Oh mama, I wanna go surfing... (and shopping)!

Today I spent the whole day with my beloved mum. We had lunch at my grandparent's house and then we went shopping.

(My shopping evening here)

night

Dayak-Style Shrimp (Udang Bumbu Kalimantan)

2 lbs medium shrimp (peeled and deveined)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2-4 medium red chilies (sliced)
1 medium shallot (sliced)
1 garlic clove (sliced)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon tamarind paste (dissolved in water)
1/4 cup water
1/2 inch gingerroot (sliced)
1 teaspoon salt
1 small tomato (chopped)
steamed rice (to serve)

Saute shrimp in 1 tablespoon oil over moderate heat for 2 minutes, then set aside.

In small food processor, blend shallot, garlic, chiles, sugar, tamarind liquid, ginger, salt and tomato to form a paste.

Heat remaining oil in pan, then stir-fry paste over moderate heat for 2-3 minutes.

Add shrimp, cook 2 minutes more.

Serve warm.

Dayak-Style Shrimp (Udang Bumbu Kalimantan)

2 lbs medium shrimp (peeled and deveined)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2-4 medium red chilies (sliced)
1 medium shallot (sliced)
1 garlic clove (sliced)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon tamarind paste (dissolved in water)
1/4 cup water
1/2 inch gingerroot (sliced)
1 teaspoon salt
1 small tomato (chopped)
steamed rice (to serve)

Saute shrimp in 1 tablespoon oil over moderate heat for 2 minutes, then set aside.

In small food processor, blend shallot, garlic, chiles, sugar, tamarind liquid, ginger, salt and tomato to form a paste.

Heat remaining oil in pan, then stir-fry paste over moderate heat for 2-3 minutes.

Add shrimp, cook 2 minutes more.

Serve warm.

Roasted Duck Breast Fillet with Sauteed Oyster Mushrooms and New Potatoes

Duck provides a very different cooking and eating prospect from other fowl, such as chicken or turkey. While chicken or turkey are very lean meats and should always be fully cooked prior to being eaten, duck breasts in particular have more fat on them, the meat is richer and they should be served just that little bit pink in the centre to be enjoyed at their best, in a very similar fashion to lamb.

In this recipe, I have firstly crisped up the skin side of the duck breasts in a frying-pan before finishing them off in a moderately hot oven. I have served them with a sauteed selection of fresh oyster mushrooms, though virtually any type of mushroom will suffice where oyster mushrooms are unavailable.

Ingredients per Person

1 fresh duck breast (skin on)
Generous handful of oyster mushrooms
Baby new potatoes, as required
1 clove of garlic
Pinch of dried sage
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper



Method

The oven should be preheated to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5.

The potatoes should be washed and added to a pot of cold, lightly salted water. They should be placed on to a high heat until the water reaches a boil, at which stage the heat should be reduced and the potatoes allowed to simmer for twenty-five minutes to half an hour.

The duck breast should be seasoned with salt and pepper on the skin side only. A frying-pan should then be brought up to a high heat and the duck breast placed in to the dry pan for three or four minutes. Fat will almost immediately begin to escape from the duck breast, so no oil is required.



The duck breast should then be transferred to a wire rack over a baking tray, flesh side down this time, and placed in to the oven for around twenty-five minutes. It should after this time have cooked almost all the way through, with just that ideal hint of pink in the centre. It should after this time be removed from the oven to a plate and covered with aluminium foil to rest while the potatoes are drained and the mushrooms are quickly sauteed.

The mushrooms could of course be sauteed in the duck fat in the frying-pan which was used previously. In the name of healthier eating, however, and to minimise the amount of saturated fat in the dish, I am instead using olive oil. A couple of tablespoons of oil should be added to a saucepan and brought up to a medium heat. The garlic clove should then be grated in to the pan and the sage added. The garlic should be sweated off for about a minute before the chopped mushrooms are added and cooked for a further couple of minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon.

The duck breast should then be sliced across the way and plated as shown, with the oyster mushrooms and potatoes added alongside.

Bottling summer tomatoes

Temperatures are soaring, every day in the upper 30s. It is a very hot summer in Turkey this year and I am loving it.


The tomatoes are just beautiful:  big, fat, red, ripened to perfection under the baking sun.  I am in a village overlooking the Aegean and Friday is market day in the nearby little town.  Today is the day, I thought. It's now or never to do something with these beauties. First I went to the zuccaciye, ( I love that word!), a treasure trove of a place bursting with household jars, tea glasses, and other necessities of a rural life to buy jars suitable for bottling. I wanted twelve but they had thirteen left so I ended up with thirteen complete with the metal lids. Then I went off to get the fattest juiciest tomatoes I could find. It's hard to choose which seller to buy from as they all have attractive displays not only of tomatoes but all their other produce straight from their fields and orchards. The heat won out and I decided on the enterprising man with a succulent tomato cut open in front of him who was conveniently close to my car. They cost a rock bottom 1 lira per kilo (33 cents!) which for an Istanbul girl is next to nothing. I bought three kilos.


Home I went and the first task was to sterilize the jars which is most important. There are a couple of ways of doing this: in the past I have boiled the jars but this time thanks to this new recipe, I used the oven method. So far so good. Then I turned my attention to the tomatoes:  I washed them carefully, and peeled them. This year the skin is quite thick and peels off easily, like pulling off a tightfitting glove. Any bits that remained, I used my knife judiciously. Otherwise I would put them in boiling water and skin them that way.


Last year I simply chopped them up and cooked them down a bit before filling the jars. This is fine as you can add the various seasonings like onions, and herbs later on when you are actually using the contents. But this time, following the same recipe, I thought I would make a tastier version. When I saw that my 3 kilos only made 3-4 jars, and because I was on a roll, I used the tomatoes that I had in the fridge so all in all, I made up 4.5 kilos that day, which produced 10 jars. I left about a centimetre at the top of each jar and poured in a little olive oil (we use the oil from Mehmet, our gardener's, olive trees) and then popped out into the garden to pick some bay leaves. I put one on top of each filled jar and then closed them firmly with the lids. I saw that the girl in the zuccaciye had given me about eight extra lids by mistake so I will give those back next time I go to town.


I had such a great morning! It was so satisfying! I will definitely be making more before the summer is out. I thought these could make good alternative presents for my city-dwelling friends.

Tip: It really is most important to use the best tomatoes you can find. Avoid those hard ones that you get in supermarkets and that are all of the same shape. They just won't have the same flavour. But now is the time so go for it!