley and mint leaves

Extra virgin olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice to dress

For the quail:

Preheat the oven to 200˚C

Take the breasts and legs off the quails and put them in a bowl.

Mash all the marinade ingredients together in a pestle and mortar (or using a bowl and back of a spoon) and then pour over the quail, rub in well and make sure each piece is covered. Marinate for at least 15 mins but 2 or 3 hours is even better.

When ready to cook put the legs on a baking tray on the top self of the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until they’re cooked and nicely brown n crisped at the edges.

Season the breasts with a little more salt and pepper and then fry them in a hot pan with a splash of olive oil. They’ll need about 3-4 mins on the skin

side (to get it nicely golden) and then about 2 mins on the other side. Rest under foil for 5 minutes or so.

For the sauce:

Mix the quince paste with a few crushed rose petals, then stir in the rest of the ingredients ans season with a little salt and pepper.

Scatter a few dried or fresh petals over and some roughly chopped pistachios.

For the Cous cous:

Slice the onion in to half moons and cook in a tablespoon of olive oil until golden-brown and soft (about 10 mins). Cook the cous cous according to packet instructions, season with salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste. Stir through the herbs and fried onion.

To serve:

Give each plate two breasts, two legs, a pile of cous cous and a good spoonful of

the quince sauce. Finish by scattering around the chopped pistachios (and, if you like, a few herb sprigs).