Orange Dust (with chicken and a salad)

Orage Dust. (with chicken, and a goat cheese/lemon dust salad)

Orange dust is really simple and goes great with Duck, chicken and so many other things. It adds flavor to sauces and glazes and saves time reducing liquids to get the flavor.

Ingredients:
2 oranges (Organic)
1  Cup Water
¼ Cup Sugar
Baking parchment or Tin foil
Spice grinder or mortal and pestle

Heat oven to 300F

First wash your oranges well, you’re going to be eating the outside that has been treated to one degree or another. For this reason I like to use an organic orange and give it a good scrub. Next, use your vegetable peeler to remove the outer rind trying for large strips about the length of the orange.

Lay out the strips and take a small sharp knife and cut off all the white part of the skin as close to the outer orange side of the skin as you can without cutting through it. Don’t look too closely though as juice will be popping out and I’m convinced it aims for your eyes.

Put your water and sugar on to boil and throw in your orange peels. Turn the heat down to a low boil and let them go until they begin to change texture and the liquid begins to turn into a syrup.

Rub your foil or parchment with a little oil and lay it on a baking tray.

Fish out the peels and press them between paper towel then place them on your parchment or foil and put them in the oven at 300F

What you want is for the sugar to begin to turn into crystals on the outside of the peel and the rinds to feel brittle but not turning brown. The process should take about ten minutes.

When you think they’re done, take them out and let them cool, try to break one in half, if it bends they’re not ready yet, put them back in. When they snap they’re ready to go in the grinder.

I used a spice grinder and turned them into dust but you can play with a variety of different textures. As I write this I’m thinking of adding the dust to icing or cheesecake but last night I used it to make orange chicken as described below.

Orange Chicken (or duck)

Ingredients:
Skin on Duck or Chicken breast.
Orange dust
Salt
Juice from the oranges you used to make the dust
2 Tbsp Sugar

Heat oven to 400F

Put the juice from the oranges, the sugar and 1 Tsp of orange dust in a small pan and simmer until it is reduced to syrup.

This recipe works best if you have Iron or Steel pans with no rubber or plastic on them; this way you can throw them directly into the oven. If you’re using aluminum or plastic handled pans (like me) you can use a baking tray and foil.

Clean your Chicken or Duck breasts giving them a wash under water and cutting off any extra fat or bone. If you got a breast with bone on it remove it by slipping your knife along the ribs, then follow the bone with your knife and use your fingers to feel where the flesh and the bone separate and cut the meat free. It’s very easy but looks a little daunting.

On a separate plate mix 50/50 Orange dust and salt making a bed to lay the chicken breast in. Do so skin side down, coating the meat completely.

In your pan, heat a good amount of oil until it is smoking hot then lay (carefully) the breasts skin side down into the oil and reduce the heat so the meat can fry without burning. Cook like this for about 5 minutes or until nicely browned then put the pan in the oven at 400F  If you’re using the baking pan, put the chicken on it skin side down on a little oil.

Cook in the oven for about ten minutes then remove and put back on the stove. Flip the chicken and cook it the rest of the way, browning up the opposite side a little.

Transfer to a plate and serve with the orange reduction lightly drizzled over the top.

Goat cheese and sautéed onion salad

Ingredients:
Red onion
Lettuce
Cucumber
Tomato
plain goats choose
mixed spices (Basil, thyme, rosemary, sage)
Black pepper
Coarse salt (Hawaiian red salt is nice)
Lemon powder
3tbsp Balsamic
1 tbsp honey
¼ tsp mustard
1 tsp flour/starch
Olive oil

This is a very simple salad that can be adapted in a variety of ways.

First cut up your veg and throw them in a bowl.

In a small pan heat your balsamic, honey and mustard then add a little flour or if you made mashed potatoes like me, add a spoonful of mashed potatoes.

Cut up your red onion into even, thin, strips and sauté over a low heat until the correct texture is achieved.

