Dish of the Month (Cooking the Recipes of Nigel Slater) October Round Up

The first delicious Dish of the Month was beautifully presented by Dom from Belleau Kitchen.  Upside Down Banoffee Shortcake is a Nigel Slater recipe that Dom found on the Guardian website and what a great find.

Deon Van Schalkwyk is the food blogger behind Food Jam and a recent convert to Nigel's Kitchen Diaries II, which is where this super easy and totally delicious Spelt and Cider Loaf recipe is to be found. 

My own contribution to Dish of the Month is this dish of Duck Legs with Bramble Gin and Duck Fat Potatoes, adapted to suit my ingredients from a recipe in Kitchen Diaries II.

Co-host of Dish of the Month, Sue at A little Bit of Heaven on a Plate indulged in this gloriously autumnal Pear and Chocolate Crumble and was thrilled to receive some birthday greetings on Twitter from Mr Nigel Slater himself!

Over the past few weeks, Karen of Lavender and Lovage fame has been travelling all over the UK and has not long got back to her home in France, and yet she still managed to russle up some homemade bread and this Welsh Rabbit for her Sunday Brunch.  This recipe of Nigel's was found on the Country Life website - he does get about, doesn't he?  Oh just like Karen lol!

I'll be back with the linky for November's Dish of the Month on Friday - get your thinking caps on and join us cooking and baking the recipes of Nigel Slater.

Labels: Dish of the Month, Duck Fat Potatoes, Duck Legs, Nigel Slater, Pear and Chocolate Crumble, Spelt and Cider Loaf, Upside Down Banoffee Shortcake, Welsh Rabbit

posted by Janice @ 20:31 7 Comments

Duck Legs with 'Bramble' Gin and Duck Fat Potatoes - Dish of the Month

Phew!  I've finally managed to get my Dish of the Month made, half way through the month.  I had four Goosenargh duck legs from Farmison in the freezer so adapted Nigel Slater's recipe from The Kitchen Dairies, 30 October.  

The duck is marinated in brown sugar, vinegar, crushed juniper berries and sloe or damson gin.  I didn't have any sloe or damson gin, but I did have some gin and some blackberry cordial that I had made the day before, so I added half and half gin and blackberry cordial.  It seems to have worked well.  

As I had duck legs rather than breast, as in the original recipe,  I decided to follow the technique used by Tom Kerridge in his TV series Proper Pub Food, this involved cooking the duck legs on a tray over a roasting tin (I used my grill pan) at 200C for 25 minutes, then you drain off the fat and reduce the heat to 120C and cook until tender (1 1/2 hrs for a whole duck, about 40 minutes for the legs). 

I only made a little change to the  Duck Fat Potato recipe,  using less fat, just what I gathered from the pan when roasting the duck legs, which I brushed over the potatoes and then baked in a dish in the oven.

I also put the remaining marinade in a pan and reduced it to create some sauce for the duck legs. I served the duck and potatoes with spinach and tomatoes cooked together with...a little bit more duck fat.

If you would like to take part in Dish of the Month, then please

• Make a Dish of the Month from ANY recipe by Nigel Slater
• Link to Farmersgirl Kitchen or A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate
• Use the Dish of the Month logo in your post
• If you use twitter, tweet your post with @FarmersgirlCook or @Heavenona_plate and #DishoftheMonth and we will re-tweet it to our followers.

Rules:

• If you own The kitchen diaries II please do not publish the recipes on your blog without permission, they are copyright.
• If you are using recipes from the BBC Food website, please link to the recipe on BBC Food rather than publishing the recipe. Likewise recipes on the Guardian Lifestyle website.
• One entry per blog.
• Recipes must be added to the linky by the 28th of each month.

Labels: Blackberry, Bramble, Dish of the Month, duck, Duck Fat, Duck Legs, Gin, Nigel Slater, spinach, tomatoes

posted by Janice @ 19:06 4 Comments