Calamari stuffed with tomato and herb rice

My daughters plate she 'styled'!

I am so surprised how simple this dish is! 

Its another from Gordon Ramsay's book, World Kitchen.

The stuffing is prepared by gently cooking garlic and onion, letting some white wine reduce down then add rice, tomato, a little sugar and seasoning.

Add water and simmer covered until the water is absorbed and the rice is fluffy.

Meanwhile prepare the calamari. 

You can see my husband and daughter did a fabulous job!

The rice is allowed to cool, then I added in some peas, mint and parsley.

Carefully fill the calamari and place in a greased dish.

Top with the remaining rice and tentacles, add a little water and bake for half an hour.

It tasted like a really special dish yet did not cost much and was simple to prepare.

Chai Smoked Duck Breast on Soba Noodle Salad

You will not be surprised to read that this is yet another recipe of Anna Gare's.

My smoking technique was not done as Anna describes in the recipe and I suggest you don't follow my method! 

I did not have wood chips or a smoker, instead I heated up this gorgeous mix of chai tea, sugar and rice in our baby weber Q.

It certainly produced some lovely smoke but our bbq doesn't seal so our duck did not really retain that smoky flavour. I would love to buy a smoker and have a real crack at it.

After smoking the fat was rendered down and the duck breast finished in the oven.

Served with the salad of soba noodles, fresh enoki and shitake mushrooms, capsicum, spring onion, snow peas, basil and coriander.

The dressing consisted of mirin, rice wine, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, soy and sweet soy.

The whole dish is then drizzled with some pomegranate molasses.

It was certainly beautiful in taste and looks.

Honeyed Pear and Macadamia Tart

This is a really simple delicious tart recipe. 

It requires no pastry and is easy to assemble.

It is yet another of the amazing Anna Gare's recipes.

The pears are cut into even chunky slices and assembled on top of butter, honey and lime zest.

A few macadamias are sprinkled around before spooning over the tart base.

The base is a delicious mix of pureed macadamias, butter, sugar, a little flour, egg and lime zest.

Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes until very golden and let rest for about 20 minutes before turning it upside down and carefully removing the foil.

I was actually surprised at how tasty this tart was.

 The honey really came through with the juicy pears and the crunchy macadamias, it was good!

Jaffna Goat Curry - My Sri Lanka

This recipe of Peter Kurivita's for Jaffna Goat Curry was another from his show on SBS My Sri Lanka.

I have eaten goat but never attempted to cook it before. And since I loved other recipes from My Sri Lanka (pork curry, cashew nut curry and prawns with black pepper sauce) I knew I had to try it.

Fortunately I live in an area in Sydney where Sri Lankan ingredients are easily come by, and that includes goat! In fact goat brains, tripe, liver.....

The spices are prepared and mixed with the meat along with tomato paste and coconut milk.

Then the aromats. I tried this technique Peter shared of making garlic paste with salt. He made it look very easy and although I was pleased with the result it was nothing on Peter's effort!

The garlic, ginger, onion, green chilli, pandan, curry leaves and lemon grass are all fried initially in some oil until the onion is translucent and the aroma incredible.

Then in goes the meat and its sauce along with water.

Now this is where my problems started. The recipe says to cook for 30 minutes or until gravy thickens and meat tender. Well the gravy thickened beautifully and I tested a piece of meat, it seemed quite tender. But when we served it most of the meat was quite tough. 

I am assuming that the cut of meat I used was not right. Anyway I tried using the same cut again 'goat curry on bone' and it took two hours to become tender adding extra water at intervals.

But the sauce was incredible. Oh my goodness it tasted like a real curry!

Served with some string hoppers made at our local Sri Lankan takeaway, it was amazing.

The goat flavour wise was fantastic, suited the sauce perfectly, but mastering the cooking time is an issue.

Next time I'll probably just use lamb!

Anna's Lamb Rack with Ratatouille

Honestly I have cooked so many recipes of Anna Gare. 

They are amazing simple recipes packed full of flavour and fresh ingredients, her cookbook homemade is a must.

This recipe for Lamb Rack with Ratatouille was no exception.

The fresh eggplant, capsicum, tomato, onion, whole garlic, herbs.....whatever you like really.....are cubed up, seasoned and tossed in olive oil, then baked.

I baked mine for about an hour as I love them getting all soft and caramelised. 

The lamb rack is trimmed and rubbed with a paste of garlic, rosemary, thyme, lemon zest, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then simple, just pop it in the oven with the veges and bake for about half an hour.

Be sure to let the lamb rest. 

What a beautiful meal of roasted vegetables and beautifully moist succulent lamb.

The 'muppy' house could not have been happier!

Whole Snapper stuffed with Olives and Anchovies served with duck fat potatoes

I scored in my work 'secret santa' this year with a cook book!!! Gordon Ramsay's World Kitchen - sounds like my sort of recipes hey :)

Well my daughter has chosen the first recipe that we should cook, Stuffed Red Mullet. It looked delicious but Red Mullet is a Mediterranean fish and so we used snapper. 

Olives, anchovies, sundried tomatoes and garlic are pureed. 

The potatoes I parcooked before tossing in warm duck fat and baking with rosemary, whole garlic cloves and lemon wedges.

The snapper was seasoned and stuffed with the delicious puree.

Then baked for 20 minutes.

Served with the crisp and incredibly tasty potatoes.

The soft moist fish was perfect with the rich olive puree.

After eating this meal I was looking at Australia's Sustainable Seafood guide. Did you know that snapper is not a better choice when it comes to seafood? 

In the muppy household we try to make sensible ethical and environmental choices.

So from now on I am going to check before buying my seafood that I am making an appropriate choice by looking up this guide and chatting to my local fish monger.

Slow baked Bloody Mary Lamb

Hope you all have had a great start to the New Year, lets hope its a good one.

I spent my New Years Eve wandering the aisles of a bottle shop with many others, but unlike everyone else I was only interested in buying vodka to cook my lamb.

And to make raspberry, rose and vodka jelly I must add (it was delicious!).

Most of you would know I am a huge fan of Anna Gare's recipes, many of them favourites in my home.

I finally have her book 'homemade' now, it is almost shocking how many recipes I have cooked (and loved!).

This Bloody Mary Lamb recipe, named of course after the drink, is a slow cooked lamb dish served with rigatoni.

The lamb is slow cooked with leeks, carrots and celery, topped with a sauce made up from passata, chicken stock and vodka. The recipe I linked to is slightly different to the one in her book.

Considering this was a rather wintery dish, it really was quite light to eat. 

The flavours were refreshing but did not offer as much depth and guts as I usually find in Anna's recipes. We did really enjoy eating it but I probably wont cook it again, not sure it was worth that much vodka!