Spicy & lemony chicken

Inspired by a recipe in Madhur Jeffray's cookbook.

1. Dry heat a tbsp each of cumin seed, coriander seed, fennel seed in a pan until fragrance comes out.

 2. In a blender, add a medium onion, a few cloves of garlic, an inch of ginger, roasted spices, add a couple of spoonfuls of water, grind into a fine paste.

 3 Sear chicken pieces until golden and nearly cooked inside.

 4. Cook the spice mixture in oil until dry, add a tbsp of turmeric powder, juice of a lemon, salt, sugar and as much chili as you like. Turn to low heat, add chicken pieces, cook for a few more minutes until sauce is dry.

 5. Mix in a good handful of coriander leaves just before serving.

Apple cucumber

 I bought the seeds in New Zealand, a cute looking cucumber,  'apple' refers to its look and a more dense texture.

Pineapple and cucumber salad

1.Thinly slice a cucumber, cut some fresh pineapple into pieces, sprinkle salt and mix well, rest for half an hour for the juice to come out.

 2. Pour the savoury juice out (dilute with other fruit juice as a drink), mix in finely chopped basil/parsley, thick yogurt or sour cream, add seasonings to taste (white pepper/salt/chili).

Soufflé

A well tested recipe - the soufflé does not collapse when it is out of the oven!

1. Butter and sugar 4 small ramekins.

2. In a pan, mix 2 egg yolks with 20gm sugar and 10gm corn starch, then add in 250gm milk. Bring to boil at medium heat, stirring all the time. Let the mixture cool down. (Optional - mix in 20gm Grand Marnier). This is pastry cream, it should not be too thick that it will set into a lump when cool, nor too liquid which will make the souffle difficult to rise up or the top cooked and bottom still raw.

3. Whisk 2 egg whites with 20gm sugar to soft-peak stage, gently fold in pastry cream, mix evenly. If over whisk to hard peak stage, you have introduced too much air bubbles, the soufflé will rise very high, but there is too little cake mix among the bubbles, it cannot hold its shape when cooked and will collapse very fast.

4. Fill ramekins until 1cm from the rims, bake at high shelf at 220˚ for around 13 minutes. The soufflé should have risen out of the ramekin around 1/3 above the height of the ramekin. 

Crispy roast chicken

A good way to achieve an evenly crisp skinned chicken that is ready in less than half an hour.

1. Cut chicken down the breast, following around the rib cage and detaching the wing and leg, all in once piece. Repeat with the other side to have 2 chicken halves (rib cage and back bone removed).

2. Season with salt and white pepper all over, marinate for half an hour.

3. In a baking tray, place at an inch intervals long pieces of vegetables like carrot/zucchine, rest the chicken halves on top  (to let hot air flow below). Bake at top shelf at 220˚ for 10 minutes and then 180˚ for around 20 minutes till cooked. 

Apricot ice cream

Cut dry apricots into small pieces, mix with cottage cheese/ricotta/fromage blanc/thick yogurt, add brown sugar to taste, around 50gm for a 600gm batch of ice cream. Let the mixture rest in the fridge to allow time for the apricot to soften (around an hour), then pour into ice cream machine.

Stewed pork belly

 Variation of a popular Shanghainese Ribs dish with a Sichuanese twist.

1. Put a piece of belly pork (with skin) into a pot of boiling water flavoued with ginger and spring onion, cook for around 5 minutes to firm the meat.

2. Cut belly pork into 1 inch square pieces and place in a small casserole.

3. Add 1 cup of dark vinegar, 1/2 cup of dark soya sauce, 1/2 cup of liqueur, 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 inch of ginger (sliced), 3 whole star anise, 3 cloves, 1 tbsp Sichuan pepper, as much chili as you like. Pour enough water to cover the top of belly pork.

4. Bring to boil and simmer at low heat for 3 hours, with the lid slightly open. As the liquid level goes down, turn the pork pieces every half hour. Taste and adjust seasonings to achieve a sweet, sour, savoury, Ma & spicy hot taste. At the end of cooking, the sauce should be thick, shiny and the meat tender.

Mirabelle plums

A small round yellow plum much less attacked by birds and wasps, unlike its red/purple coloured relatives. I like its crunchy texture just before it fully ripens. 