Create a rub out of your ground spices, salt, pepper and lemon powder and roll the cheese in it.

Put the cheese in the oven at about 400F for 10 minutes or so, until it is warm to the touch and holds its shape. Don’t leave it for too long or it will melt.

Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss, then put in a bowl, add sautéed onions then place the goat cheese on top.

If you don’t like the herbs you can use crushed nuts and berries.

Enjoy!

Roast corn and sausage soup

This is a hearty winter soup that is both savoury from the sausage and spices and sweet from the corn with the crisp, fresh cilantro cutting through.

Ingredients

6 Sausages (I used honey garlic, but you can use whatever you like)

2lbs (aprox) of Potato

3 Cobs or 1 can of corn

2 Onions

1 Small bunch of cilantro

Salt to taste

Smoked salt or liquid smoke to taste

Black pepper to taste

1 tbsp Garlic

2 tsp Soya sauce (to taste without changing the colour)
½ Cup of Single cream

1 tbsp Butter/oil

Put the sausages on a bit of foil in a pan with a lip and throw them in the oven at 425. Keep them rotating and let them get nice and brown.

In a large pot, over a medium heat, put in your choice of butter or oil then throw in the onion, chopped into medium sized pieces. After a few minutes add the garlic and pepper and any misc herbs you think would work well.

Let the onions and garlic cook for a few minutes then throw in the corn if you have a can, otherwise cook your corn on the cob over the bbq or fire pit; roast the corn until it has little patches of brown. Cut the niblets off the corn and throw them in with the onions for a minute to fry.

 Don’t worry if you think you’re a little low on salt, we’ll get the flavour right at the end when we have the sausages in and adding their flavours.

Throw the potato in the pot and let it sizzle for a couple of minutes with the onions and corn, then add water until it is just about a fingernail’s height above the veg (read below for more details on the water). Half cover the soup and let it simmer for about half an hour while the sausages cook.

Half an hour later your potato should be cooked and your first big choice has to be made: How thick do you want your soup? And related to that: How many/big would you like the chunks of potato to be?

To precisely work with the potato, grab your masher.

Mash in one corner of the pot to protect any potato you don’t want mashed. Personally I like to mash almost all the potato leading to a very thick soup and only leaving only a few larger pieces of potato, but it’s up to you. If you choose to only give a few mashes and keep your potatoes mainly whole you might want to add a little less water so you don’t have to boil anything off and in the process overcook your potato.

Grab your sausages and get them out of the oven; they should be nice and brown by now. Carefully cut them into your choice of sizes. I like a few slightly larger chunks and then lots of small ones about the size of the corn.

Add the cream and give it a stir, add the Soya sauce and notice the bright white is muted a little and the hint of the salty soy flavour is infused. Watch out for adding too much soy it can easily be too strong and will change the colour (and taste) of the soup; if you need to add more salt, use table or sea salt when you’ve hit your max of soy.

I added smoked salt to give that campy outdoors feel to the soup and that in itself took 5 minutes of adding a pinch, tasting, adding a pinch, wondering if it was working, adding a pinch, tasting, resisting adding a lot, adding a pinch, tasting etc.

Let everything simmer together for 5 to 10 minutes and let the soup reduce a tiny bit while the flavours mix.

Now start flavouring the soup with salt. When the soup is almost as salty as you think it needs to be, stop adding salt. Give it a break and cut up your coriander. You want really really small pieces and not so much you overpower any other flavours, just enough to cut through and give a fresh taste of spring in our fall/winter soup.

Serve with fresh hot bread or crackers and careful not to eat too much! The contrast of the corn and sausage is incredibly good and it’s easy to just keep eating!

Enjoy.

Pomegranate Lamb

What a long week! I didn’t have a chance to really sit down and do much cooking so I thought I’d post something from a little while ago.

A couple of weeks ago I was cooking with my friend John and we made a few reductions, some orange and some cranberry etc; we put them over some stuffed chicken and it was amazing. John later asked what a pomegranate reduction would taste like and if it would work?

