Hi everyone and welcome to the blog. Let me start this week’s blog by wishing everyone a Happy New Year, I hope that 2011 brings you all health, wealth and happiness. This week’s blog is all to do with spice and delights. The advent of a New Year brings the promises of changes – changes in diet, health and fortunes. But it also can herald a wish to try new things, new foods and lifestyles. So this week the recipes are some which, I hope, will spur on your quest for tastes a new. The features recipes this week are Duck Breast with Dried Cherry & Port Sauce and Spiced Pan-Roasted Apples and Pears. The spice of the week is Cinnamon.
My first recipe is Duck Breast with Dried Cherry & Port Sauce, recipe by Gordon Ramsay, courtesy of Ramsay’s Best Menus. Published by Quadrille Publishing.
This recipe serves 4, takes 5mins to prepare and can take 20mins to cook.
4 x Duck Breasts, skin on (approx 225g each)
2 x Pak Choi – leaves separated and washed
2 x Garlic Cloves, peeled & crushed
1 tbsp x Soy Sauce
A little Olive Oil
Sea Salt & Freshly Ground Black Pepper
CHERRY AND PORT SAUCE
200ml x Port
50g x Dried Cherries
Few Sprigs of Thyme
200ml x Organic Chicken Stock
20g x Chilled Butter, cut into cubes
Sprinkle the duck breasts with salt and pepper and rub all over. Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat and add the duck breasts, skin side down. Fry for 4-5 minutes until most of the fat from under the skin has rendered and the skin is golden brown. Meanwhile, place the pak choi leaves in a large bowl (halving any large ones lengthways) and add the garlic, soy sauce and a grinding of pepper. Drizzle with olive oil and toss well. Turn the duck over and lightly brown the other side for about a minute, then remove to a warm plate.
To make the sauce, drain off the excess fat from the frying pan and then pour in the port, stirring to deglaze. Allow it to bubble for 30 seconds. Return the duck to the pan and add the dried cherries and thyme. Pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the sauce has reduced to one-third, turning the duck occasionally. Add the butter cubes and shake the pan until the butter has melted and the sauce is smooth and glossy. Remove from the heat, transfer the duck to a warm plate, cover loosely and leave to rest or 3 minutes. Meanwhile, heat another large frying pan. When hot, add the pak choi and sauté for 1-2 minutes until just wilted. Divide the pak choi among warm serving plates. Carve the duck breasts into thick slices and arrange alongside the pak choi. Spoon the cherry and port sauce over the duck and serve, with mashed potatoes.
Spice of the week - Cinnamon (cinnamomum zelanicum)
True Cinnamon is indigenous to Sri Lanka. Like cassia, it is the bark of an evergreen tree of the Laurel family. For 200 years a highly profitable monopoly of the island’s cinnamon was controlled first by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally by the English. By the late 18th century cinnamon had been planted in Java, India and the Seychelles and the monopoly could no longer be sustained. The Sri Lankan cinnamon gardens lie on the coastal plains south of Colombo. Seedlings grow in thick clumps, with shoots about the thickness of a thumb. In the rainy season the shoots are cut off at the base and peeled. The harvesters work with extraordinary dexterity to cut the paper-thin pieces of bark and then roll quills up to 1mtr long by hand. The quills are then gently dried in the shade.
Cinnamon’s subtle flavour is well suited to all manner of desserts and spiced breads and cakes; it combines particularly well with chocolate and with apples, bananas, and pears. Use it in apple pie or with baked apples, with bananas fried in butter and flavoured with rum, and in red wine used for poaching pears. It also makes an excellent flavouring for meat and vegetable dishes in Middle Eastern and Indian cooking. Moroccan cooks use it widely in lamb or chicken tagines, in the stew to accompany couscous, and above all to flavour bstilla, a pie of crisp, layered pastry filled with pigeon and almonds. It is good with almonds, apples, apricots, aubergines, bananas, chocolate, coffee, lamb, pears, poultry and rice. It also combines well with cardamom, cloves, coriander seed, cumin, ginger, mastic, nutmeg and mace, tamarind and turmeric.
In medicine it acts like other volatile oils and once had a reputation as a cure for colds. It has also been used to treat diarrhea and other problems of the digestive system. Cinnamon is high in antioxidant activity. The essential oil of cinnamon also has antimicrobial properties, which can aid in the preservation of certain foods.
Cinnamon has been reported to have remarkable pharmacological effects in the treatment of Type 2 diabetes mellitus and insulin resistance. The plant material used in the study was mostly from Chinese cinnamon. Recent advancement in phytochemistry has shown that it is a cinnamtannin B1 isolated from C. verum which is of therapeutic effect on Type 2 diabetes, with the exception of the postmenopausal patients studied on C. Cassia. Cinnamon has traditionally been used to treat toothache and fight bad breath and its regular use is believed to stave off common cold and aid digestion. Cinnamon has been proposed for use as an insect repellent, although it remains untested. Cinnamon leaf oil has been found to be very effective in killing mosquito larvae. The compounds cinnamaldehyde, cinnamyl acetate, eugenol, and anethole, that are contained in cinnamon leaf oil, were found to have the highest effectiveness against mosquito larvae. It is reported that regularly drinking tea made from the bark of Sri Lanka cinnamon could be beneficial to oxidative stress related illness in humans, as the plant part contains significant antioxidant potential. One teaspoon of cinnamon contains as many antioxidants as a full cup of pomegranate juice and 1/2 a cup of blueberries.
My last recipe is Spiced Pan-Roasted Apples and Pears, recipe by Gordon Ramsay, courtesy of Ramsay’s Best Menus. Published by Quadrille Publishing.
This recipe serves 4, takes 5mins to prepare and can take approx. 10mins to cook.
2 x Firm Apples (Braeburns)
2 x Firm Pears (Conference)
75g x Caster Sugar
2 x Cinnamon Sticks
1 tsp x Cloves
3 x Star Anise
1 tsp x Black Peppercorns (lightly crushed)
25g x Slightly Salted Butter
A Splash of Calvados
100ml x Apple Juice
crème Fraiche, to serve (optional)
Core the apples and pears using an apple corer, then peel off the skins. Cut the apples into quarters and halve the pears. Scatter the sugar over the base of a wide, heavy-based non-stick frying pan and place over a high heat until it melts and begins to caramelise at the edges. Add the spices, followed by the butter. Tip the pan from side to side to mix the caramel and butter together. Take care as the mixture may spit and splutter. Add the apples and pears to the pan, put side down. Cook for 5-7 minutes until evenly caramelised, turning them several times. Carefully add a splash of Calvados, standing well back as the alcohol may flambé. Pour in the apple juice and let bubble until the liquid has reduced and thickened to a syrupy sauce. Take off the heat and leave to cool slightly. Divide the fruit among warm plates and spoon over the caramel sauce. Serve with a dollop of crème fraiche, if you like.
If you have enjoyed my blog, or have tried out the recipes I have included and wish to comment, please feel free to comment using the comment button or by visiting my guestbook, all comments and suggestions will be gratefully received.
Hope you enjoy!!..... ChefGarfy =D
http://chefgarfy.blogspot.com/
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