Salakee duck with Thai Red Curry Sauce

Today Cory discovered the beach. We've been fairly lucky with her stages of development vs beach visits. For most of the early summer, when the weather was blisteringly hot, Cory was happy for a couple of hours sitting in her sun tent playing with toys. We could sunbathe next to the tent occasionally swapping toys while she babbled to her favourites.

 Then one fateful day on Samson she realised she could crawl out of the tent and have a whole beach to shovel into her mouth. As she did the weather turned, the clouds arrived and frankly it hasn't been as hot or beach tempting since.

 For about a month I've avoided the beach. I've scooped so much sand out of Cory's mouth I could have my own garden sand pit. But tonight she was scratchy. I was scratchy. We went for a walk across Rushy Bay Green and the sun had come out in the hazy September way it does. I kicked my shoes off and took her down to Great Par. We sat down below Great Cairn. The first scoop of the sand went into her mouth. Then she looked around and it was like something had clicked. Her face lit up and she started throwing sand around and crawled off at top speed to examine a limpet shell, a pile of seaweed, a sea worn pebble. After several attempts of keeping her away from the sea I just let her. She crawled in confidently and as the little waves lapped over her crawling body she laughed and splashed her hands getting completely soaked. I had to forcibly remove her (with much howling) and I think we now have a real beach baby on our hands. Much to her kitesurfing Daddy's delight...

As we gear up for the autumn and winter I'm starting to cook again in the evenings. In the summer we tend to just live on barbecues and salads and whatever I can be bothered to put on a plate. At the Food Festival last week I bought lots of Salakee Farm duck for the freezer, breasts, legs and a whole duck to enjoy when the dark evenings arrive and I want something rich and warm. We used the breasts and made a quick red thai curry sauce to go with them. They were spectacular. The texture of the duck is like nothing I have ever had before. Buttery and soft. If you are on holiday on Scilly this autumn it's really worth ordering some (either straight from the Farm or from restaurant menus). 

Salakee Farm Duck Breasts with Thai Red Curry Sauce (serves 2- actually would serve 3 at least but we were really hungry)

Paste:

1 red chilli

1 inch fresh ginger

2 tsp galangal paste

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 lemongrass stalk 

1 tsp paprika

2 shallots

2 garlic cloves

the juice of 1 lime

Other:

1 tin of coconut milk

2 duck breasts

more fish sauce

another lime

First make a paste. In a mini chopper put all the ingredients and pulse until you have a smooth paste. Put a heavy based frying pan on a hot hob and add the duck skin side down. Cook for around 4-5 minutes until the skin is golden brown. Flip over and cook for another 3 minutes. Put in a 180'c oven for around 5-10 minutes or until cooked how you like it. 

Use the frying pan (with the duck fat still in it) and fry off the paste for about 5 minutes. Add the coconut milk and reduce the heat and let it simmer while the duck is in the oven. Add the last minute stir in the remaining lime juice and fish sauce (to taste). Pour over the duck breast and serve with green beans and rice. 

Honey Roast Pork Belly with Fennel....

There are good points and bad points about getting up at 5am. It physically hurts when my alarm goes off. I've tried several different alarms they all sound the same...like someone jumping up and down on my head. No one else works the same hours as you...so lying in the sun is fun but not as exciting as lying with someone else. Post 9pm television is also a rarity. But......when it rains all day I am left smug in the knowledge that when I left home I saw the best of the day.

And it means I can spend a bit more time making tea....

Honey Roast Pork Belly with Fennel..........(serves 3)

1 1/4 kg pork belly

1 tbsp Cornish sea salt

1 tbsp fennel seeds

2 tbsp runny honey

Preheat the oven to 250'c.

Dry the pork, wiping it down with a clean tea towel. Score the pork with the sharpest knife you had. (At this point I decided to check how sharp my knife was by running it down my palm. I can confirm it is sharp and I ha to stop the recipe at this point to administer first aid.) As well as not scoring your hand, make sure you don't cut into the pork flesh.