A week later we had a shoulder of lamb and 2 pomegranates… I also grabbed about .5L of premade pom juice just in case the real fruit didn’t work well.

The Menu:
Steak with prune and apple, wrapped in bacon with a sweet red wine peppercorn gravy.

Lamb shoulder cooked in pomegranate, rosemary and sea salt with a pomegranate reduction; served with whipped horseradish potatoes.

Bacon and apple salad with a sweet lemon dressing.

The Lamb:

2-3 stems of rosemary

A small handful of sea salt
A small handful of crushed black peppercorns
1 pomegranate worth of seeds.

First things first, oven on hot. Turn it down to 325F when the lamb goes in but for now we want it hot to seal in the flavours.

Give the lamb shoulder a little wash under the tap and make sure to wash away and bone fragments and generally look over the shoulder and trim off anything undesirable.
pour a little olive oil over the lamb and give it a quick rub so our spices and seeds will stick to it.

Cut up your rosemary nice and small and mix it with the salt and pepper so you have a nice rub; then, give your lamb a rub.

When it is nicely coated, put some foil over or put a lid on your baking pan and throw it in the oven.

For a lamb shoulder with the bone in  let it cook for about 20-30 (25 minutes) per pound.

Pomegranate reduction

Initially the goal was to have the pomegranate seeds burst and release their flavour while boiling in sugar water. I really doubted that the seeds would carry enough flavour and that one pomegranate would yield enough juice for us… so I bought a bottle just in case.

1 pomegranate worth of seeds (optional)

.5L of pomegranate juice

1 cup of white sugar.

Stir the liquid on a high heat until it starts to boil, then turn it down and let it simmer until it’s not as runny and drips off your spoon like syrup.
It should taste like sweet condensed pomegranate.

The sauce is a beautiful deep red so if you have white plate it will look spectacular; alternately you could just drizzle it over the lamb. If you stick the spoon in the sauce and let it drain off again you will find it will start to trickle off the spoon in a very fine stream.

Whipped Mash potatoes
Depending on your numbers, peel and cut up your usual amount of potato and add (to taste):
1-2tbsp of butter
1/4cup of cream (or sour cream or milk)
1tsp of salt
.5tsp of pepper
1tbsp minced horseradish
1tsp of minced garlic

Crush the potatoes with your masher and give ‘em a good once over. Add cream as needed to get the mixture nice and smooth, then grab your whisk and start whisking!

After a few minutes the potatoes should be light and fluffy with no large chunks of potato left. For a real treat (which we didn’t do) brush the top with butter and throw under the broiler while the lamb is resting to crisp up on the top.

Bacon wrapped steak

1 stewing steak (or other cut if you prefer)
1 package of bacon

A few slices of dried apple
2 dried prunes.

This app is dead easy and is a little tiresome because everything seems to be wrapped in bacon these days; but it’s a classic, and the gravy we will make will be sweet and contrast the salty bacon and meat perfectly.

Cut up the steak into pieces a bit bigger than your finger, remember the meat will shrink as you cook it.

You could season the meat further at this step if you want to but we have a lot of flavours already so let’s not do too much.
Cut the apple and prunes in slices, not too thin or the flavour will disappear, and as you wrap the bacon around the steak, put the apple and prune slices inside, around the steak, so they are nestled between the layers. You can cook them individually or, as I prefer, skewer them on a few kebabs so they hold together and are easy to turn in the oven.

About half an hour before you want to serve them, throw them in with the lamb.

Sweet red wine and peppercorn gravy

In a very small pot combine:
¼ Cup of beef

¾ Cup red wine
1tbsp Brown sugar
1tsp chopped garlic
1tbsp black+white peppercorns

A little flour or corn starch for thickening

Throw everything into the pan and put it on a medium heat until it starts to boil then turn it down and let it simmer for 5-10 minutes.
Combine a little flour or corn starch with some water until you get a milky liquid then add a little to the gravy and stir for a minute, keep adding a little more until it thickens up to gravy quality.

