Experiment / Recipe: Duck and Apple Quinoa w/ Wild Garlic & Duck Butter

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

For this recipe I added a little lemon and  sugar to the apples to stop them oxidising & give the salad some light notes for a sunny spring day! If it’s a rather greyer colder day, it comes out rather well if you caramelise the apples. Add just a touch of sugar with a little cinnamon, and add some chopped dates to the salad too! 

This make a pretty decent vegetarian dish if you drop the duck, and replace the duck butter with 50/50 salted butter and creme fraiche!!

for the wild garlic & duck butter (makes 350g)

150g duck butter (recipe)

200g wild garlic (blanched and refreshed)

1/2 lime (juiced)

~

Blanch the wild garlic for 10 minutes tops, then drop it into cold water to stop it cooking and preserve the colour.

Probably best to do all the wild garlic at the same time and keep a third back for the salad!!

Chop it up so it doesn’t cause problems for the stick blender. Blend the leaves and lime juice in a high side jug

Once you have a relatively smooth paste add the butter in thirds until you have a loose puree.

Check it for seasoning, adjusting the salt and lime as necessary, then put it in the fridge to set

for the duck and apple quinoa salad (serves 2 - light lunch)

100g quinoa

250ml chicken stock

1 quarter confit duck leg (picked, recipe)

1 onion (brunoise)

1 clove garlic (crushed, chopped)

100g wild garlic (blanched, refreshed and chopped)

1/2 lime (for garnish / extra dressing)

~

Put the the quinoa and boiling stock in a pot with a lid, cook for approximately 10mins.

When it’s cooked the quinoa should have a little bite and have white circular whispy bits.

In the mean time put the picked duck into an oil coated pan on medium heat and leave it to crisp up.

Put the onions garlic and oil in a pan and cook until soft and translucent, then add them to the quinoa once it’s cooked. Chop the wild garlic and mix it, the apple and the duck into the quinoa too.

to serve

5g coriander (chopped)

1/2 lemon juiced

~

Add the coriander and lime juice, season and mix through well. Place in a serving bowl and top with wild garlic puree and a wedge of lime. No huge rush to serve, it should be at room temperature 

notes

Quinoa water grain cooking ratio: 450:250 stock:grain - yields a cooked weight of 640g - a lot!

Cooking time ~15mins.

Upside Down Apple Pie or Apple Tart Tatin Recipe

By Simon Fernandez (@theferdie)
I've had upside down tart loads of time, but last summer I had one of the best ever. Apples with a bite but not sour and a lovely pastry.  I'm pretty sure that I happened to be looking over the Mediterranean with a cooling sea breeze on my face, and that this had made me a little more receptive to the cool sumptuous apple tart as I put the first bite into my mouth along with some plain vanilla ice cream!! I've been trying to recreate it ever since!

As I've been looking around, I stumbled upon some factoids. Upside down tart made with apples or pears is a very old recipe from the Sologne (a region of north central France) and is found throughout Orleans. The name comes from the Tatin Sisters who ran a hotel-restaurant in Lamotte Beuvron whose version established their reputation.

There are 35 species of apples, the species that gives us most of our eating apples is Malus x domestica, which can be subdivided into 4 categories of apple: Cider, Dessert or eating apples, Cooking apples, and Dual Purpose apples such as Granny Smith or Golden Delicious. Eating apples are used in this recipe.

The things you find out!! Anyway here's the version I made this weekend, I may post refinements...

Ingredients:
6 apples (~800g) cut into 4mm thick slices
200g sugar
200g butter
1/3 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
300g pastry

300ml double cream
rose water to taste
or sugar and cinnamon

Method:
Put the sugar and butter in large sauce pan together and leave on high heat until the butter and sugar have combined into a golden brown caramel at this point there's still a bit of grain in the sugar (when making a caramel try and avoid stirring and sugar on the pan wall which will cause his crystallisation), add the apples.

Juice from the apples will flavour the sauce. Coat the apples with it and leave the heat on until the mix starts to bubble, then simmer for 10 mins and take off the heat. Leave to rest for 30m or until needed.

Use a slotted spoon to place the apple into baking dishes and keep the remaining sauce for topping.

Cover the rolling pin, pastry (method here) and surface in flour, and roll out a rectangle that's an inch bigger than the baking tray.  My baking dish was 25 x 18 x 4cm.

Cover with flaky pastry tucking the pastry down the sides to create a lip when it's turned over and paint with a beaten egg.

Put it in the oven at 200C / 20-25m : )

Whip the double cream, and depending on whether you decide to have rosewater cream or cinnamon cream, add the sugar and cinnamon, or the rose water to your taste.

On taking the pie out of the oven, drain off any excess liquid there might be into the sauce that you set aside earlier.

Place a large heat proof tray over the pie and turn it upside down to turn out the tatin.

Sprinkle caster sugar over the apple and caramelise sugar and slightly char apple with a blowtorch.

Bring the reserved sauce to the boil, simmer until the sauce is a lovely golden brown. Drip on the apple tatin slices and serve with a tablespoon of whipped cream!

Tip: don't cook the apples too long or you'll have apple sauce rather than apple slices that still have a little bite to them.

Tip: for the caramel sauce stir it as little as possible and try not to get sugar on the sides of the pan, both will cause the caramel to crystallise. Don't go a darker colour than mahogany or the sauce will be overdone. 

Tip: get a proper blow torch, you can get one with a handle and built in lighter for around  £20. Don't bother with a pencil flame blow torch, you'll be there all day and your sauce will burn!!  You'll be farting around so much you'll be liable to blow yourself through the kitchen window!

Left: Good torch, built in piezzo electric light, works in all directions!!

Right: Not so good, goes out when you point it down!! And quite tricky to light!!! Don't bother.