Tortilla

A Spanish style thick omelet, usually made with potato and egg, sometimes with addition of chorizo. I find this dish very suitable for using up left behind scraps in the kitchen.
1. Cut up cooked potatoes, any kind of meat/ham, some dry vegetables (pepper, carrot, zucchini) into cubes/slices. 
2. In a one or two inch deep frying pan with lid, on high heat, warm up the above with good amount of oil and seasoning. 
3. For 2 portion of egg add 1 portion of water, enough to cover all ingredients, pour into the pan and immediately turn to lowest heat and cover with lid. 
4. When egg mixture sets, open lid and turn to medium heat to dry and brown the bottom of the omelet. 
5. Place a big plate upside down on top of the pan, flip the pan-and-plate  and serve the thick omelet with the golden brown side up.

Fox

This is the third time we spotted foxes wandering around in the garden during bright day-light, this is a baby one, a bit fat and woolly.

Tomato Provencale

A simple way to celebrate the first harvest of tomato Marmande.
1. Drop tomatoes in boiling water for 30 sec to a minute, cool, peel skin, cut into slices.
2. Sprinkle salt & pepper, tear up basil leaves on top of tomatoes and drizzle olive oil all over, serve with slices of toast to mop up the juice.

Doryphore

Last year, there were potatoes left behind in the field after harvest, the Doryphore (a potato beetle) had a chance to lay eggs in the potatoes over winter. This spring, when the potatoes germinate,  the eggs turn into larvae and munch on the new leaves and eventually grow into (actually really beautiful) adult beetles. Except that they make a mess of my plants!

Okra

I planted green okra and Burgundy okra, the latter has deep reddish purple stem, huge cream hibiscus-like flowers which turn into reddish purple fruits.

Langoustines

Live Atlantic langoustines, a rare find here, for Euro 18 a kilo.
1. Bring a big pot of water to boil, add one chopped onion, a few slices of ginger, bay leaves.  Simmer for a short while to make a simple stock. 
2. Put in just enough crayfish to fill the pot, close the lid, when water boils again, turn off the heat.  When the langoustines tails curl up, around 2-3 minutes, take them out onto a large plate. Repeat with remaining crayfish.
3. Sprinkle salt, pepper and drizzle olive oil on the hot langoustines. When cool, put in fridge. Serve cold. The flesh is more firm and sweet when cold (like Chiuchow crab).

Cairo lamb stir fry

Whenever there is left-over lamb, I think of this way of cooking it, a memory of the delicious lamb bun I had eaten in Cairo.

1. Chop the cooked (or raw) lamb into fine slices, strips or minced, season with cumin, 4-spices powder, salt, pepper, liqueur.

2. Cut cherry tomatoes into halves, wash a good handful of basil leaves.

3. In a very hot pan, add oil, stir fry lamb until hot (or cooked), add in tomatoes, stir frequently, when soft and juice comes out, add in basil leaves, turn a few times and serve. 

Cherry tomato clementine

It is the first time to harvest home grown tomatoes in early July, thanks to the abnormally warm spring and hot summer. This variety looks like kamquat, very juicy, not very sweet but also not too sour, with very thin skin.

Curry chicken

1. Dry heat a tsp each of cumin seed, coriander seed, fennel seed, and mustard seed in a pan until fragrance comes out, 1-2 minutes.

2. In a blender, add a medium size onion, a few cloves of garlic, an inch of ginger, the roasted spices, water to cover, grind until fine.

3. Sear chicken pieces until golden brown outside and nearly cooked inside.

4. Fry the spice mixture in oil at medium heat until dry, add in a tin of coconut cream, a heaped tsp of turmeric powder, as much chilli as you like, season with salt and sugar, add in chicken pieces, cooked at medium heat until sauce thicken, around 10 minutes. 

Purple mangetout

Found in a seed catalogue this purple variety of mangetout, it has beautiful purple red flowers and deep purple pods. The most important is that the colour does not change after cooking. 

Plain boiled chicken with a twist

1. Prepare chicken as in standard recipe.

2. To make the sauce, use a blender to grind up an inch of fresh ginger,  1/4 tsp of salt and 3 tbsp of olive oil. Mix in chives, cut into 2mm pieces, and freshly grounded Sichuan pepper to give an extra flavour dimension. 

Kiwi

The kiwi trees suffered in the abnormally dry weather, they are now being watered regularly with stored rainwater, hope the fruits can hang on.