In a pestle and mortar crush the salt and seeds. Rub over the skin an push into the scored skin.

Put in the oven and cook for half an hour. Reduce the heat to 180'c. Cook for a further 2 and a quarter hours. 15 minutes before taking out of the oven brush the crackling with the honey. Pop it back in the oven. Leave it to rest for 20 minutes.

Slice and eat with potatoes and peas. Or just in a roll.

Spring lamb with herbs and garlic....

Everything is open
Nothing is set in stone
Rivers turn to oceans
Oceans tide you home
Home is where the heart is
But your heart had to roam
Drifting over bridges
Never to return
Watching bridges burn
You're driftwood floating underwater
Breaking into pieces, pieces, pieces
Just driftwood, hollow and of no use
Waterfalls will find you, bind you, grind you



There's something special about Bryher in winter. You can walk around the island and not see another soul. Trawl along the beaches...the first person that day, that week, maybe even that month...and not know what you will find.

When you look what washes up on our shores you wonder about the story behind it. A shoe buried in the seaweed. Did a sailor in Greece laugh as his shoes fell into the sea only to wash up hundreds of miles away?

In October a coastguard in Cornwall found a french love letter in a bottle. It was written to her married lover as he returned to his wife. It was one of the most beautiful and moving pieces of writing I had ever held in my hands....

It opened with: "I'm not, and nor are you. When I am dead and that I will have lost the spark of my 20s, and I know that happens, at this point I will come back to you and you in turn will give me back your extraordinary passion for living. I am not dead. Yet."

Yesterday I found something far less passionate...





Where did it come from? As I wandered across Green Bay I also found a cabbage leaf and half a leek....far less exciting and romantic than a love letter. What have you found?

Spring lamb with herbs and garlic....(Serves 6)

4lb rolled lamb joint
4 tbsp redcurrant jelly (and more to serve)
4 slices bread...(made into crumbs)
1 handful rosemary
1 handful thyme
1 handful parsley
3 cloves garlic




My mum cooks in an Aga so I'm not sure what temperature to put his at. I think 180'c would be fine. Interestingly when my mum and dad moved into our farmhouse the first thing she said to my dad was "That aga has got to go." My dad said they would keep it for a year and then get an electric oven....it's still here and is my mum's pride and joy.

Anyway back to the recipe. Take the lamb out of the fridge and let it rest (covered) for an hour or so to let it get to room temperature. In a bowl mix the bread, herbs and garlic.

Pop the jelly in a small pan and let it melt. Brush generously over the lab and stick the stuffing to the top.

At this point we put it in the oven...but it got a little....char grilled *
(* burnt) on top. So I recommend you cover it with foil for the first hour and then remove for the rest of the cooking.




Cook for two and a half to three hours depending on how pink you like it. Leave to rest for 15 minutes.

Serve with fresh vegetables....(note the broccoli is not the one from the beach...I draw a line there!)

The devils wore parma....

I've never been good with secrets. But I've got one and it's a goody. I wish I could share it with you but it's one of those secrets that you've got to keep to yourself because if it goes wrong it's worse if you've told people. But as soon as I am given the thumbs up you will be the first to know...and I will go on and on about it and you'll wish I never told you.

We've just finished a lemony roast chicken and I am stuffed! While I made the gravy I added my usual teaspoon of marmite and I wondered if anyone else does this? My friend's mum used to use it instead of gravy browning and it made it so much richer and strangely meatier....maybe you add something even stranger?



During the next few weeks you'll be getting a lot of two types of recipes; canapes and sweets. I love them both and strangely enough I only make them at Christmas. Perhaps because I make a year's worth in one month and can't be bothered for the rest of the year. This one is the most basic and easy and great before a roast dinner. I love the salty crispy bacon cuddling the squidgy sweet prune. So easy and always appreciated! I've never tried soaking them in brandy before Nigella style....they were delicious...and powerful!

