Chinese Roast Duck Noodle Soup

This is super tasty and really very fast to make after a busy day at work, so long as you remember to get the duck breasts in to marinate the night before anyway. This feeds two greedy adults and is an almost direct go at the Ching He Huang recipe from Chinese Food Made Easy, which is well worth a watch or peruse if you like a Chinese dinner now and then.

So, you'll need to start with your two duck breasts and a sealie bag. Stick the following things into the baggie and mush it up a bit: tsp ground five-spice, tbsp sesame oil, 3 tbsp hoisin sauce, 1-2 tbsp soft brown sugar, 3 tbsp water, 1 tbsp dark soy sauce. Add the duck, seal up and bung in a bowl in the fridge until tomorrow dinnertime.

Next day, get the oven on at 200°C and pat down the duck breasts (throw away the marinade). Pan fry them in a dry pan on a high heat for a couple of minutes either side, then put in a baking tray (skin up) and roast for 15 minutes or so.

While they're roasting get a litre of chicken stock on the hob and bring to a simmer. Add a tablespoon each of shaoxing rice wine (or sherry), soy sauce and rice vinegar (or any vinegar).

At the same time put some noodles on to cook, they should only take a few minutes. When they're done drain them and hold them under the cold tap for a bit to stop them going soggy.

Add some shitake mushrooms and sliced spring greens or cabbage to the soup and cook for a few minutes. 

Take the duck breasts out of the oven and rest on a cold plate for at least 5 minutes, before slicing. Add the noodles, some sliced spring onion and chopped coriander to the hot soup, lay the duck slices on the top and garnish with thin slices of green chilli.

Chicken & Broad Bean Risotto (Leftovers day 1)

Leftover roast chicken has lots of uses but I think risotto is one of the more obvious ones. Saying that, risotto is a bugger to get right and I'm definitely still learning the trade. 

For years I've ignored the requirement for some kind of special rice (arborio, carnaroli) and, fair enough, my risottos have tasted wonderful... but they took 3 hours to make. Here is an attempt with arborio rice, I'd say it took about 45 minutes. Yeah. Fair enough then. I'll pay for the stupid special rice in future.

I used up some of the stock that I made earlier in the week, if you made some you'll see it's all wobbly and a bit like jelly - that's a good thing. I had about 700ml, which went into a pan on the hob to heat up.


I chopped up a couple of onions and sticks of celery, heated up a large frying pan with oil and butter, and cooked them until they were soft - thinking about browning but not going brown. In went a teacup of rice, stirred until coated in the oil and butter and warmed through. Then a teacup of white wine, which sizzled and bubbled when added to the pan. I stirred that until the wine had disappeared.


At that point, in goes a big spoonful of stock (I think my ladle was in the dishwasher) and stir stir stir until it's all absorbed, before adding another spoonful. Keep going until all the stock is gone. The rice wasn't quite entirely cooked yet, the grains still had just a little too much bite to them, so I added a little hot water to finish it off.


I popped some broad beans on to simmer, ready to skin them. They are a beautiful peircing green when you take off their jackets, the only issue we had with them is that they were quite elderly beans, picked late off the plant, so they did have a slightly mealy texture to them. Lovely young peas or beans is what you really want.


Then stir in the leftover chicken, the broad beans and lots of grated parmesan.

Finally, when the risotto was hot through again, I stirred in some chopped parsley and seasoned with freshly cracked black pepper and a knob of cold butter.

Making Homemade Stock (Meat & Poultry)

Stock is an excellent way of getting a storecupboard ingredient for pennies, using up your leftovers to make the meals of tomorrow. This isn't your posh stock, it's rough and ready homemade stuff, but I've never been let down by it and it is perfect in the majority of dishes.

I don't make a little stock often, I make a lot of stock irregularly. Whenever I have bones left over from a meal (cooked or uncooked), they go into a baggie in the freezer alongside the leftovers from previous meals. I end up with a chicken baggie, a lamb baggie and so on. 

I also have a parsley stalk baggie, into which I put all of those stalks which would otherwise get thrown away. I don't freeze that one (although I could if I blanched the stalks), you'd be surprised at how long these last in the fridge - if you're careful to squeeze out as much of the air as possible.

When I have enough of one type of bones stockpiled, and know I'm going to be in the house for a few hours, I make stock.
This time I made chicken stock, because I had got a good stockpile plus giblets from the chicken I was roasting for dinner. I also planned to use the leftover meat from dinner to make a risotto and I'd need stock for that.

No matter which bones you're using, the format of basic stock is pretty much the same:
	Carrots Celery Onion Bay leaves Parsley stalks Whole peppercorns Cold water

That's it. Shove the bones and other ingredients in a big pan and cover them with water. Bring to the boil, turn down to a gentle simmer and leave for a couple of hours. Check it every so often to make sure it isn't evaporating too quickly, if it is add a little bit more water and put it on a lower heat.

When ready, drain it through a sieve and leave to go cold. Pour it into some old plastic containers and freeze what you aren't going to use in the next few days. Whenever you need stock just take it out to defrost the night before.