Chicken Breasts with Ginger

Friday, 8th February 2013

The Low-Fat Gourmet, p51. The recipe says wrap the breasts loosely in foil with a sauce of onion, ginger, garlic, soy, sherry and concentrated apple juice. I used normal apple juice and a spoonful of plum puree and, because I had no foil big enough, just a normal covered dish. I also omitted the 24 hours marinading due to bad planning. Came out nicely enough, if nothing special. The tiny Thai asparagus, boiled for a minute and tossed in sesame oil, where the best bit.

Braised Leg of Goat with Wild Garlic

Friday, 15th April

Leg of kid braised in white wine with shallots and wild garlic, caramelized sweet potato, asparagus with a tomato sauce. Essentially a made up recipe, based on a few ideas gleaned from the internet.
I bought the small leg of goat thinking to make an indian meal but, since Monika isn't such a big fan of Indian food, when it came to it I decided to cook something different. The meat was marinaded over night, in a mixture of rosemary, mustard seeds, garlic, oil and balsamic vinegar, then braised in white wine, in the oven under foil, with shallots and wild garlic (ramsons / bärlauch) for about 3 hours.
The asparagus was very fresh and needed less than 10 minutes to boil, and the sauce was made from onions, tomatoes, toasted almonds and a spoonful or red-pepper jam, fried together for a while and then pureed.
I diced the sweet potato and then started it with butter and a little sugar in the oven, but after 10 minutes it was only looking dry and some pieces had gone black from the inside and didn't look good at all. So I discarded the blackened pieces, moved the rest into small frying pan with a tight fitting lid and sauteed it instead. The undersides of some pieces got a little burned, but that didn't spoil the taste.
Overall very good. The meat was tended and moist and the vegetables nicely cooked and with a good combination of flavours. The asparagus and tomato sauce was especially good.