Back to Blogging with a Roast Lamb

It has been way too long since my last post on this blog. I'm not quite sure why as my passion for cooking actually became stronger through 2013. I learned many new recipes, tasted a lot of new meals and had the time to cook everyday. But time and motivation for blogging was hard to find unfortunately.

It's a new year now, and in 2014 I want to take this blog back to life!

Here is a new recipe which can look a lot more complicated than it actually is : a roast lamb. I chose to accompany the lamb with a sweet potatoes purée and asparagus.

First, place the lamb in a hot pan and just cook it on each side for 40 seconds to give it a nice colour. Then place it in a plate with olive oil and dispose thin layers of garlic under the strings.

Place the plate in a preheated oven at 150°c for one hour / kilo (mine was 1,300kg so I left it for about 1 hour and 20 minutes). Once the lamb is cooked place it in foil for 20 minutes before slicing it. If you have a meat thermometer, the center should be at 70°c (or 65°c if you like it pink).

While the meat is cooking, you can prepare the purée. Just peal and slice the sweet potatoes and place them in boiling water with a pinch of salt. Cook it until you can easily cut through the potatoes. Add them into a mixer with few spoons of the water you cooked them in (which is now a stock) and about 15cl of liquid cream. Mix it all until you have a nice homogenous purée. You can add more stock and more cream if you want it a bit more liquid and soft.

For the asparagus, just toss them in a hot pan with olive oil. Move them a lot in the pan so they don't burn and at the end, add soy sauce in the hot pan. It works perfectly with the asparagus. 

For the sauce, I used the juice from the meat which I put in a pan to reduce with butter and few centiliters of red wine.

I hope you enjoy this first post of 2014! It feels good to be back here ;-)

Magret de Canard au Thé

I know: duck again. What can I say? I just love it and my girlfriend loves it even more. And this bird is way too expensive in Norway so I bought a lot before I came back from France. But this is so delicious I could actually eat only duck everyday... The lady agrees. If you can find some wherever you live, the recipe could be a great idea for your Valentine dinner guys.

For the recipe, you need (2 pers):

• 1 duck breast fillet
• 4 potatoes
• 8 asparagus
• 1 shallot 
• 30 cl milk
• 10 cl white wine
• 2 bags of earl grey tea
• white grapes
• Nutmeg
• Sugar / Salt / Pepper

Peel the potatoes, put them in a saucepan with enough water to cover them and bring to boil until they are ready. It should take approximately 15min but to make sure, stick a fork in the potato and it should go through very easily. Remove the water, mash the potatoes, add salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg powder and pour milk until you get a soft puree. If it's too liquid, just keep the puree over low heat to reduce it. To cook the asparagus, bring to boil water with salt in a saucepan and put them in it for 5 minutes so I recommend to cook them just at the end.

Use a sharp knife to score across the duck breast through the fat but just barely to the meat. Rub the skin with salt and pepper. Put it in a preheated frying pan, fat down over medium-high heat for 6 minutes and turn it on the meat side for 3 minutes. Put it in another pan with 1/3 of the grease and store it in the oven (low heat, just to keep it warm) covered with aluminium foil. While the duck rests in the oven, deglaze the frying pan with the white wine over a medium heat and add the shallot finely chopped. Put the 2 earl grey tea bags in a cup and fill 1/3 of it with boiling water. Wait 1 minute, press the tea bags to get all the flavor in the water and throw them away. Add the tea in the frying pan. Peal a dozen white grapes and put them also in the pan with 2 teaspoons of sugar. Let it reduce until the sauce thickens, add a pinch of salt and a turn of pepper just before serving.

Take the duck out of the oven and cut it in few slices, the meat should be pink and not bloody. The bitterness of the tea in the sauce with the sweetness of the grapes really work with the duck.

Are you going to cook for Valentine's day? If you need any advice or idea, just comment this post:)