Not your traditional Sunday Dinner

Why have Roast Beef and Yorkies when you could be having Hot Thai Duck Noodle stir-fry with Chilli Jam? (Page 79)  First hurdle was actually getting the duck.  Recipe calls for 400g of cooked duck meat so after scouring tesco.com for the best solution I eventually went for an Aromatic Duck with 12 Pancakes.  Boy and Girl were very excited to spot it in the fridge as its one of their favourites so were rather crestfallen when I told them I was puting it in a stir fry!

Like most stir frys this was pretty easy to throw together - they key is getting all your ingredients prepped in advance so you don't waste any time when it comes to putting it together.  As usual there were a couple that I deviated from.  For ginger & chilli paste I used my trusty frozen cubes of each, instead of Thai holy basil I used bog standard and I used Pak Choi instead of Bok Choi - no idea what the difference there is!

Unfortunately the end result was dissapointing.  Recipe called for 400g of egg noodles which you had to cook, refresh and add to the stir fried veg/duck at the last minute and heat through for 30 seconds.  The sheer quantity and they fact they were now cold from refreshing meant they needed much longer to heat through which in turn meant the veg turned from crispy to soggy.  The photo in the book certainly shows a significantly less proportion of noodles than what I ended up with. 

The only redeeming feature was the accompanying Chilli Jam.  But I used my own version which I make from Rachel Allen's recipe rather than Giraffe, so the credit there goes to me and Ms Allen.  Boy and girl rolled theirs up in the pancakes and hoisin sauce and declared it a hit.  Personally I wouldn't bother with it again and will stick to the more traditional Sunday Roast - you can't beat Delia's Yorkies.

Here's one I didn't make earlier

I've not been very well the last couple of days - sore throat, swolen glands and earache - bring out the violins!  But there was a Giraffe on the menu plan for tonight and Mr offered to make it so how could I refuse?  He's actually fairly proficient in the kitchen but does have a tendancy to use every dish, utensil and gadget!  Hawaiian Chilli Bowl - Page 95 - looked fairly straightforward and well within his capabilities.

I had already noticed that the quantity of beef seemed a bit strange in relation to everything else. I would normally use around ½ kg of beef to one can of tomatoes and kidney beans but this called for 1kg.  I'd only taken a 440g pack of mince out of the freezer so thats what was used with the herb/spice quantity cut back accordingly.  The book says that all recipies serve 4 and I think a kilo would be far too much unless you were all ravenous or served it without any rice or similar accompaniment.

Mr said that it was pretty straight forward to make - just bung it all in a pan and leave it for an hour.  The only variation form the recipie was regular tomato paste as opposed to sun dried and regular chilli powder instead of ancho (smoky) chilli powder.  The final instruction advised that you may need to add a little water.  I think he may have added a little too much as it was a touch runny.  There were certainly some appetising smells wafting up the stairs to my sick bed as it was cooking.

The salsa was more "rustic" than I would have done it but Girl helped Mr make it so I can't complain too much about its chunkyness.  Of course she didn't actually eat any of it...  They forgot to add the corriander and used walnuts instead of macadamia nuts (which I hadn't bought when I saw the price!)   It would definately be better chopped into to salsa sized pieces.  I didn't really eat much of it as it was too sore on my poorly tonsils.

The chilli itself was gorgeous.  Very flavoursome without being too hot.  Boy and Girl scoffed it up in record time and both had seconds.  I only managed a wee bit but what I had was lovely.  Not quite sure on the Hawaiian bit though.  Apart from a pineapple ring in the salsa there was little in the way of grass skirts, palm trees and garish shirts but it brought a little sunshine into my day of indisposition.