187: Slow-cooked duck with star anise and ginger, p345

I was really looking forward to this one, served with the Chinese broccoli. Unfortunately, although tasty, it didn't quite live up to my expectations... I think I was expecting a thicker, richer sauce/stew - it was actually rather thin and (unsurprisingly, with duck cooked with its skin on) rather oily. The duck was cooked beautifully though, pink and moist, but cooked through. I think I'd want to reduce the liquid down by about half, maybe thicken it, and definitely leave it in the fridge overnight to solidify and remove a lot of the fat (and/or remove the skin from the duck, but then you wouldn't get the lovely crispy bits from browning the meat at the start).

130: A salad of red mullet with lime and ginger, p246

Delicious! What a weekend for food! Along with the clams, I also purchased two red mullet from Sandy's. Quite pricey, and with four red mullet recipes in the book to get through, lets hope red mullet doesn't have a short season...

I was a bit nervous about this one, and probably will be about all the red mullet recipes actually, it being pricey and me not having cooked it before - it's a bit worrying, trying not to ruin it! However, this was easy peasy, and the fish took 2-3 mins on each side in a pan before it was cooked just so - was very pleased! The 'salad' comprised a cooked up Vietnamese style mixture of thinly sliced carrot and onion, with allsorts of lovely flavours - the lime juice, chilli, white wine vinegar, ginger and star anise being particularly notable. It went beautifully with the fish, which was meaty enough to hold it's own against the salad, yet delicate at the same time. And again, T, who I expected to leave most of the salad (not liking carrot or onion much, in any form), cleaned his plate!

85: A cooling crab salad, p206

Oh dear, another dud for my tastes... It's partly my fault. I trapsed around Richmond looking for crab meat and all I could get was brown, which I thought/hoped would do. Then got home and found the bit in the recipe where Nige says 'I would normally suggest a mixture of both brown and white crab meat but with the melon it is best to stick to white meat'. Damn. Fail. And it didn't work. Maybe it would have worked with white. But I didn't like the other flavours in combination anyway - ginger and watercress and melon? Hmm, didn't work for me. The ripe melon was so sweet, it ended up quite sickly. Ho hum.

Another cake tomorrow, I think...

20: Chicken with mushrooms and lemon grass, p107

OOOOOOOOOOOOhhh, this was good. The name of the recipe is somewhat uninspiring and does this little stirfry a great disservice - it's a scrummy, zingy, fresh-tasting mixture, with lots of garlic and ginger, plus a little red chilli and a good kick of lemongrass, and that delicious but-don't-inhale-too-deeply salty-meatiness given by a good glug of nam pla. Served on steamed basmati rice, and many contented 'mmmm's all round...