Why, why, WHY do I get myself into things like this? Goon’s brother came to visit for the weekend and Goon wanted to show off the high class life style he lives down here in London. Naturally, my cooking had to feature as it makes up about 50% of his diet now. So, what did I say? I said, “Yeah, sure, I’ll cook a three course meal.” 

It’s true I like to impress, but that was just dumb.For a start I didn’t get to Goon’s until 7pm. Not good as I hadn’t done any prep work. I started by making the dessert, my alchoholic cherry cheesecake,  as it needed a long time to chill. The base was simply crushed digestive biscuits soaked with amaretto and set with butter . While that was in the freezer, I whipped together some cream cheese, marscapone and double cream for the middle and added some lemon juice and zest. Then I made the topping with black cherries simmered in their own juices with some sugar and a good slug of cherry brandy.

After assembling that and leaving it chilling in the fridge I moved onto the main: ostrich ‘wellington’. My ostrich had been marinating in a mixture of apricot brandy and orange juice. I coated it lightly with a duck and port pate, wrapped it in some rather haphazard rosemary crepes  (the weighing scales had gone walkabout so I had to guess quantities) and wrapped it all in puff pastry.

And yes, I had the practially blue bit in the middle.  

Finally it was time to make the starter, just in time for everyone to arrive. This was seared scallops with ‘champagne’ (or cava) risotto and truffle oil. No major hiccups here, despite this being the first time I cooked scallops. The only problem was I had forgotten to buy any nice looking salad so I had to borrow some iceberg leaves.

Goon and the others turned up at about 10:30pm, so dinner was very late. I was fairly pleased with all of it. I think that there might have been better risottos to make than a champagne flavoured one but I thought the title sounded impressive. The ostrich Wellington was great. I didn’t expect it all to be eaten but it was devoured pretty quickly.

So quickly that it got half eaten before I could get proper shots. Here is a slice with somenew potatoes beans and a port reduction. I think Simon (Goon’s brother) enjoyed it and that was the main point.

It’s all a big rush here at the minute, but since I’m tired and hung-over I thought I’d relax and dedicate a few hours to updating the blog. Beats marking undergrad’s work!

Goon said he wanted canneloni as, like me, he used to like it when he was little and hadn’t had it in ages. This gave me the perfect opportunity to try out an idea that had been swimming around in my head for a while.

My parents had given me a can of lobster bisque at the beginning of the summer and I thought of making a pasta sauce for shellfish from it. Then the idea developed into a seafood canneloni filled with scallops, prawns and white fish in in the thickened bisque. The top would be covered in a saffron cream sauce.

As luck would have it, there were scallops on special offer at Tesco and also haddock, which I used to bulk out the canneloni filling. I got a few king prawns and a couple of squid to add to the mixture too. I thickened the bisque and added chopped parsley,crushed garlic and a dash of cream. Then I used it to gently cook the squid, prawns and flaked haddock. Finally I seared the scallops and stirred them in.

The topping was just cream with dissolved saffron and some grated mozzarella to make the top brown.

My one mistake was to use cooked dry lasagne sheets. The damn things were a little bit too narrow which made the whole job of rolling them up very difficult! I eventually managed but it was after much stress and shouting at Goon for convincing me to make canneloni.

I had a quick flash of inspiration for the veg too that evening! I planned to have fresh spinach but instead I cooked it and mixed it with some cream cheese and nutmeg. It actually worked very well! 

And also… therre was the last slice of my cherry cheesecake.

This was a remnant from the three course meal I cooked on Friday. More on that when Simon sends me the pictures!

As I was doing my shopping on Sunday, I saw something I couldn’t resist.

A whole duck (giblets and all) for £4.50! I hadn’t particularly planned on cooking for more than one that evening but how could I not when I had this at my disposal? I also thought it was be a nice suprise for Goon when he got back from his working weekend. He seems to quite like coming home to whole cooked animal carcasses. I guess it must be a bloke thing.

Recently I’ve made duck with raspberry and duck with orange. I quite fancied cherries but I was out of cherry brandy .  The only fruity liqueur I could find in my cupboard was a nearly full bottle of cassis.

So I went looking for blackcurrants. It seems it has got to the time of year when berry fruit isn’t readily available. So I had to get tinned blackcurrants. The upside to this was that I could make a nice blackburrant glaze for the duck. I took two tablespoons of honey and mixed it with enough juice from the tin to make a thick paste then smeared it over the skin and in the cavity of the duck. Then I put some crushed garlic and a couple of rosemary springs inside the duck and roasted it.

Of course, roasties were a necessity. Maris piper potatoes roasted in goose fat are the best thing! I don’t know why goose fat is so good for this but it just makes the potato edges come out all light and crispy.

The blackcurrant sauce for the duck was made from simmering the blackcurrants with a sprig of rosemary in some water until the blackcurrants had softened. Then I added sugar, a glug of cassis, a few dropsof raspberry vinegar and some red wine, let it reduce down a bit then removed the rosemary, popped the rest into a blender for a few seconds and strained it.

Yum yum yum! Duck with fruity sauce and roasties! You might notice my duck is not as rare as usual. This is because supermarket timing instructions are utter rubbish. It said 20 minutes per 500g- so in theory 1hr 30 for this duck. I knew that they’d be talking crap to some extent, so I took it out after an 1hr 5 and it was medium well done. I’d have destroyed it if I left it in any longer!

And now for the shocker….. I made DESSERT! I finally have broken out of the savoury main meal mold. Goon read everyone’s suggestions for what to do with our excess apples and decided he wanted  apple pie.

And before anyone else says it, NO IT ISN’T A HEART ON THE PIE!!!! It’s an apple -can’t you see the stalk and leaf? Sheesh! . The pie got attacked and devoured before I got a proper shot of a slice, so this was the best I could do.

I was very pleased with it. It had apple, cinnamon and honey in the filling and a sugared shortcrust pastry crust. It took up time I technically didn’t have, but it was fun to make. I really am going to have to try some of this proper baking soon.

Here’s the Roast duck with blackcurrant Sauce Recipe