Food for Thought

We are 2 best friends and amateur chefs, on either side of an ocean, with a common love for all things food. This blog will chronicle our respective food journeys, recipes, tips and tricks, links, ideas and basically anything else to do with food on both sides of The World - showing how they are influenced by our countries and each other.

Thursday 3 March 2011

2 for the price of 1

Evening all

Sorry for the lack of updates the last couple of days, I have been rather snowed under and not well at all. I've barely had time to cook, let alone blog about it! Anyway, here is an update - last nights dinner and one from tonight also.

Last night I decided I wanted to go a bit restaurant style, so I designed a meal myself with that in mind. I cooked Pork Fillet Medallions with Celeriac, Potato and Apple Rosti and a Cider gravy. It was easy enough - grate the ingredients for the rosti (about twice as much potato and celeriac as apple) squeeze out the water from apples and potatoes, then pan fry in butter pressing it down into shape all the time. The sauce took a while - 500ml of chicken stock and 500ml dry cider. Tsp of honey and tsp of mustard then simmer down for an hour until thick, finally adding a couple of tbsp of double cream for richness. Then simply pan fry the medallions and serve - finished dish below. One of the nicest things I have made, would be nice with some wilted spinach too but I just didn't have any in.


Tonight was a little simpler. Pan roasted Duck Breast on Teriyaki Egg Noodles. Tip for cooking the duck - get the pan nice and hot and add the breast (scored) skin side down. Reduce the heat and give it 6-8 minutes, depending how pink you like your duck, then turn it over for another 5 minutes for a delicious crispy skin and well rendered fat which leaves the meat moist and tender. Nothing worse than overcooked Duck, but not much tastier than a well cooked one! Delicious with the sweet sticky sauce and the soft noodles. Teriyaki sauce is easy to make too from Soy Sauce, Mirin and Sugar/honey. You can add other things for different flavours and it keeps really well too.


A quick mention for my unwell youngest daughter, Ceridwen. She has a cold bless her and at 1 year old its taking a lot out of her so get well soon princess. Also huge congratulations to my lovely wife Sam on getting her 2nd promotion (and a pay bump!) in 6 months doing her new job - pretty soon she'll own the company and can bankroll my own restaurant!! And a private jet to fly to Oz every other weekend for footy and food in the sun with my best bud Ant.

Ah well, a man can dream. We did win the Lotto this week, but £87 won't really cover it. Maybe next week...

All the best everyone

Tony

No comments:

Post a Comment