Self-sufficiency

A friend in Croatia invited us to have Sunday lunch in their family home. Her father is the owner of a construction company, but they still maintain a small holding, as many still do, with goats for milk/cheese, chickens and ducks, make their own hams, salami, and growing their own vegetables.

For lunch we spit-roasted a whole lamb, baked bread in the wood-fired oven, and ate home-made cheese filled ravioli, and barbequed sausages. 

Very fresh squid

In Croatia, the squid season has started, every night there are small fishing boats, with bright lights on, fishing for squid along the coast. Then the next morning, you can buy these super fresh squid in the market. 

Season squid with salt, chili pepper and oil, grill at high temperature for 10 minutes.

Simple pan roasted pork with a rich sauce

1. Score a wide crisscross pattern 1/4 inch deep into both sides of a piece of shoulder pork around 1.5 inches thick.

2. In a cooking pan wide enough to put the pork inside, mix 2tbsp of fermented soya bean paste (or miso paste), 3 tbsp of light soya sauce, 2 tbsp of brown sugar, 4 tbsp of sherry, 1tbsp of grated ginger, 1tbsp of Sichuan pepper (optional). Marinate pork in this sauce for half an hour.

4. Add half a cup of water to the pan, bring to boil then turn to low heat, let it simmer with the lid slightly open for 8 mintues. Turn pork over and cook for another 8 minutes, add water if the sauce is getting dry. The target is to have only 1/4 cup of sauce left at the end of cooking.

5. Mix 2 tbsp of honey into the sauce, simmer at low heat for 1 minutes for each side of pork. The resulting sauce should be thick and glossy. 

Anchovies

Caught by fisherman just 2 hours ago, the fish is still stiff and gleaming. The super fresh seafood is one of the good reasons for visiting Croatia.

1. Filet anchovies, arrange on a big oven dish on one layer.

2. Sprinkle salt, white pepper and drizzle olive oil.

3. Bake at 200˚C for 2 minutes.

Sesame

I use sesame often but have never seen how the plant looks. This year I sowed some seeds in the garden, and this is sesame plant, with white flowers coming from the stem. The flower resembles a giant bean flower.

Turbot

Wild turbot, a treat while visiting Rovinj, Croatia.

1. Cut a slit in the upper skin side 2 cm in and parallel to the fins. This stops the fish from curling up when the skin shrinks while cooking.

2. Sprinkle salt and drizzle olive oil on the fish, bake at 220˚C for 13 min (for a 1kg turbot), then open the oven door ajar and let it rest inside for another 10 minutes.

 

Tomato and cucumber salad

1. Use a special peeler to turn cucumber into fine long shreds, mix in salt to draw out moisture, drain dry.

2. Cut thin skin cherry tomatoes into halves, I use tomatoes Clementine here, mix with cucumber, season with olive oil, salt and black pepper. 

Sardines in lemon sauce

These Mediterranean sardines are less oily than the Atlantic variety, so much better to serve in a sauce.

1. In a large dish, mix lemon juice with white wine, salt, sugar, white pepper and chili pepper.

2. Clean and dry sardines, coat with cornstarch or flour.

3. Shallow fry sardines until golden brown, dress with lemon sauce, & serve. 

Peach desert

Peche de vigne and yellow peach in wild blackberry sauce.

1. Collect wild blackberries.

2. Put blackberries with 1/4 weight of brown sugar in a pot, bring to boil while stirring, cover with mesh cloth and let it cool down, letting vapour  escape.

3. Mash up blackberries and bring to boil again and leave to cool down. Repeat at least 3 times to extract maximum flavor and pectin.

4. Use Kitchen-aid or a mesh bag to sieve out the seeds.

Peche de vigne

A special peach variety from around Lyon, translated as ' Grape vine peach' because of the blood red flesh. It is sweet and has a unique fragrance.

Stir-fry duck with runner bean in Ma and chili tomato sauce

1. Cut duck breast into slices, season with salt and cooking wine.

2. Steam runner beans until nearly cooked.

3. Heat oil to around 130˚C, add a tbsp of Sichuan chili bean paste, stir until oil turned bright orange red, add in duck slices, turn to medium heat and toss until cooked, add runner beans, tomato sauce, soya sauce and sugar to taste, sprinkle a tsp of ground up Sichuan pepper just before serving. 

Ma & chili pork

A modification of the Sichuan twice cooked pork dish: using pork from the shoulder instead of the belly part, and to cook onion and pepper very well to draw out more flavour. 

1. Cut shoulder pork meat into strips and marinate with salt, white pepper and cooking liqueur.

2. Cut an onion, a green and a red bell pepper into strips. In a wide bottom pan, add oil, sweat onion and pepper at medium low heat until soft and start to caramelise, 15 to 20 minutes, keep in a dish.

3. At medium low heat, add oil and a spoonful of chili bean paste (as much chili hot as you like), cook gently until oil turns orange red. Turn to high heat, add pork and stir-fry until nearly cooked, mix in onion/pepper, add sugar and salt to taste, finish with a tsp of grinded up Sichuan pepper.

Smoked wild salmon

This salmon was caught by a fly fisherman in Norway. Lovely pink flesh, tasty and tender, wild salmon do not have streaks of white fat. 

Fried cepes

The simplest way to enjoy this mushroom is to cut into thick slices, gently fry in olive oil until golden brown, sprinkle with salt. The cape of the mushroom is very soft and tender, like foie gras, the stalk part is crunchy. It has a fragrance of seared meat, which is an indication that mushroom is a source of protein.

Cepes (Porcini)

This is one of the most  popular mushroom in France, second after black truffle, and much easier to find. After the early summer heat then heavy rain in July, the forest is popping up with mushrooms, both good and poisonous ones!

AOC Mussels

Collected near Mont St Michel in NW France, this AOC mussel is only 1 inch in length, the meat is very yellow and rich in flavor. 

Zucchini hot 'noodle'

Sweat onion in a pan until soft or caramelised, add tomato sauce and zucchini, mix well and serve. 

Zucchini cold 'noodle'

A healthy carbohydrate free 'noodle', excellent to serve as salad or snack.

1. Using a 'peeler' like tool to shred zucchini into fine long strips, add a tsp of salt and mix well.

2. When zucchini 'noodle' becomes soft, drain out most liquid.

Mix zucchini 'noodle' with 2 tbsp of sesame or peanut butter paste, 1 tbsp of mustard sauce, chili powder, 1 tbsp of lemon juice, salt & pepper to taste. 

Blackberry crumble

1. Line the bottom of a baking dish with blackberries, sprinkle a cup of bread crumb on top.

2. Whisk 4 eggs with 100 gm sugar, add 500ml of milk, pour into baking dish, let it soak for an hour.

3. Mix 1 part of chopped nuts with 1 part of breadcrumb, 1/2 part of sugar and 1 part of butter to form a rough paste, spoon on top of dish loosely. Bake on a high shelf at 160˚C until set, around 30 minutes.

This is a recipe to use up old stale bread: break bread into pieces, dry at 100˚C for an hour, use a blender to grind into crumbs. Can substitute blackberry with any other fruit.

Blackberries

A record year:  they ripen a whole month earlier than usual, harvested 6 kg in an hour and more to come! Will fill the freezer with blackberry jam.