As Strong As Soup

In the area around Amiens in the Somme they take rhubarb very seriously and this recipe is based (pretty loosely) on a dish from there. The sauce has a sweet and sour quality that's sharp enough to cut through the rich flavour of duck but it will also work very well with pork, goose or guinea fowl.   If you're using sweet, forced rhubarb such as the superb product from the Rhubarb Triangle in Yorkshire, then it won't need much (if any) sweetening. If in doubt, use the minimum amount of grenadine and add any necessary sweetening at the end.  Despite my sincere attempts to be lazy, I'm now reluctantly forced to admit that the very best grenadine is homemade. Unless you're obsessed with cocktails, though, you probably don't have any, so use whatever commercial brand you fancy. If you don't have any grenadine at all, then just sweeten with honey, agave nectar or even plain sugar, but combine them with a little pomegranate molasses, if possible. The sauce can be ...

Duck with orange sauce is a great classic and can be truly delicious. But it became a bit of a joke when less-than-great restaurants began to turn out overcooked, dry duck in something resembling marmalade with a dollop of Grand Marnier in it. I haven't come across many restaurants in recent years that still serve this dish. (Although I do know of one establishment that seems unchanged since the 1970s and not only serves the classic duck à l’orange but also has a sweet trolley). This recipe is not the classic sauce, but it's a relatively simple dish that doesn't need the whole duck or too much time to prepare and it shows why the duck and orange sauce was a really good idea in the first place.  This recipe has the great advantage that the sauce is largely made in advance, although it's best to add the finishing touches immediately before serving. Blood oranges aren't essential but, if they're in season, they do have a lovely flavour without being too sweet and ...

A lot of the recipes on this blog are pretty easy, but they really don't get much easier than this. Not too long ago I was wandering around a local supermarket in my usual bemused manner and I stumbled across some particularly fine produce: Lamuyo peppers from Spain, smoked duck breast from Scotland and, one of my favourite cheeses, Ossau-Iraty from the southwest of France. Then from some particularly murky corner of my mind I remembered that these were just the kind of ingredients that Guy Martin put together on one of his TV programmes. Thanks to Google I've realised that the name Guy Martin often seems to refer to a bloke that rides motorbikes mystifyingly fast. I definitely don't mean him. I mean the chef of Le Grand Véfour in Paris. (Please be careful if you're tempted to peruse the prices at Le Grand Véfour - you may need to have someone nearby to administer strong drink to aid your recovery). Mr Martin intended this combination of ingredients to celebrate the...

Taloa is a simple Basque flatbread that can be wrapped around a variety of savoury and even some sweet fillings. It's quite often filled with ventrèche; in other words, it's made into a southern French bacon sandwich - kind of. I've come across quite a few variations on this simple little bread, some of which I suspect add yeast since they look and feel more like a pitta bread. This simpler version is based on a recipe from a tourist office leaflet so I assume it's reasonably authentic. The breads would normally be cooked on a flat grill (plancha) but a frying pan does the job too. If you're wondering why cornmeal is used then you clearly haven't driven along the many, many miles of road lined with maize fields in the south west of France. There are plenty of plums around in that area too so I've added some to the duck sauce. I used fairly large British plums, but if you have some of the smaller varieties (and smaller varieties do seem to be popular in th...

Duck is one of my favourite meats, but it does tend to be a bit expensive. Duck legs, though, are the cheaper option in most supermarkets. A while ago I got into a discussion with someone who was looking for new and interesting ways to cook duck legs. I can’t quite remember what conclusions we came to but afterwards I started wondering what was wrong with the traditional methods. To my shame, I hadn't made this sort of dish for years and I needed reminding just how good it can be. There’s nothing new or revolutionary about this recipe. It’s the method of Normandy cooking that I first picked up years ago, although there’s no guarantee that it would be considered truly authentic in the Vallée d'Auge.  Very much the same method of cooking is often used in Normandy for chicken or guinea fowl, although they will usually require less time to cook. I did use a genuine Normandy cider for this dish but it’s not the only place in the world that makes excellent cider. Most decen...

Ever since I picked out a modern interpretation of an Apicius pork dish in Dom’s first ever Random Recipe challenge (and that was quite a while ago now) I’ve been playing around with some of the other recipes (I use the term loosely) in this text from ancient Rome. Since my Latin is a little rusty, I’ve lazily resorted to translations I’m afraid. A brief QI style digression: There are actually ten “books” in the Apicius writings that (sort of) add up to a complete treatise on cooking. The books are named in honour of Apicius, who was known for his love of fine food, but were actually compiled long after his death. And I think that’s more than enough facts for now. You need a fair amount of imagination with some of the “recipes” in Apicius: there are few exact quantities given or methods described and some of the ingredients, such as the plant silphium or laser , no longer exist.  So I feel justified in bringing you a fairly free adaptation of an Apicius sauce...

With a chill in the air and a sky full of grey clouds, I was thinking about autumnal dishes. Then the sun came out, the temperature shot up and I forgot about the English autumn and found myself thinking about south-west France instead (I tend to do that every so often, I have to admit). As a result, I came up with this French-inspired dish. Perhaps I should be calling it Hachis Parmentier au Canard or something like that, but given my endless struggles with the French language, maybe it's best that I don't. This should serve 3 people unless any of them are as greedy as me, in which case it will comfortably serve 2. 1 small handful of dried porcini mushrooms (I suppose I should say cèpes) 2 duck legs 1 onion, chopped leaves from 3 or 4 sprigs of thyme leaves from 2 small sprigs of savory, chopped (this isn't crucial if you don't have any) 1 garlic clove, crushed 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar 1 tbsp armagnac 200 ml red wine (southern French ideally, of course) 2...

Duck can be expensive, but the legs seem to be the best value bit.  I’ve been told that duck sauces should be served with tagliatelle and, since I don’t want to argue with an Italian, I couldn’t agree more. (Although I’m sure that a different pasta of the same general type and shape might do instead). 2 duck legs (fairly meaty ones) 1 medium carrot, very finely chopped 1 shallot, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, crushed ½ glass red wine 400 g tin of chopped tomatoes Pinch of sugar ½ tsp dried oregano or about 1 tsp of chopped fresh leaves Season the duck legs all over and roast at 180°C (in a fan oven, a little hotter otherwise) for 50 minutes. Set them aside until they are cool enough to handle, remove the skin and strip all the meat from the bones, getting rid of as much fat as reasonably possible as you go. Hopefully you should be left with small but irregular bits of meat. In the meantime, heat a little olive oil and fry the shallots and carrots gently for 7 or 8 minutes. A...