Launching the Cassoulet Project: Duck!

I want to make cassoulet before winter is out. And so last time I was in Woollies, I looked for the dried beans. Nope. Not there. No haricots, no kidney beans, no cannellinis, no chickpeas, except in tinned form. They did have some dried split peas and lentils, for soups, but no other pulses. Luckily my local IGA was much more useful, so I didn't have to drive off to the Indian grocery.

I have a duck which needs using up. I bought it frozen, thinking of cooking it last Xmas, but I never got round to it. I intend to use half of that, and some very tasty Toulouse sausage from the "Bangers" stall at the market. The other half was Sunday dinner - see recipe below.

Now possibly some purists are thinking "She's not really going to make proper cassoulet, is she?" and they are dead right. I have been consulting the Julia Child and Stephanie Alexander recipes, and the authentic cassoulet is a major production, involving many days, many steps, and enough food to feed a small army. I'm making something much simpler, but still keeping the basic idea. The epicurious recipe is closer to what I have in mind.

To start with, I am not going to confit two duck legs. To make a confit, you cook the meat very slowly in fat. And this preserved it for the winter, in a pre-refrigeration era. Now I simply don't have that much duck fat to go around and I'm not going to buy it. Nor am I going to buy one of those tins of goose fat from the Essential Ingredient. And I am not going to use a full kilo of haricots, a whole leg of lamb and a pork hock.

What I am going to do is cure the duck legs, and make a proper duck stock from the carcass. I got the duck out to defrost on Saturday, and I have used my expert chicken jointing skills (as learned from Christophe last month) to split off breasts for dinner, marylands to cure, and a carcass for stock.

I have soaked 375g of haricot beans. The next step will be to finish cooking them in stock. Meanwhile, we still needed to eat. I just happened to have a couple of duck breasts - a Sunday duck dinner with cherry sauce and smashed potatoes and something green sounded like an excellent plan.

Recipe 1: Roast Duck Breast with Cheat's Cherry Sauce
2 duck breasts
salt, pepper
1 teaspoon olive oil
--
1 orange
75g "Ham Jam"
1 tablespoon brandy


Preheat the oven to 220C.
Slash the duck breast skins, and pan fry in the olive oil until golden.
Transfer to a baking dish
Bake for 7 minutes; remove and rest for 10 minutes before serving.

While duck is resting, mix the cherry jam with the orange juice and brandy. Heat to bubbling, and stir well.


Notes: The sauce can be heated in a microwave, or a small saucepan. You don't need much oil - duck is fatty. Save the fat, it is good. Brush it over some potatoes. And what, you may be asking, is Ham Jam? This is Ham Jam. It's a savoury cherry jam, and contains no ham whatsoever. It is, however, good with ham. Use cherry jam and add some vinegar, cinnamon and cloves if you don't have it.

The duck breast technique, and the idea for the cheating sauce came from Anthony Worral Thompson at the BBC food site. Orange from P&R's backyard tree.


Recipe 2: Ducky Smashed Red Potatoes
Small red potatoes
Duck fat
Pink Murray River salt
Preheat oven to 220C
Parboil potatoes until barely done, about 15 minutes.
Grease a baking tray with duck fat
Put the potatoes on the tray, and squash each one down with a potato masher.
Brush with melted duck fat and sprinkle with salt.
Bake for 20 minutes, until crisp and golden.


Notes: The smashed potatoes are, of course, a variant on Jill Dupleix' recipe. I'm not very experienced with these, but I find that it's important to whack the potatoes briskly with the masher rather than gently squish them. They're a little hard at that stage.

Dinosaurs for dinner

This pulled pork recipe works really well with turkey. And since we can now get turkey legs and wings at Woollies, I've done this a couple of times. (Without blogging it, oh naughty me.) My slow cooker is not quite big enough to hold them. I always think it looks like something out of the Flintstones. Giant dinosaurian drumsticks. And since it seems probable that birds are dinosaurs, I'm not so wrong.

It's quite simple - skin the legs, and follow the pulled pork recipe. Let it slow cook for six hours or so, turning the drumsticks occasionally - especially if any bits are sticking up above the liquid as they are in this picture. Cool it down, and then pull all the meat off the bones - note that turkey has some extra cartilage struts compared to chicken. Defat the stock if needed, and return the pulled-apart meat to the tomato/vinegar sauce.

