Temasek: Hung Duck and the Portuguese tart ... or did we have another cook up?

Monday 1 June 2009

Hung Duck and the Portuguese tart ... or did we have another cook up?

Ok ... long tedious post alert!!! PART ONE!

We finally had our first cook up for the year. Usually I would suffix this by slamming the Exclammation point key several times. But I've got the "meh" face on while I type this. Why is this so? Have we reached saturation point? Has ennui finally set in? Has our indecision on what it is we're trying to achieve translated into a general malaise over the proceedings? Or do we blame P for bringing swine flu to Fitzroy? (Not my words ... so stick it!!!)

Having said all that, I believe this cook up just gone was a crowning success! AND we scored a freebie .... again!! It must be the 3 of us in cahoots ... we are the Caballieros par excellence for scamming without really intending to scam.

Our inspiration "board"

I called this our recession cook-up as we sourced most of the ingredients from our home larders and only had to purchase a few bits and bobs to complete the whole. So it made sense that we shopped locally ... the duck and bacalao came from our local .... the rest of the purchases was from P's neck of the woods. Regardless, a trek down Brunnie Fitzroy is always entertaining.

But first, the menu!!

We already knew that we would be doing Portuguese tarts for dessert, P decided to ditch the idea of a terrine as we were already having braised duck as a main. I wanted to do a broccolini side with potatoes, but we struck out finding some, and P wanted to supplement our Bacalao croquettes by making some Arrancini balls with left over risotto he made.

So here's how it all panned out:

Entree - Bacalao Croquettes and Tuna Risotto Arrancini balls
Main - Chinese Braised Duck with asparagus and potato with simple green salad (I can't remember the leaves we used .. I'll update this if I find out)
Dessert - Portuguese Tarts

When we got to P's house he had the backdoors open ... it was one of those late autumn mornings ... slight chill in the air but sunny.

So we took a lovely stroll down to the organic grocers for further supplies, stopping along the way for some visual porn at the Galerie Montmarte.

(Mental note - there are quite alot of new stores worth checking out .... I feel a slight cold coming along ... maybe Wednesday next week?)

Always thinking with our stomachs we knew that it was time for a beverage and a spot of lunch so we decided to breeze through Simon Johnson's on the way back. For some reason the chick at the organic grocers thought we had to put up with a grumpy man who I am assuming was ahead of us in the queue. We were too busy with the task at hand to notice but she decided to give us 2 handfuls of mushrooms that we were thinking of buying ... so what you say??? Well said mushroom called fairy something or other was priced at $150 per kilo. We had already purchased 6 morello mushrooms at $250 per kilo (yes folks ... we are posh!!) which came up to about $6.00.

fairy something or other mushrooms

So feeling suitably chuffed, we allowed our personal purveyor of fine cheeses at Simon J's suck us into buying 4 different types ... thankfully all half off which amounted to the princely sum of about $41 (I know I know ... you're saying "Fie on your recession cook-up!!") We had 2 french, one italian and one aussie.