Taste your sauce and add more sugar if you need, it should taste like a sweet beefy wine.

When the steak and bacon is done remove it from the oven; cut them in half and drizzle with the gravy. The peppercorn will be soft at this point and the flavour will have diffused so they shouldn’t burn anyone’s mouth off.

The bacon and apple salad is dead easy.

1 package of fancy salad mix

1 apple

3-4 slices of bacon.

Grab your cheese grater and pick the slicing side (or just grate on the normal side if you only have one size of grater)

*** Only cut up the apple right before you’re ready to serve to prevent it going brown***

You can also store your cut apple in a little water and lemon juice which will prevent it going brown but no point in making extra mess.

Fry up your bacon until it’s crispy and brown then break it into pieces.

Throw the salad in a bowl and add your dressing of choice.

We used:
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp of honey

Another great dressing for this salad is a warm balsamic, especially if you crumble a little warm goats cheese over the salad too!

There you go! Nothing too fancy, nothing too difficult, but the taste should be out of this world, and this meal should be filling enough that everyone will be rolling their way home.

I’ll do some desserts soon or maybe post the Trifle I made for a friend.

Enjoy! If you have any questions or request please ask. If you’d like to join one of our dinner parties just send me a message.

Coming soon: Home made pasta!

On a side note, I'd love to get this blog out to everyone on the planet so if you know anyone who might like it send a link! 

New years resolution: A Blog.

2012 – New Years Day!

Hope everyone had a good NYE, full of friends, family and a bottle of something to keep the cold out.

My night was spent with some friends feasting around an open fire in the crisp winter air.  For six hours our rotisserie slowly turned as honey, red wine and rosemary dripped fragrantly into the glowing coals.

My name’s Dominic Dowson and you’re reading my New Year resolution:
This is my blog documenting what happens in my kitchen and the dishes that get created. I’ll be posting recipes and stories of the various adventures attached to collecting some of the ingredients and of course lots of pictures.

To be honest the celebration was a bit of a last minute thing. I have wanted to do a variety of stuffed birds for a while and thought maybe a Turducken for the holidays would be nice but, due to cost, it never happened. 

Last minute, of course, it was all decided and I ran to the shops to see if anything was left.  The main restriction was that everything has to be done last minute and nothing had time to marinade overnight.

I decided, as pork ribs, loin and beef eye roast was on sale that I’d use apple juice to get a sweet flavor into pork then baste them with a spicy honey over the BBQ.

The Menu:
22lbs of roast beef encrusted with rosemary and salt cooked until crisp and rich with flavor yet still with a hot juicy pink centre.

12lbs of pork center loin, marinated in apple juice and glazed with spiced honey.

3lbs of pork back ribs, also marinated in the same apple juice for six hours and the quickly put over the coals with a sweet jerk sauce.

And on the side, Baked rosemary potatoes.

Results may Vary:

First things first 6L of apple juice went into my largest pot with around 10 cloves and two sticks of cinnamon. This usually goes on a low heat for as long as you can muster, but unfortunately I just didn’t have the time I needed. Eventually the meat will cook and start to fall apart; this is perfect for the ribs, making them really easy to eat and, of course, everyone wants them to literally, ‘fall off the bone.’

The ribs and the pork went in the pot and the lid went on.

Next, the Beef:

‘Mix everything to taste; cook from the heart and everything will taste better. ‘
That being said, here’s the recipe:

Beef Rub:
1- small handful of rosemary cut finely
1 tbsp of table salt
1 tbsp cracked black pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp chopped garlic

Give the beef a quick rub with a little oil then apply the rub.