I varied it this time - I used a third of a bottle of Disaster Bay's chipotle sauce instead of the plain chilli flakes. And I added in a batch of cooked black-eyed beans - it's easier to cook separately. Served with coleslaw and fat slabs of sourdough bread - yummy. The Bloke approved.

(BTW, I'm guessing these turkey hunks from Woollies are not free range. Hmm. Again with the consistency problems.)

Classic Chicken Cacciatore

Yay! Cooking again. I'm planning reheatable things, because of the constant business of evening rehearsals and events. Last week was a total no-show on the cooking, except for some roasting of tomatoes, another kilo of rhubarb from the garden, and a few old beetroots.

And they weren't even my beetroots - B1 gave them to me when she went off to Adelaide for a week. They did come in handy: sliced up and sprinkled with white balsamic, they made an excellent salad with some mixed leaves (mostly spinach), brown "kumatoes", and Dutch semi-hard goats cheese. Toss over an extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice dressing, serve with a bit of bread and butter and it's a good lunch. Is that cooking? Mmmm, I guess it wasn't a total non-event, then.

I was out to dinner last night, and the conversation turned to cooking skills, and the ability to look in a fridge and produce a meal from whatever's there. So this morning I felt obliged to live up to my words, and use some things up. Zucchini from the garden (and two from B1's, damn her), the roasted tomatoes, some olives, a cup or so of flat pink champagne, a few bits of salad... It sort of said "Italian" to me, and I started thinking chicken cacciatore.

With that in mind, I toddled off to market with B1, only to find that preparation for the show has shoved them off site and without electricity. No coffee! The horror! I grabbed a couple of necessities - new season apples, blackberries, tomatoes - and then headed for Belco. Beppe's coffee and berry pancakes restored my sanity, and I was able to buy all the things I thought I needed: mushrooms, fresh basil, and chicken. I had a bit of fun at the Market Gourmet chicken shop watching Dave helpfully joint a couple of chooks for me, in between training a new boy in important life lessons such as "Never get in the way of a man with a knife".

When I got home, I turned to the great Italian classic cookbook, Il Cucchiaio d'Argento, in a quest for authenticity. I was quite surprised to read the recipe. It was not what I thought it would be...

Recipe: Pollo Alla Cacciatora
1 chicken, jointed
25g butter
3 tblsp olive oil
1 onion
6 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stick, chopped
150ml water
1 flat leaf parsely sprig, chopped
salt & pepper

Brown chicken and onion in the oil and butter, stirring frequently.
Add tomato, carrot, celery and water.
Simmer 45 minutes, or until chicken is tender.
Add parsley, salt and pepper to taste before serving.

Notes: Well, how simple is that? Note the complete absence of olives, mushrooms, capsicum, zucchini, stock, wine, basil, oregano, bayleaves and even garlic! The book does say that this is the simplest version, and in some regions white wine or stock may be used, or sliced mushrooms added. But 90% of the recipes you find on the web include a lot more ingredients and a lot more fuss.

My version so far this time is quite simple. I've used a lot less fat, and the legs and thighs of the two chickens. I also used the roast tomatoes (not seeded, I can never be bothered with that) and 200g sliced flat mushrooms. The flat champagne went in instead of water, and I've added a couple of bayleaves. I have not used carrot or celery. I don't like carrots in this, and the bloke avoids celery if it's not very well disguised. I may add some fresh basil at the end, just because I have it and it is delicious. Maybe some olives, too. Authenticity, schmauthenticity.

The rest of the chickens is being used separately. I've frozen the breasts for later use in stirfries or grills, and popped the frames in a stockpot with the rest of the champers, plus water, bayleaves, an onion and a carrot to make stock. Also on the stove is a recipe-less ratatouille: onion, zucchini, mushroom, eggplant, tomato, bayleaf. I intend to add fresh basil later. I've left out the usual garlic, because I suspect that some antibiotics are giving me a heightened allium sensitivity. Bugger.

