Cured meat "Coppa"

Tried my hand on making "coppa", an Italian method of cured whole piece of meat, instead of using minced meat as in making salami. 

Cured meat "Coppa"

 

Cured meat "Coppa"

I followed method in a book, which uses nitrates as preservatives. I skipped this ingredient and will hang the meat for 3 months for natural fermentation to take place to cure it, just like in the old days. 

1. Marinate long strips of pork shoulder or tenderloin, in 5% salt and 1% sugar mixture for 6 days, turn over everyday. 

Cured meat "Coppa"

2. Prepare a powder mixture of smoke piementon, chili, black pepper, all spice, coriander seed, juniper berry, garlic, brown sugar.

3. Dry the meat and rub the mixture on it for a few minutes. Push the meat into beef middle casing, poke air pockets formed.

4. Rest in room temperature for 12 hours, then hang outside under a roof with max temperature 15˚C and humidity 60-70% for at least 3 months.

Restaurant Trinquet, St Palais, France

This restaurant up in the hill in the Basque area serves wild wood pigeon tasting menu from November to mid December, basically during the migration period when hunters could shot or net them. 

 

omelette aux cepes

Nice starter of omelette with cepes.

wild wood pigeon

wild wood pigeon

 Followed by charcoal grilled wood pigeon, serving half at a time, rare or pink. Flavorful juicy dark brown meat, just a little gamy smell.

Persimmon

Persimmon

Planted the young tree 3 years ago, I harvested the first persimmon! Great to have fresh fruit in the winter. 

Garlic germinated

Garlic germinated

Very pleased to see garlic cloves planted in mid October germinated well. Garlic could be grown around the Brassica vegetable family without problem.

Roast vegetables with smoked pimenton sauce

Roast vegetables with smoked pimenton sauce

Main course with vegetarian friends, using smoked pimenton to enrich the sauce.

smoked pimenton tomato sauce

 

1. For the sauce, mix 100ml thick tomato sauce with 50ml water, season with 1 tbsp smoked pimenton, soy sauce, black pepper and olive oil, add a big handful of coarsely tear up parsley or coriander.

mix vegetables

2. Cut butternut squash, sweet potato, parsnip, cauliflower etc, into big cubes. In a big bowl, drizzle couple spoons of olive oil and shake to cover all vegetables. Bake at 160˚C for 30 minutes.

3. While hot from the oven, pour vegetable into the sauce and mix well.

Mushroom with chestnut

Mushroom with chestnut

Served as starter for dinner with vegetarian friends, using seasonal ingredients.

1. Remove stalks from brown button mushrooms, cook with olive oil at medium heat, season with salt and black pepper, turn over when water ooze out, cover with lid and cook until soft, couple of minutes.

2. Make chestnut spread (blend cooked chestnut with olive oil), stuff the hole of mushroom with spread, spoon the pan juice over.

Fresh foie gras

seared fresh foie gras

Winter is also the time to find fresh foie gras in the market, direct from farmers who still follow tradition and kill their ducks in early to mid winter only. 

 

foie gras

1. Cut foie gras into 1.5cm thick slices, steam for 10 minutes. 

foie gras

2. On a very hot plancha, sear both sides, 20-30 seconds each side. Serve on a crispy toast, with some chutney on the side.

Winter shellfish

Winter is the time to enjoy shellfish, scallop and razor clam are my favorites.

 

scallop with chive olive oil

1. Bake scallop at 200˚C for 8 minutes, serve with chive in salt and olive oil. 

 

razor clam quick seared

2. Place razor clams on hot plancha, sear both sides, no need any seasoning.

Mala lamb's liver vegetable crumble

Mala lamb's liver vegetable crumble

I got a small bowl of nut crumble left behind from making apple crumble earlier, thinking it can complement the texture of lamb's liver, so created this dish to use it up.

1. Cut lamb's liver into cubes, season with salt, soy sauce, 5 spices powder, Sichuan pepper, chili powder, olive oil and cooking wine. 

2. Cut sweet potato or butternut squash into cubes, savoy cabbage into pieces, cook in 1/2 cup of water, season with salt and pepper, until soft. 

3. Place cooked vegetables in baking dish, mix lamb's liver with chop up mix nuts, put on top of vegetables in one layer, bake at 180˚C for 15 minutes. Stir in coriander leaves while hot.

Baked sausages and cauliflower with coriander applesauce

Super easy to make, super tasty to eat and is a good balanced meal !

 

Baked sausages and cauliflower with coriander applesauce

1. Cut cauliflower into florets, bell pepper into big pieces, place in baking tray and arrange sausages on top, poke holes in sausages for oil to ooze out. Bake at 160˚C for 30 minutes. 

 

Baked sausages and cauliflower

2. While hot, add a handful of fresh coriander leaves and a pinch of salt on the vegetables, mix well with sausage oil.

3. Cook green apple with a little water, season with a pinch of salt, cinnamon, black pepper and chili, bring to boil and simmer until just soft, add coriander leaves for colour and extra fragrance.

Mala noodle

A powerful flavor to wake up all the taste buds, actually after finishing the bowl of noodle, my whole tongue is tingling, pleasantly, for a few minutes. 

Mala noodle

This mala sauce is made with walnut, I find it more fragrant than using peanut, simple blend walnut with olive oil.

