Roasted duck legs

Duck, that's a kind of poultry you either like, or dont. I love it and my family too.
Its good quality food, easy to prepare, and not too expensive.

Ingredients

2 duck legs
2 baking potatoes or 1 pound other large white-skinned potatoes
Few sprigs of fresh thyme
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
On the stove, heat a small roasting pan and sear the duck legs, skin-side down over medium heat until the skin turns golden and gives out some oil.

Turn the legs over, and take the pan off the heat while you peel the potatoes.
Arrange these potato around the duck legs, then let a few sprigs of thyme fall over the duck and potatoes, and season with salt and pepper, before putting into the preheated oven.

Cook for two hours, occasionally turning the potatoes, for optimal outcome, which is tender duck legs and crispy potatoes.

I also like to serve some garlic carrots with it, which I cook separately.

Mini Quiche

hmmm, Quiche, I love quiche !
And its so simple to make, all you need is:
1 puff sheet
3 onions
2 table spoon butter
2 eggs
200 ml cream
1/2 tea spoon nutmeg
salt & pepper

First chop the onion, leek , or what ever you got to put into your quiche, traditionally in France its onion and ham.
Grease your cupcake baking form with the  butter. Cut out of the puff sheet round sheets with a glass or cookie cutter and put them in the form. Now mix onions,cream,eggs, nutmeg and salt and pepper and fill the puff sheets in the form. When you filled all, place the tray into the oven for 20 minutes on 180 C.
They will taste lovely and last 2 days in the fridge but you can also freeze them and just reheat them for a few minutes when you get hungry for a little snack.

Enjoy !

2013, a new year has started

It is going to be a challenge 2013 to get all done I want to have done. The todo List seems endless,
and there is also lots of activities planned. Clonakilty celebrates its 400 year existence and so a huge list of activities will happen throughout the year.

Also, my cookbook is waiting to be completed and printed, baby #2 its on its way, a lot of challenges at work, so forgive me if I don't blog always as regular than you are used to.

I wish you a great 2013 too, and if you have any suggestions what you would like to see this year on this blog please leave a comment.

What happens at night in your kitchen ?

What happens in your kitchen when you are not there ?
here a great Irish movie production:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rg0Ae1QgaK0

Xmas or New years Buffet

New years is all about having a good time with your family. So the preparations for the new years eve shouldn't keep you busy all day.

Prepare a little buffet with delicous food in no time,for 6 people all you need is:
A box of cheese, from your local farmers market or shop
2 baguettes
butter
ham
asparagus from the tin
12 eggs
2 spoon mustard
250 ml vegetable oil
1 lemon
Salt&pepper
1 pack fillet of salmon
butter

Preparation time for one person should be approx 45 minutes.


Step1:
boil 10 eggs in water for 10 minutes until they are hard. We are going to make filled eggs.

Step2:
while the other eggs boil separate remaining 2 eggs, you need the 2 yolks. Add a dash of the lemon, two teasppon of english mustard, a bit Salt and Pepper. Using a hand mixer you are going to make mayonnaise by poring in, bit by bit the vegetable oil. Mix well and dont poor to much oil at the time.

Step3:
Cut the boiled eggs in two half's, remove the cooked egg yolk and put them into a bowl. Add some mayonnaise made in Step 2 and some salt and pepper to taste and mix well.

Step4:
Take the egg mix and fill the empty egg half''s with that now spicier mix. You can use a piping back to make it look attractive.

Step5:
Cut the baguettes in slices, half of it topped with butter and the salmon nice arranged on a plate, the other half in a bread basket so people can use it with the cheese.

Step6:
Take the asparagus and roll it in the ham to get little rolls as shown on the picture above.

That's it, very simple but effective. But most important, its tasty and there is something for everyone.

Hope you will slide over well into 2013, see you there !

How to cook a Xmas Turkey

Whoo, just 5 times sleeping and Xmas Day is finally here. Like most people we will have Turkey as well, but how to cook the perfect one ?

Most important for that operation is,
Do not attempt to cook a frozen Turkey !

Thawing times for frozen turkeys;

4–5kg: 20 hours at room temperature; 65 hours in fridge
5–6kg: 24 hours at room temperature; 70 hours in fridge
6–7kg: 30 hours at room temperature; 75 hours in the fridge
8–9kg: 40 hours at room temperature; 80 hours in the fridge
9–11kg: 48 hours at room temperature; 96 hours in the fridge

Stuffing, some people prepare that a few days ahead, some on the day if the use raw eggs. Make sure you match your families taste, sometimes a simple filling, a onion, a lemon, some herbs can be the best way to give your bird some extra flavour !

Prepare the Turkey, rub it in with butter and honey, have some foil and cover it when placed in the roasting tray. Start moderately with the temperature and allow about 30 minutes for each kg of the total weight of your bird. this may vary depending on your oven and how often you open it for basing.

let the bird rest 30 minutes before you serve it, that gives you time to do your vegetables.

Enjoy your meal and don't rush into things,
allow time, have fun and enjoy the company of your family rather than being completly stessed out about that turkey.

Make sure you wrap the leftovers up so you have plenty of food for the next days :-)

Xmas Tiramisu

I recently wrote about my favourite tiramisu and now for the run up to Xmas I created a simple Xmas version of it by using a piece of carton decorating it in a Xmas theme with Cacao powder.

Doesnt it look great ?

Mickey Mouse Birthday cake

My daughter Sophie and Laura had recently birthdays and I wish I could have made a trip back to Austria to make for Laura also a nice Bday cake.
Sometimes its not easy, also, not easy to make a nice cake. I googled a bit and found a nice recipe how to make a Mickey Mouse cake.

As you can see in the pictures, I made twice the amount of my Sacher cake recipe which you find here.

Than I used two small and one big mould to make the ears and face.

My talented Au pair did draw a Mickey Mouse face on same baking paper with a pencil, So I could transfer that features easy on some marzipan.Well the result of my Pastry talent you can see at the left, that's the best I could do in that short time, Sophie was happy !

I hope I inspired you a bit to give it a try yourself !

Happy St. Nikolaus

Some people might think the picture above displays Santa Klaus, that's wrong, there is no Santa.

We believe in the Christ kind in Austria which is an Angel and brings the gifts on the evening of the 24th. The gentlemen above is Sankt Nikolaus, who is bringing little gifts to children on the evening of the 6th of December. That Character is based on a real men originally from Turkey. He felt guilty because of something he did so to make good he visited houses at night and placed little gifts there.
More Details you find on wikipedia

Anyway, in our tradition we place the boots in front of the house on the 6th, and when you check in the morning Nikolaus filled it with sweets.

Krampus day !

Its Krampus Day today in Austria, the most feared day by children. If you have been nasty, the Krampus (in Germany known as Knecht Ruprecht) will give you a beating. Normally a few of this guys accompany Nikolaus on the 6th of December in a big parade. On the 5th and all December this guys are around to make sure bad childrens and adults get scared and behave better the next year.

Traditionally the Krampus (Perchte) was created to get rid of bad spirits of the winter, to scare them away. Now in modern days most wooden made masks look more like the devil than the traditional ones I prefer. Anyone with a plastic mask that day should get an extra beating in my opinion.

Anyway, when I was a child I had much respect of this guys, when I became older I used to wear the family mask which was passed down generations and is in the family for more than 100 years.
I think its a fun tradition and I miss it a lot. Well, maybe next year I can spend some time home and visit this event and visit some Christkindl Markets as well.