I also have some wallaby rump defrosting, which I intend to curry extremely simply by using a Charmaine Solomon rendang paste that took my fancy in the Food Lovers shop. Three things simmering away at once, and another started, that feels better!

One chicken, three meals

An Asian style poached chicken has been the basis of all dinners from Tuesday to Thursday this week. I started this chook on Monday night while we were eating our tomato, olive, mushroom and basil pasta and salad. It's a very easy recipe. It doesn't take much effort, just a little observation and a timer.

On Tuesday, I stripped the meat and used some in the first of our chicken meals: a refreshing cold noodle salad. On the same night, I tossed the bones back in the pot and let the stock simmer down for another couple of hours, before straining and reducing it to about two cups.

On Wednesday, I made steamed rice in the stock, and we ate more of the poached chicken. This was a pretty good meal, and the rice was delicious. Sadly, the accompanying bok choy in sate sauce was disappointing. I bought a jar of macadamia sate sauce from Food Lovers in Belconnen Market, as a small time saving luxury, but I was in a hurry and did not read the ingredients carefully. Macadamia flavouring? Not actual nuts? Oh dear. I'd never have bought it if I'd read the label, but now I have to use it up anyway. It's not vile, just disappointingly lacklustre.

Finally, tonight I made fried rice. I don't do this often, but it is a good way of using things up. And if your rice is as tastily chicken-flavoured as this was, it is totally delicious. A fried egg topper and a swirl of classic Sriracha chilli tops it off. I used the last of Fiona's "green" eggs, nearly a month old but still good. Fi, what sort of chook lays them? I forgot.

I'll put recipes for the chicken and salad below the fold, but really the only one you need is the poached chicken. The rest is improv. To cook rice in stock, you simply put stock instead of water in your rice cooker. Duh. To make fried rice, you stir fry some onion and garlic and vegetables; add cooked meat and leftover cooked vegetables and a splash of soy or rice wine or something; then add the cold cooked rice and stir well, and keep stirring so it doesn't get stuck. I used red capsicum, broccoli, a bit of leftover bok choy, some frozen peas, and a small tin of pineapple chunks. I like pineapple, OK? You don't have to.


Recipe 1: Asian-style Poached Chicken
1 chicken
2 teaspoons salt
1 lemon, whole
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
2 shallots, sliced
a large chunk of ginger, about 2 thumbs in size, washed and sliced
50 ml Chinese cooking wine
water
Wash the chicken, and rub it with salt. Stab the lemon a few times and stuff it inside the chicken with a few slices of the ginger, garlic and shallot.
Put the chicken in a large saucepan and pour over water to cover. Add a good splash of rice wine.
Bring the chicken to the boil rapidly, then reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes, then turn off the heat and let the chicken cool in the broth for a couple of hours, then refrigerate overnight.
Next day, skim the congealed fat off the broth, and remove the chicken for whatever use you like.

Notes: My chicken was a 1.8kg free-range bird. Smaller or larger won't matter as long as you keep it covered. Recipes often say to skim off the scum as it boils, but I have found that the floating ginger and shallot gets in the way, and there isn't that much scum anyway.

Recipe 2: Cold Chicken Noodle Salad
300g cold poached chicken
150g bean thread vermicelli noodles
1 bunch coriander
few springs vietnamese mint
1 carrot
1/2 red capsicum
cos lettuce to taste
30 ml lime juice
20 ml soy sauce
10 ml sesame oil
1 tsp palm sugar shavings
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
Soak the noodles in cold water for 15 minutes, or until softened to your taste. Strain them and dry them well, and chop roughly. Put in a bowl, along with chopped herbs, chopped chicken, julienne shredded carrot and capsicum. Put lime juice, soy, sesame oil, sugar and chilli in a small jar and shake well. Mix into salad.
Serve salad on a bed of chopped cos lettuce

Notes: Improv! Use other salad veggies, herbs, maybe some nuts, whatever. Use any other cooked meat, or tofu if you must. Mung bean vermicelli comes from Asian grocers, in little bundles, and really does not need cooking at all.

Classic Roast Chook with Stuffing and Gravy

I missed a small but very important part of Xmas this year: the stuffing and gravy. I really love a roast turkey with stuffing and gravy. I almost share my mother's position on this, which is that the turkey is mostly relevant for providing the raw material and excuse for stuffing and gravy.