Boozy Devils on Horseback....(serves 4)

8 dried prunes

2 tbsp brandy

4 slices streaky bacon

In a tub pop the prunes and the brandy then place them in the fridge and forget about them for the rest of the day. When you're ready wrap them in bacon and hold in place with a cocktail stick. Nestle them in between the roast chicken tray and the roast potato tray for about 15 minutes!

Ruling the roast.....

I feel like I should have cooked something with pumpkins by now. They are everywhere in Cornwall. In laybys. In people's windows. On Friday we went to Illogun for a friend's fireworks/halloween party. I think my lungs have just about recovered from the huge amount of fumes from the fireworks. If you live in Illogun, in fact if you live in the Camborne/Redruth area, I apologise for the clouds of green smoke wafting around the area.

It was a lot of fun. Our friend bought everyone a pumpkin and we carved faces in them. I think we should have got a psychiatrist to tell us what our pumpkins say about us. (Mine is the one with the ears.)

Sunday nights are a tricky one for me. Roast dinners have always been as big a part of Sundays on Scilly as the Archers and Desert Island Disks. But the other half doesn't like roasts. I know. Who doesn't like roast dinners? It's like saying you don't like breathing. So every week I have to try and disguise a roast dinner as something else.....

Chorizo and paprika roast chicken...

1 whole chicken

4oz chorizo

1 stick cinnamon

2 tsp smoked paprika

1/4 pt sherry

(for the gravy)

1 tbsp flour

1 small knob butter

a splash of sherry

1/4 pint chicken stock

Preheat oven to 180'c. Inside the chicken cavity put the cinnamon and chopped chorizo. Sprinkle the paprika over the chicken, pour the sherry in the baking tray and pop in the oven for one and a half hours.

While your waiting make some of Mary Berry's yummy bread sauce....

(You can find the recipe here...http://www.maryberry.co.uk/index.asp)

Once the chicken is done, take it out of the oven. Pour the juices into a saucepan. (Make sure you tip the chicken up carefully because some of the juices will be trapped inside. You should be left with a lovely orangey, red sauce from the chorizo. Add the flour and butter and pop on a hob. Whisk until it thickens. Add a splash of sherry and the chicken stock and keep whisking for about 2 minutes.

Serve with some of Delia's red cabbage with apple from here.

We also had watercress with it. (In case you're wondering pudding fans we had apple crumble)

Souper drug.....

My mum swears by soup. At any opportunity she grabs her aga pan, chops up as many leeks, potatoes and onions as she can find it and boils them away happily. Before she reads this and takes offence.... I love everything my mum cooks from her juicy roast pork with crispy crackling to her eton mess style lemon lapis. She is what a cook should be. But she likes thicky hearty soups and I can never get past the idea that it is just pureed vegetables. I want a thin consome or a creamy light mushroom soups. For me potato has no place in a soup bowl.

I've been off work sick for the past few days (cough cough splutter splutter). Today I finally braved the kitchen to make something for my lunch and noticed the leftovers of a roast chicken. It seems criminal not to make a chicken stock for the next roast dinner....but then realised I could kill two birds with one stone and have a lovely chicken soup.

Be warned this is a very light, subtle chicken soup only suitable for eating while in pjs watching Loose Women.

PS. I would rather be here.....


Chicken Soup/stock (makes 3 tubs of stock and 1 bowl of soup)

1 leftover chicken
4 carrots
1 parsnip
1 large onion
1 bay leaf
fresh parsley
salf and pepper

Put the bones in a big pan and cover with water. Add all the other ingredients. Simmer for about an hour until the chicken starts coming off the bones.

Sieve into a large container. (That's the stock done.) If you are making soup, pop some in a warm bowl. Take out some chicken from the sieve. Chop up the hot vegetables and add to the soup. Eat.

If you are sticking with the stock pop it in a tub and freeze until you need it. This is why I always keep take away boxes!