Salt

Ok so this probably the most pretentious thing I have made. I was watching Saturday Morning Kitchen and some dude is pan frying a poor ducks breast to put in a salad. I’m like, SCREW THAT!! Let’s veganise this baby, for the animals, for your health and for the planet baby, yeah! See these ingredients! 🙂

4 Plums

2 large potatoes

1 vegetable stock cube

2 carrots

4 runner beans

2 tins of mock duck

Salt

Pepper

Rapeseed oil

Golden syrup

Method:

Firstly you need to do the potato fondants because they take about 35 minutes. Peel two large potatoes and core out a large cylinder.

Fry each end for about 3 minutes each in a hot, oiled pan.

In the meantime make up a pint of vegetable stock and pour it in a baking tray. Now place the two potato cylinders into that tray and place in the oven for 25 minutes.

Now slice the plums into quarters and boil for 10 minutes, before draining and frying with a large tablespoon of golden syrup for another five minutes. Then leave it to cool because that syrup is HOT!

Get your nicest non-stick pan, put a dash of oil in it, turn up the heat.

Open and drain your mock duck. Place the biggest, chunkiest bits in the hot pan and cover in salt and black pepper.

Turn once after 5 minutes.

Chop the carrots and runner beans. Place in a pan and boil for about 4 minutes.

Plate everything up in a way that please you. I did it in the most pretentious way I could think of.

The bearded one asked for a non-pretentious version so I gave him this:

I’d never made potato fondants before so this was a good experiment for me. The whole dish was divine and I managed to get everything to just the right texture. A dish to impress for sure! 🙂

Firstly let me just say, that I am really into Japanese style food at the moment. Secondly and I’m just going to put it out there, this is probably one of the best dishes I have ever made. The only thing that could have made this better was if I had used a pestle and mortar instead of a blender to make the broth paste. (Arthur our lovely ginger cat decided he didn’t like it anymore and smashed it on the floor.)

Also ASDA AKA Walmart is totally rubbish for all things Japanese, so I had to make substitutions left right and centre to make this work. It’s ok though because the bearded one absolutely loved it! \M/

We have six rescue cats by the way so whenever we are taking pictures that are not just purely of food, you’ll see a couple here and there. 😛

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 carrot, peeled and chopped.
4 large leaves of savoy cabbage, chopped.
Lemon grass herbs or paste.
10 black pepper corns.
1 large red onion.
5 cloves of garlic.
1 red chilli pepper.
A peeled slice of fresh ginger the length of your little finger.
250ml water.
Sea salt to add for your taste.
Half a head of fresh broccoli, chopped.
A handful of fresh coriander, chopped.
1 tin of coconut milk.
Sugar snap peas, de-podded.

The method:

Get your wok out and place a small amount of oil in it. Turn up the heat and place the chopped red onion and peppercorns in the pan.
Stir fry for about 3 minutes and then turn the heat off.
In the meantime deseed your red chilli and place it in a food processor with the garlic and ginger. Now add about 100 ml of water and wizz it all up to form a paste. (You may need to pulse blend here depending on how good your blender is. I’m not like other food bloggers. Vitamix has yet to endorse me, but hey if you’re listening guys, I don’t mind. :P)
Place your paste into your wok and crank up the heat again for another 3 or 4 minutes to reduce it down a bit.
Now it’s time to start adding ingredients one by one, each time stirring and covering in the tasty mixture you just made. I started with the carrots and and worked my way through the rest ending in coconut milk.
Make sure you have mixed everything in well.
Turn down the heat and allow to simmer for another 5 minutes so that the vegetables aren’t entirely raw.
Serve with some fresh coriander and chop sticks.