I seriously thought about buying a turkey, so that I could do it anyway. But there are only two of us, and the only ones I've seen on special so far are those "self-basting" ones with the weird butter-flavoured grease injections. I have instead got a proper chicken - a 1.9kg free range beast from Lilydale poultry. So I'm going to have my roast with stuffing and gravy anyway. Chicken used to be a Christmas treat, back before the factory farming methods made them cheap and relatively tasteless.

The gravy is a bit make-do, since there were no giblets or neck with the chicken. I've simmered a common stock cube with some carrot, celery, herbs and leftover flat champagne to get the liquid. The stuffing is a classic with a twist: I've used native pepper instead of the usual black pepper. I've just got roast baby potatoes and steamed green beans to go with it. Nothing fancy, just a pure classic. I even looked up the cooking time in an old Margaret Fulton book.

Recipes follow.

Recipe 1: Sage & Onion Stuffing
6 slices wholegrain bread
1 medium onion
50g butter
1 teaspoon native pepper berries
1 tablespoon shredded fresh sage leaves
Remove the crusts from the bread, and tear up into very small pieces.
Crush the pepper berries in a mortar and pestle.
Mix pepper and sage into breadcrumbs.
Slice the onion into small dice and fry gently in the butter until translucent and starting to turn golden.
Tip onion and butter into the bread crumbs, and mix well.
Stuff into the chicken.

Notes: You can use a food processor to crumb the bread if you like. It's also easier to do by hand if it's a bit stale - leave the bread out of its plastic bag overnight, for instance, or let it sit in the warming oven for 10 minutes.

Recipe 2: Roast chicken
Umm, really? A recipe? Bung chook in oven. Keep moist somehow. Add flavours if you want. Cook until done. High or low, either can work. OK, seriously, here we go.

1 chicken

Wash chicken inside and out, remove fat from vent area, and stuff if desired. Place chicken in a flame-proof baking dish, with a little oil underneath to prevent sticking. Spray a little oil on the breast, and drape foil over the top. Bake at 200C for 20 minutes, then lower to 180C for a further 25 minutes per 500g weight. Baste with pan juices and a little white wine about every 20 minutes. Remove foil for last 20 minutes to brown.

The chicken is done when it's at about 80C on a meat thermometer, or leg and thigh can be easily wobbled about and torn off, or the juices from the thigh run clear, and not pink, when it's pierced with a skewer. Rest, covered with foil, for 15 minutes before carving.

Notes: Oh, look, there are about ten billion variations here. Stuff with lemon and herbs. Cook slower or faster. Cook on a rack. Stuff tarragon butter under the skin. Drape breast with bacon instead of foil. Use a spice rub. The flame-proof roasting pan is necessary if you're making gravy, otherwise you could easily use a glass dish. This oven temperature is NOT for a fan-forced oven. My fan element is broken, as you might recall.




Recipe 3: Old-fashioned Gravy
The roasting pan and its juices
1 1/2 tablespoons plain flour
2 cups stock, mixed with white wine if you want
Gravy browning
While the chicken is resting, make gravy. Strain juices from the pan into a fat separator, or just remove excess fat with a spoon. Save a couple of tablespoons of the fat. Put the pan over the heat and stir the flour into the reserved fat and juices, to make a roux. Add hot stock gradually, stirring well. If it goes lumpy, just use a whisk. Bring to a simmer to cook the flour and thicken the gravy. Add gravy browning if you like a darker colour.

Notes: Gravy browning is also called Parisienne Essence, and it's basically a dark colour made from caramel. You could use a bit of worcestershire or soy sauce instead, for a dash more flavour. Mine was dark enough anyway, this time.

Green Chilli Turkey

Well, I'm back, but pretty busy with work, music, and other writing. There's a few changes coming up at the Canberra Times that I need to work on, and my singing teacher's got a studio concert on Friday. I haven't even got my Cairns report started yet. I'll do it on the weekend, honest, guv.