Skewer the beef on the rotisserie and get it over the nice hot bbq as fast as possible. I’m using coal, but propane will work fine. Start with a higher heat and let it die down (or turn it down after about 10 minutes) then keep the heat going.
Find a good medium heat and work very slightly hotter than that. Now try and turn the roast at a speed where the drips of fat stay on, or fall back onto the meat, instead of onto the coals where they will flare up and change the temperature of the fire.

I’ve decided to make a tradition of giving the first guest a drink and showing them how to turn the spit; as they get tired and more people arrive they can pass around the responsibility. Best of all there are at least six sets of eyes on the roast at all times preventing it from wavering from perfection.

Beef basting sauce:
1/8^th Cup beef broth
1/3^rd Cup Red wine
1tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp crushed black pepper
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp finely cut rosemary
1 tbsp garlic

Give the baste a taste, it should taste like a beefy, sweet wine.
When it’s done and the meat is starting to colour a little begin applying the baste.

I like to dip my silicone basting brush in the liquid and then run just the edges of the bristles over the meat so as to apply the liquid but not brush off and of the ingredients that have stuck to the meat.

After about two and a half to three hours your 20lbs of beef should be ready. You can use a meat thermometer or make your assessment based on the way the meat feels.

Slice on a large wooden board with a trough for the juices, I offered horseradish, a sweet Chianti reduction and some mint jelly. Leave a selection of knives and napkins and run back to start the pork.

The glaze for the pork is:

1cup of honey
1tbsp of brown sugar
2 lemons (squeezed)
1 pinch of salt
1/2 cup of mulled apple cider

To mull the apple cider, put the pan over a medium heat and in a bouquet garni (small cloth bag sold in most cooking stores) include a cracked stick of cinnamon, around 7cloves, 1 cracked nutmeg and a vanilla bean split down the middle.

Spit your pork, hand your glaze and to your assistant or a startled part guest and get ready for the ribs.

The pork will have been fully cooked in the apple cider, as have the ribs so there’s no need to keep them on the heat for a long time. In the case of the pork the fatty exterior will turn a dark brown while the flesh becomes a dark honey colour when it is fully glazed and ready to be eaten. Remember to keep the speed up with the rotisserie so the glaze runs around the meat and doesn’t fall directly into the fire.

For the ribs I had initially planned to do Apple-Jerk but I couldn’t find the spices I needed nor could I find my backup supply of pre-mixed jerk spice. *sad face*

So instead, being new years, I grabbed some jack and honey and made a simple sticky glaze instead. (1/3  Jack 2/3 honey)

I meant to use the Jerk recipe so here it is:
2tbsp of jerk powder (use the premade stuff)
2 lemons worth of juice
1tsp of garlic, minced
2tbsp sweetened apple sauce (1tbsp apple butter)
½ cup honey
aprox ¼ cup of mulled apple cider. Just add enough so that you have a very liquidy solution that will be easy to baste your ribs with.

Again the ribs are cooked in the apple juice at this point, so no need to keep them over the coals for very long, just long enough to get the sauce on and properly stuck should do the trick.

The rosemary potatoes can be thrown in the coals at any point and cooked for about half an hour depending on the size of the potato and how much of it is covered by hot coals. Careful not to get them too hot!

To make the potatoes:
Give them a little scrub under water then score one side about half to  ¾ of the way through and about 1cm apart. Then take your tin foil and put a bit of butter and salt with a few rosemary leaves and place the potato, score marks down, onto the butter and wrap up and toss in the coals.

When the potatoes come out cut them in half and score the inside in a crosshatched pattern and spread butter over the top (or rosemary butter if you feel like it) and sprinkle a little fancy salt over the top, I used pink Himalayan salt but black or red Hawaiian would be great too.

And there you have it! A proper feast; cooked over hot coals in the dead of winter. What a great way to spend New Years. Cheers everyone!

Serve that mulled apple cider with .5oz of fireball and .5oz of a spiced rum and everyone will be merry in no time.

So concludes my first blog post. There will be more to come and of course, write to me. I’d love to hear from you.

Enjoy,

Dom