 1. To make sauce, season walnut olive oil paste with soy sauce, brown sugar, mustard paste, and as much freshly ground Sichuan pepper and chili powder as you like.

2. Cook noodle and bell pepper, mix with sauce.

Chestnut cookies

Chestnut cookies

With its natural mild sweetness and being gluten free, these chestnut cookies are made without sugar, and have extra soft texture.

1 egg

coconut oil 75gm (or butter)

chestnut 200gm (I used cooked chestnut and blended into crumbly flour texture)

pinch of salt

Chestnut cookies

1. Mix all ingredients together and form a sausage, with the help of baking paper, keep in fridge for an hour to harden.

2. Cut into 1/2 cm slices, bake at 180˚ until edges turns golden, around 15 minutes,

Chestnut spread

marron

Transforming the remaining marrons, big size chestnut, picked up in the forest in October, luckily they keep well in the fridge.

Boiled in water for half an hour, when cool down, I cut them in halves and use a spoon to scoop out the nut. Save a lot of time and hard finger work to peel the shell then the brown skin. 

Chestnut

The bigger pieces are picked out to eat as such, or use in casserole.

Some of the small bits are blended into powder to make cakes/cookies later. 

Chestnut spread

Some are blended with olive oil to make chestnut spread, for use in breakfast. The spread has the natural sweetness of chestnut and the mild green spicy note of olive oil from Croatia. I like this taste more than the traditional way of turning chestnut into very sweet puree.

Braised lamb shank with figs and myrtle leaves

Braised lamb shank with figs and myrtle leaves

According to information, Sardinians like to have roasted dry figs thread through fragrant myrtle sprig as a snack. So the two ingredients obviously go well together. I might as well use them in cooking lamb to add this Mediterranean flavor.

1. Pre-cook lamb shanks in stock until soft.

2. Sweat onion until golden, add a tbsp flour, cook till golden, add 100ml stock, 50ml red wine, season with soy sauce, 5 spices powder, and dry figs cut into halves and pre-soaked in stock. 

Braised lamb shank with figs and myrtle leaves

3. In a baking dish, place myrtle leaves at the bottom, then lamb shanks, figs and sauce. Bake at 180˚C for 30 minutes, turn over lamb shanks half way.

Common myrtle and Mirto

common myrtle

This is a common wild plant in the Mediterranean area, the leaves have an aromatic medical fragrance. I just harvested a kg of this dark blue berry, too astringent to eat. 

common myrtle

In Sardinia they macerate the berries in alcohol to make a popular drink Mirto and use the leaves in casseroles. 

 

common myrtle in gin

So I make my first mirto: macerate berries in gin, after 8 weeks, I will check the taste, may need some sugar to round up the flavor.

Sweet potato, ham, coriander soup

Love making soup for dinner in the winter, nothing beat slurping a big tasty bowl of hot soup in front of the fireplace.

Sweet potato, ham, coriander soup

 

1. Cut sweet potato into cubes, cut ham into small pieces, cut red dates to halves, season with salt and pepper, bring to boil, preferably in a stock,  simmer until cooked.

2. Add in coriander and ready to serve.

Honeycomb with lemon juice

Tried this way of eating honeycomb in a restaurant presented as pre-dessert. A great idea, cut the sickly sweetness of honey. 

Honeycomb with lemon juice

 

Simply cut out a small cube of honeycomb and place in a spoon, drizzle 5-10 drops of lemon juice on it, chew it like chewing gum.  

Coriander

coriander in early winter

I always find it hard to grow coriander, thinking that it likes long hot growing season. It is early winter now, when sun loving plants like basil, eggplant, okra, pepper are all killed, big surprise to find coriander continues to grow huge, no sign of problem at all. Well, it obviously prefer less sun then.

Autumn vegetable garden

broad bean and pea seedlings

After 3 weeks away, I am pleased to find that broad beans and peas planted in early October are growing well.

 

sweet potatoes

By mixing a lot of compost and river sand into the garden soil, which is high in clay, the hard work has rewarded me with big fat sweet potatoes. 
 

So far only half of the garlic planted before I left have germinated, I may need to do another sowing to cover the empty space, will give it a few more days time.

Pheasant and mix vegetable casserole

 It is the season to find wild game birds in farmers' market in UK, very affordable, 4 pounds for partridge and 5 for pheasant. The size of pheasant is similar to a spring chicken. Bake in casserole with mix vegetables to yield a rich thick sauce, will be good portion for 4 persons. 

 

Pheasant and mix vegetable casserole

1. Cut pheasant into breasts and thighs, season with salt for an hour. Quick sear the bones left behind, add bay leaves, garlic, star anise and water to cover, simmer for 2 hours.

2. Sear a small handful of salted belly pork cut into small cubes, add to the bottom of casserole. Then brown pheasant pieces lightly, keep aside.

3. Sweat red onion, cut into cubes, until caramelized, add to casserole.

4. Carry on with vegetables like carrot, butternut squash, parsnip, cabbage and a few cloves of garlic, season with salt and pepper, dry cook until soft. Then add a tbsp of plain flour, stir to brown, pour into casserole. 

Pheasant and mix vegetable casserole

5. Place pheasant pieces on top of vegetables.

6. Deglace pan with a little of red wine, add pheasant bone stock, season with salt and pepper, pour into casserole, cover with lid.

7. Bake casserole at 180˚C for 40 minutes.