Meanwhile, we've been eating some good old sausage and mash, and this green chilli turkey. I got the recipe from a Frugal Gourmet book that I bought in the US, way back in 1990 or so. The hardest thing about it is actually finding a turkey hindquarter. Supermarkets seem not to stock them anymore, in favour of either those "marinated" boneless turkey thigh roasts, or turkey thigh chops or mince. I used a frozen "self-basting" one, that I found in a poultry place at Belco markets. Fresh ones require pre-ordering from specialist poultry shops, it seems. Anyway, it didn't taste noticeably chemical after its treatment, so that was OK, but I wouldn't like to try it with the marinated roasts.

This is another American "BBQ" recipe along the lines of the Carolina Pulled Pork - a very slow cooked meat, shredded. We had it one night with coleslaw and bread rolls, and another night with rice and broccoli. I'm not 100% happy with it - it's very tasty, but it looks quite unappetising, what with the greyish brownish greenish colour and the shreds. I might try the red chilli version sometime. And perhaps add tomatoes. Red always looks better, unless it's a traffic light.

Recipe: Green Chilli Turkey
8 long green chillies
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp oregano
1 scant tsp salt
300ml water
300ml chicken stock
1 turkey hindquarter
a dash of vegetable oil
Place everything except turkey, stock and oil in a blender and liquidise thoroughly. Skin the turkey and scrape off any obvious large bits of fat. Lightly brown the turkey in the oil.
Transfer to a pot for slow cooking. Pour over the stock and the green chilli liquid, and slow cook covered, on high for four hours.

Let cool, then shred the turkey meat - it will fall off the bone, and pull apart easily in your hands. Strain the liquid to make sure there's no bones left in it, then mix it back in with the turkey meat. Chill and defat it, if you want to, and just reheat when you want to eat it. The stock will gel.

Notes:Obviously, use more or less chilli to taste. I used the big long green ones, which are quite mild, and wish I'd used more. Also, you could slow cook on low for longer, it's pretty forgiving. Use a big heavy covered casserole in a 140C oven if you don't have a slow cooker. Then you could do the browning in the same pot, and save washing a frying pan.

Microwave Smoked Chicken Risotto

The concept sounds like an abomination, so although my old friend Tania gave me this recipe over a decade ago, I'd never got around to trying it. On a whim, I had a go tonight. Tania's recipe is for a generic risotto - add your own flavours. It's actually surprisingly good. It's not quite as creamy as a stirred one, but perfectly acceptable for a weeknight quickie. Actually, the worst part of it was the cheap supermarket smoked chicken. Poacher's Pantry has spoiled me...

TANIA QD'S MICROWAVE RISOTTO
1. heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter on high for 2 min.
2. stir in 1 cup finely chopped onions and stir. Cook on high for 2 min.
3. stir in 1 cup arborio rice and stir. Cook on high for 4 min.
4. add 3 cups stock (the flavour seems to stick better than when cooking on a stovetop, so I generally use one Real Stock and top up the rest with water. Or wine). Cook for 9 min on high.
5. Stir. Cook for another 9 minutes on high.
6. Add cheese. Sit for 5 min (if you can cope). Gobble it down.

The cooking times vary a bit depending on microwave size and phases of the moon. It often needs a couple of minutes extra at the end (perfect for adding some peas or corn). It should be slightly gloppy when you finish cooking, as it absorbs the remaining liquid while sitting. But not sloppy.

My notes: I kept the 3:1 ratio of stock, but used a full litre of stock. This makes four reasonable serves; so there's leftovers for lunch. Leftover risotto will actually microwave tolerably enough for a work lunch, but it comes out pretty thick and solid; not at all nice and creamy.

In keeping with the slacker nature of this recipe I used a tetrapack of Campbell's Real Stock. I also added 2 cloves of crushed garlic with the rice. Towards the end I tossed in 180g chopped smoked chicken breast and 50g chopped sundried tomatoes. At the cheese stage, I used 50g finely grated grana padano, and I also added a good grind of pepper and a teaspoon of rosemary-in-a-tube.

While it was resting I cooked up some broccolini and asparagus to have on the side. I'd have mixed the asparagus in, but the bloke would object.

Throw it in

I've varied the week's plan slightly, to have chicken tonight, and reheated frittata and salad tomorrow. And I've made a fruit dessert for tonight, just for me. Because some stuff needed using up. Both of these are non-recipe, thrown together kind of things. I'm going to write them up as recipes, but that's not really the spirit.

