Thesis draft 2 is finally in! \o/. Now I can finally emerge from my relative silence. To those of you that I’ve been ignoring over e-mail etc, my sincere apologies. It really has been THAT hectic over the last two weeks.
Tuition sessions have also settled down a little (she says returning from teaching until 9pm :s) so I have time to blog again . Of course, whilst sleeping and generally living became low of my priority list, cooking certainly didn’t (except on the one day that Goon demanded Chinese take away) so here a few of the things I really wanted to blog about but couldn’t.
My favourite of the week was this.
Between teaching sessions on Saturday morning, I managed a quick detour through Shepherds Bush market, picked up some goat, which went into a Jamaican goat curry and the lovely red sea bream you can see in the picture above. The fish only cost £4, which is a lot cheaper than the supermarket bream I’ve seen. That evening the fish was marinated in orange and ginger, grilled until the skin was cripy and served on egg fried rice with a sweet and sour sauce and some prawn crackers.
Of course, with Easter weekend came a host of supermarket special offers, including half price duck. This, in imitation of a very good pub lunch I had, was rubbed with star anise and then roasted with cloves and cinnamon under its skin. I served it with a pear chutney and attempted to make ginger flavoured roast potatoes, although the ginger turned out much more subtle than I’d hoped. I always have trouble making things taste of ginger. 
Any tips on that front would be much appreciated.
Also, I took advantage of a half price lamb leg which was the principal ingredient in this rather colourful dish.
The whole leg was crusted in a mixture of coriander seed, cumin, fennel, and turmeric, roasted to rare (for a change) and served with vegetable couscous, a sweet red pepper sauce (recipe adapted from Sher’s at ‘What Did you Eat?’) and minted courgettes.
Finally there was the super-lemony guinea fowl. Super lemony because, before I roasted it, I slipped very thin lemon slices (and herbs, garlic and butter) under its skin. For some reason lemon seems to keep poultry really moist if you squeeze it on before cooking. In the case of my guinea fowl, the juice of the lemon trickled out over the flesh during t cooking and kept it really succulent as well as giving it a great flavour. As usual, giving the skin a stuffing make it go very crisp.
I also shamelessly stole this fab idea for mussels with leeks and blue cheese from Anna at Morsel’s and Musings. I omitted the spinach and served my version over some linguine. My picture didn’t come out well at all. My mussels glowed so much they looked radioactive. I don’t mind too much though, as Anna’s green lipped mussels look way better than the ones I had to buy from Tesco.
So there we go, a selection of the things that kept me sane during the nightmare that was the last ten days. Since things are much calmer now, I’ll hopefully be able to tell you abou my visit to Market Kitchen soon and the exciting time I’ve been having with my new favourite food book.
Thesis draft 2 is finally in! \o/. Now I can finally emerge from my relative silence. To those of you that I’ve been ignoring over e-mail etc, my sincere apologies. It really has been THAT hectic over the last two weeks.
Tuition sessions have also settled down a little (she says returning from teaching until 9pm :s) so I have time to blog again . Of course, whilst sleeping and generally living became low of my priority list, cooking certainly didn’t (except on the one day that Goon demanded Chinese take away) so here a few of the things I really wanted to blog about but couldn’t.
My favourite of the week was this.
Between teaching sessions on Saturday morning, I managed a quick detour through Shepherds Bush market, picked up some goat, which went into a Jamaican goat curry and the lovely red sea bream you can see in the picture above. The fish only cost £4, which is a lot cheaper than the supermarket bream I’ve seen. That evening the fish was marinated in orange and ginger, grilled until the skin was cripy and served on egg fried rice with a sweet and sour sauce and some prawn crackers.
Of course, with Easter weekend came a host of supermarket special offers, including half price duck. This, in imitation of a very good pub lunch I had, was rubbed with star anise and then roasted with cloves and cinnamon under its skin. I served it with a pear chutney and attempted to make ginger flavoured roast potatoes, although the ginger turned out much more subtle than I’d hoped. I always have trouble making things taste of ginger. Any tips on that front would be much appreciated.
Also, I took advantage of a half price lamb leg which was the principal ingredient in this rather colourful dish.
The whole leg was crusted in a mixture of coriander seed, cumin, fennel, and turmeric, roasted to rare (for a change) and served with vegetable couscous, a sweet red pepper sauce (recipe adapted from Sher’s at ‘What Did you Eat?’) and minted courgettes.
Finally there was the super-lemony guinea fowl. Super lemony because, before I roasted it, I slipped very thin lemon slices (and herbs, garlic and butter) under its skin. For some reason lemon seems to keep poultry really moist if you squeeze it on before cooking. In the case of my guinea fowl, the juice of the lemon trickled out over the flesh during t cooking and kept it really succulent as well as giving it a great flavour. As usual, giving the skin a stuffing make it go very crisp.
I also shamelessly stole this fab idea for mussels with leeks and blue cheese from Anna at Morsel’s and Musings. I omitted the spinach and served my version over some linguine. My picture didn’t come out well at all. My mussels glowed so much they looked radioactive. I don’t mind too much though, as Anna’s green lipped mussels look way better than the ones I had to buy from Tesco.
So there we go, a selection of the things that kept me sane during the nightmare that was the last ten days. Since things are much calmer now, I’ll hopefully be able to tell you abou my visit to Market Kitchen soon and the exciting time I’ve been having with my new favourite food book.
Hi Ros, looks like you had a busy week all round. The food didn’t suffer though and looks delicious! I’m glad that you found my tip about flavouring the skin of poultry helpful and you’ve really run with the ball!
The Sea Bream looks beautiful!
Comment by Freya — April 20, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
I have to say that my favorite was the lamb. Nothing can beat a roast lamb leg — well, apart from Ostrich.
- Goon
Comment by Andy — April 21, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
Mmmmmm, your roasties look deliciously crispy and flakey on the outside, just how I love mine.
How exactly did you use the ginger to give the potatoes flavouring? My only suggestion would be cutting the ginger into small chunks and pounding it in a pestle and mortar with a little salt (crystals if possible e.g. Maldon)to release the flavour. Then maybe try adding a little of the syrup from a jar of stem ginger (if you have it) to make the paste slightly wetter and more manageable. Then coat the taties with this paste before roasting. I must warn you that I’ve never tried anything this before, I’m just literally making it up as I go along. It might work, it not not, but my instincts tell me it may be worth a try
Comment by Trig — April 22, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
Wow - that’s a lot to pack into 10 days! Congrats on getting the second draft in - must be a weight off your shoulders
I’m fascinated by the idea of ginger roast potatoes and that rare roast lamb looks fabulous. Sainsbury’s often have some really good lamb specials and the spice rub you used sounds very similar to something I did with lamb recently (yet to be blogged - aaaargh!). And I see that, like me, you are indulging fully in the first asparagus of the season 
Comment by Jeanne — April 22, 2007 @ 6:35 pm
Freya, I took one look atthe red bream and couldn’t resist it. Shepherds Bush market rocks! The lemon on the guinea fowl worked very well - thanks for the tip.
Trig, I used crushed ginger and the syrup but only salted the potatoes when they were parboiling. That might well have been the problem. Next time I do an appropriate dish I’ll try mashing the ginger with salt crystals.
Jeanne, yes I certainly have been going a little asparagus mad of late. Since I’ve been working so much there’ve been a lot of roasts happening at ours and the temptation of roasted asparagus is too great.
Comment by ros — April 24, 2007 @ 6:07 pm