Rack of lamb with Marsala Sauce

This is leftovers from Cooking Club. Rack of lamb is easy enough: heat the oven to 160C. While it heats, sprinkle the lamb with salt and black pepper, then brown in a hot pan with oil. Stick it on a baking tray lined with foil (saves cleaning!) and cook for 15-20 minutes depending how pink you like your meat. Take it out and let stand for 5 minutes before cutting into chops for serving.

The sauce was more complex and you need to start it long in advance. Finely chop about three cloves of garlic and soften them in a little oil. Then add 1 cup of marsala and 1 cup of stock. We used canned lamb stock, but you could as easily use chicken. Just strain out any bits of meat that may be in it before using. Stir in 1 tablespoon of tomato puree and about two tablespoons of red wine.Bring it to the boil, and then turn it onto simmer and reduce it down to about 1/3 to 1/4 of the original volume. Beat in a knob of butter and stir in some flat-leaf parsley and your sauce is ready!

I served this with the leftover green peas, double-shelled broad beans and peeled cherry tomatoes. Yes I know the peas and beans aren't on the food list, but that's what we had so that's what I ate. This would be nice with fresh asparagus, tomato and green beans or sugar snaps, which is what I will recommend for you!

Crustless Broccoli, Bacon and Goat Cheese Quiche

This was reasonably quick and easy, which I needed after spending longer at Scrabble than I intended. Plus I hadn't eaten much during the day, just some nuts and cheese. So I needed something robust for supper.

This was made with 125 gram bacon strips, which I fried until crisp; about 1 cup of broccoli flowerets, which I steamed in the microwave, and about 60 grams of soft goat's cheese, the kind that comes in a little roll. You can get these cooked while you heat the oven to 180C.

Sprinkle the bacon and broccoli over the base of an ovenproof dish, and spread the goat cheese across the top. I cut the piece into think slices, so they were little round.

Then beat 2 eggs with 300 ml of milk or milk and cream (I added cream, pour it over the bacon, broccoli and cheese, and pop it in the oven for about 20 minutes till it's golden brown. You don't really need to add salt to the quiche custard because the bacon is salty enough.

This served two of us.

Duck with apple and sauerkraut

Multiple courses this evening!I was feeling celebratory as I have a lovely new 22inch wide screen monitor which makes the food photos look fabulous.

Let's begin with the soup. It was sublime! Carrots are not my favourite vegetable, but we've been having a lot of them in the weekly vegetable bag. I took three medium ones, and half a bunch of celery, and sliced that all up. Then I put them in a pot over gentle heat to let them soften a bit while I peel about an inch of fresh ginger and chopped it quite finely. I added it to the vegetables with about 750 ml of chicken stock. You could easily use water; I just happened to have stock in the fridge. Bring that to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer till the vegetables are soft. Add salt and pepper to taste, then purée it till smooth. Add about half a cup of cream, then reheat very gently. I served it in a glass, and floated a little cream on top, sprinkled with ground ginger. This I will make for Gordon Ramsay should he ever come to dinner. Any famous chef, I don't care.



This orange and goat's cheese salad is finicky more than anything else, because you need to prepare the orange carefully. I used one orange for two people, but you can use as many as you like. You need to peel them, and then separate the flesh from the membranes. Do this over a bowl so you can catch the juice. Check out how much juice you have, and add about half as much lemon juice to it, then twice as much oil. Blend till smooth. Toss the oranges in some of the dressing, and drizzle the rest over the plate and the goat's cheese.



Duck breast is always quick and easy, so it made up for the care that went into the oranges. I use one duck breast for two people because I find it so rich. Sprinkle it with salt and pepper, then put it in a pan over low heat, skin side down and just leave the fat to sizzle out. After about ten minutes you can turn the duck breast over and cook the meaty side in the fat, also slowly. While you're doing this, you can chop some apple and mix it with sauerkraut, and heat that. I used half an apple to about a cup of sauerkraut. The other half I cut into thin slices.

When the duck stops looking red on the outside, after another 7-10 minutes, take it out of the fat and let it rest. While it does that, fry the apple slices in the duck fat, also over low heat.

Slice the duck, and serve it on the sauerkraut topped with the apple.

Don't season the sauerkraut at all: I did this and it was too salty. Otherwise, the combination was nice and a different take on duck.

Roast chicken with herb butter

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take a photo before eating. Probably because the cooking did not go smoothly.

It started off when I saw recipe for Roast chicken with sorrel butter in one of my books. What caught my eye is that the chef roasted the chicken without legs. Now, I just happened to have a legless chicken in the fridge, as I had removed the legs and smoked them.

I have no sorrel, but I thought sage and rosemary could be nice, so I made the butter and tucked it under the skin as instructed. The recipe said it should be ready in 25 minutes.

I took it out after 25 minutes, looked at it, and put it back for another 5 to brown some. It didn't brown all that much, but I left it to stand for 5 minutes and steam-fried some cabbage. When the standing time was up, I cut the chicken and it was still just too pink inside.

So I put it back in the oven for another ten minutes, and gave it some microwave help at 180 watts as well.

After letting it stand again, it was still slightly pink. I cut a thin slice off the top, that was white, and we ate that. The cat got some pink stuff.

It would seem even a legless chicken needs a full cooking time. But the herb butter was nice.

Bangers!

These pork bangers are not from the expat shop. I made them myself, with my own two hands. I used this recipe and may I say it was a good one! Yes, there are breadcrumbs in it, but spread across all that meat I doubt it matters much. I made a half recipe, and used about half a cup of breadcrumbs instead of three quarters. Also, next time I may reduce the salt in the seasoning slightly; I found the sausages marginally salty. Luckily, the cabbage was very plain.

The meat I chopped in my food processor. The butcher at In de Bogaard gave me some sausage casing when I went in to find out where to buy some; I filled the casing using a pastry bag and my widest nozzle.

I only made four, because the pastry bag was hard work. Time to look into an electric sausage machine I think, because I could do this more often. There are a whole lot of recipes on that site!

Steak and mushrooms

Paul had the day off, and what a lovely sunny day it was too! Cold meats and salads, then - let's pretend it's summer.

The carrot salad was the same easy one I've become addicted to: the dressing is one part passion fruit vinegar to three parts oil. That's it. The other dressing was leftover from the Cooking club Partner's Evening, as was the cold lamb. Otherwise it's all pretty straightforward.



We needed a quick supper, as Paul had to do a telephone survey and get to choir practice time. Grilled steak - what better or quicker? Cream does not go well with singing, so I did plain fried mushrooms. Normally I like sour cream in there, in the stroganov style. Plain, steam-fried beans.

Sole with Lemon Butter

Sole is one of my favourite fishes. We used to get quite nice frozen baby soles in South Africa, so when I saw frozen sole here I bought some and stuck it in the freezer for one of those days.

Well, today was one of those days, so I whipped out two soles. Unfortunately it seems that these soles should have defrosted in the fridge first - and not be cooked from frozen as is usually the case. Tough. I pan fried it from frozen in butter, then used the same pan to make lemon butter sauce. This is easy, just melt some butter (however much looks good to you, a couple of tablespoons is more than enough for two people) and let it get slightly brown, then stir in some lemon juice (how lemony do you like it? I never measure the lemon, I just add it until it smells right, but you could taste it I guess.)

I served the sole with lettuce, tomato and carrot salad.

It was a little tasteless, much like the sole I had in England. Whether this is because it was cooked from frozen, or because it's just naturally tasteless, I'll only know next time I cook it - then I will defrost it in advance, as suggested.

But I suspect that fresh sole from the fish shop is still the way to go.