Recipe 1: Pasta with Chicken and Vegetables
200g chicken strips
1 large onion, sliced in strips
3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 tablespoon brandy
1/2 red capsicum, sliced in strips
1/2 green capsicum, sliced in strips
2 small zucchini, sliced in strips
2 tablespoons shredded fresh thai basil
6 roast tomatoes, peeled & chopped
Pasta, cooked
Fry onion, garlic and chicken in olive oil. Deglaze with brandy. Add tomato and vegetables. Simmer for 20 minutes. Add herbs. Serve with pasta.

Notes: Why Thai basil? Because I had half a bunch on hand. The vegetables happened to be in the fridge; I had some chicken that needed using. Throw it in.

Recipe 2: Midnight Black Fruit Compote
2 large fresh black figs
1/2 punnet blackberries
6 prunes, pitted
1/3 cup marsala
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon cocoa
Cut fruit to size of the blackberries. Toss in saucepan with the marsala, and bring to boil. Careful of flames! Add honey and cocoa, and simmer for a few minutes, then tip into a bowl and refrigerate. Leave for an hour before serving to chill, and let prunes swell up. Serve with a scoop of chocolate sorbet!

Notes: I felt this deserved a name of its own. It's good. But basically, the fruit was going to go off if I didn't use it soon. And I had some chocolate honey that was a gift - I thought why not, dark fruits, chocolate, a good match. Toss it in.

Chicken rollups

I sort of forgot about the concept of chicken rollups. It's been ages since I made any. Today I was actually looking for kangaroo at the supermarket, but they were out of stock. Then I saw the chicken breast schnitzel pieces on special.

Recipe: Chicken Rollups
4 pieces chicken schnitzel
1 lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper
4 teaspoons pesto
4 sundried tomatoes
4 fetta-stuffed baby peppers
8 mini-skewers or toothpicks
Pound out chicken breast pieces to even thinness with a mallet. Juice lemon, and combine with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Marinade chicken in this mix for an hour or so, and soak the toothpicks in water.

When ready, smear a teaspoon of pesto over each one. Add a chopped sundried tomato and a chopped fetta-stuffed baby pepper at one end, roll up and secure with a couple of toothpicks. Place in a shallow ovenproof dish, pour remaining marinade over, and bake at 180C for 20 minutes.

Notes: Serve with a green vegetable, using some of the lemon/oil/chicken juices as a dressing. And of course you don't have to have fetta-stuffed baby peppers! Other nice options to stuff your rolls with include baby spinach leaves, herbs, other cheeses, spring onions, basil leaves, olives, prosciutto... It's not a bad way to use up odds and ends of antipasti. Ham and cheese is very traditional.

Christmas Dinner Risotto

As Christmas 2007 slides off into the past, and a new year begins, it's time to clear out the fridge. A risotto (aka "goop" round these parts) is a good way to use things up, and is also very soothing on the delicate hungover stomach. Of course it's a two part operation, because you have to make the stock at least a day in advance. It's worth it - this is a real Christmas dinner: roast turkey with sage and onion stuffing, in a risotto form. A drizzle of cranberry sauce on top is fun to complete the gustatory illusion.

Prep Recipe: Turkey Stock
1 cooked turkey carcass, plus any skin and meat you can spare.
1 large onion
1 large carrot
2 bay leaves
a good handful each of sage, thyme, and rosemary
a dozen peppercorns
Cover carcass with water, bring to boil and skim scum. Add vegetables and herbs, reduce heat and simmer for 3-4 hours,topping up water if it seems necessary. Strain, and discard solids. Return stock to pan, and boil vigorously reduce to 3-4 cups. Pour into a narrow container and refrigerate, remove fat when cold.

Note: All the bones, plus the wings, from a large "buffe" piece will easily make 4 cups of rich jellied stock. Of course you could choose other vegetables or herbs; this is just what I had handy.

Recipe: Christmas Dinner Risotto
4 cups rich turkey stock
2 cups white wine
1 & 1/2 cups arborio rice
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium leeks
6 large shallots
1 1/2 cups chopped cooked turkey
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage
1/2 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup grated parmesan
Heat up the stock with the wine. Clean leeks well, discarding coarse greens, but keeping the inner light green part as well as the white. Chop leeks and shallots finely. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, and toss in leeks and shallots. Saute gently for a couple of minutes, then add rice and continue to cook for another two minutes, stirring constantly.

Add a half cup of the hot liquid, and keep stirring until the stock is absorbed. Repeat this, adding half a cup of hot liquid and stirring, until the rice is done - about 25 minutes. Taste a grain now and then towards the end to get the time right. Add the turkey, herbs, salt and pepper with the last half cup of stock. When all is done, stir though the parmesan and let it stand for a couple of minutes before serving.

Notes: Risotto is a lot less precious than you might think from reading recipes. You can actually step away from the stove for a couple of minutes to grate some cheese, chop some herbs, or whatever. It is, however, absolutely essential to have a good rich stock; risotto turns out delicious or nasty depending almost entirely on this one factor.

A cartoon octopus taught me to cook chicken

Tako the octopus' online cooking show is one of the delights of the internet. It hasn't been updated in a while, but it's worth a look. What could be funnier than an accident prone cartoon octopus chef who lives in a bucket and argues cookie baking technique with his purple haired Mom? (He's an American cartoon octopus, despite his name.) They are flash shows, with recipes in an associated archive. It's hilarious, but also contains real cooking and food science information. Episode 1 contains the recipe for beer-can chicken, which I have taken and adapted as my own. I've also seen this elsewhere on the net, sometimes called "beer-butt chicken", but the cartoon octopus got to me first.

Tako's recipe can be found by selecting episode 1, then extras, then recipes. As you will see, it refers to other recipes for a marinade and gravy, and is a bit fiddly in technique (injecting the marinade?). I have massively simplified this for routine use.

Recipe: Beer-can Chicken & Jus
one large chicken (1.8kg is good)
one can of beer
A herb or spice rub of your choice
Spread the rub over your chicken, getting some under the skin if you can. Preheat your oven to 220 degrees. Open your beer and drink about a third of it. Set the beer can in the middle of a roasting pan, or a metal cake tin, and shove the chicken on the can vertically, legs down. Don't be bashful; make sure it's all the way on. Roast at 220 degrees for 15 minutes, then drop the oven temperature to 180 degrees and roast for another 45 minutes, or until chicken is done.

Remove the chicken to a carving tray, and deglaze the roasting pan with the beer from the can. Use a gravy separator to skim the fat off; tip the rest into a small saucepan and boil down to reduce by about half. Serve with the chicken.

Notes: you almost certainly won't be able to have two oven shelves in, as you would with a reclining chook, which is why I use a cake tin for the chicken and a loaf tin for roasting vegetables on the side. The beer doesn't have to be anything special - plain old VB is fine.

Online grocery shopping? For emergencies only.

Last week I was too sick with the flu to do much in the kitchen, let alone go out into the cruel cold world to shop. So I ordered groceries from Woolworths online. There was no real choice - Coles doesn't do Canberra deliveries. It's www.homeshop.com.au, or nothing.

It was very useful on the groceries. The cats got to eat, and there's a good range of the usual tins and cleaning products and so on. But to my surprise, their selection of fruit and veg was tiny. Their real-life supermarket at Dickson has at least twenty times the variety of the online store. I used greengrocer.com.au in Sydney, and they are very much better too - and they are owned by Woolworths. Why? It makes no sense. Ordering from the couch is going to stay an emergency-only choice for me, and even then it has to be a non-urgent emergency - there's no same day delivery here, either.

Anyway, I got a regular old battery chicken (sorry, brainfuzz prevented me remembering to look for free-range) and squeezed over the juice of a lemon. I shoved the lemon rind, plus the spare lemon rind from my honey, rum & lemon toddy, up inside the chook. Then I sprinkled over some mixed herbs, whacked it in a moderate oven with a couple of large baking potatoes, and went back to sleep for an hour. Nuked some frozen baby peas, and so I fed the bloke despite my sickness. Brownie points! You get great lemony pan juices from the chicken.

Cooking today: leftover roast chicken and brussels sprouts. Just microwaving, really.