Michaelmas Manna from Heaven

All who know me know I like nothing more than a good old-fashioned chow down so I thought I would share my favourite recipes. All are super simple to prepare and I promise no obscure ingredients that will have you dipping into your mortgage account. This week as we are still in the period that the church calendar refers to as Michaelmas and back in the day when there was a full on feast day to go with the season something that involves goose would have been eaten. I have adapted this tradition with incorporating the altogether easier to get a hold of and prepare with goose fat, and duck as the main event fowl as it is cheaper (and easier) to prepare.

Duck with redcurrant and thyme sauce with goose fat roasted potatoes and wilted spinach (serves two)

Ingredients: 

• Two duck breasts with skin still on
• A box of redcurrants*
• A bunch fresh thyme*
• A bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley*
• Three cloves of garlic
• One red chilli pepper
• Three shallots, thinly sliced
• A packet charlotte potatoes*
• A jar of goose fat*
• Half a glass of sherry
• Salt
• Olive Oil
• 100 grams of fresh baby leaf spinach

* the packets and boxes and jars are all from Sainsbury’s this week; I shall try and show no favouritism and mix it up with packets of food from other places)

Method:

Slice shallots and garlic and heat a heavy based frying pan. Try to put as little oil as possible as duck is very fatty and gently fry the shallots and garlic taking care not to burn the garlic (it will create a grim bitter aftertaste if you do). When everything is looking clarified and the kitchen is smelling heavenly add your duck, skin down into the pan. You want the skin to crisp off and also the fat coming out of the duck will bring depth to the sauce. There is really no need to bung in stock cubes, the flavour is usually there to be found in the most calorific parts of any animal, but I digress. As the skin starts to crisp up nicely flip the breasts the other way in the pan (now flesh sitting in the base of the pan and add your parsley, thyme and your sherry. If you are cooking with booze for the first time, to have the benefits of the boozy aroma without an acrid back taste in your sauce it is important you cook all the alcohol off – this is simple. You keep simmering your sauce until the booze smell no longer leaves a sharp tingle when you breathe in the sauce. I am sure there are other more scientific ways to do this, but it works for me. Allow the duck to simmer in its sauce for 25 minutes and it should be ready. To know if the duck is cooked, like chicken, juices should run clear when pricked. Some people like their duck pink, I veer towards medium/well but just go with your own taste. The redcurrants go in with about 10 minutes of cooking time to go as you don’t want them completely collapsing into the sauce or indeed taking over the show as they are sharp to the taste. Meanwhile back at the ranch you would have emptied your packet of potatoes all in a roasting tin with plenty of salt. I am very much about abundance so I would cook the potatoes in a WHOLE jar of goose fat. Some people do the whole spoonful, mere suggestion portion control look, but I think why pretend, when more goose fat just makes everything taste better? And didn’t Jesus himself say, that He came that we may have life and have it to the full. So, full jar of goose fat with potatoes that are salted in the roasting tin, oven heat at about 180 degrees centegrade and cook until gorgeous and brown. If you had put the potatoes in first, by the time the duck is ready to serve they will be ready. Switch off the oven and leave the potatoes in there so they stay warm as you do your final cooking which is wilting the baby spinach. To ensure it doesn’t disintegrate, blanch in a couple of tablespoons of water and drizzle some olive oil at the end for shine-shine factor when plated up. I always like to plate things up in a natural looking way so spinach at the bottom, duck breast on top and potatoes on corners with a bit of jus on the top. See picture below that was taken on my phone and not in any way photoshopped and bon apetit!

Out and About This Week

A grey-sky week in London was brightened by God’s abundance and grace and a couple of fantastic glasses of red. It is so easy when one is in a fallow time to wallow, sink and allow the impending shorter days to wreak havoc with your mood: Until a few months ago, I was entirely based in Nigeria, where power cuts and outsize insects aside, I was having a whale of a time writing, brand managing and dancing on the occasional table. It was also such a refresher too to be living in a country where one didn’t get given a look tantamount to having an embarrassing illness as one does sometimes in these parts for having a faith, admitting to the restorative effects of prayer and pinning your favourite verse on the wall. But anyway, back in London I have returned to one verse again and again:

“Be still and know I am God”

And so I did in three of my favourite London churches for stillness: St. James’ Piccadilly, Holy Trinity Sloane Street and my home church Holy Trinity Brompton. In the silence of contemplating God’s plan for my life, His omnipresence and how I felt like the last of the flagrant slackers staring into the middle distance and getting high on stained glass, my phone buzzed (thankfully on silent) and I was invited to a trio of interesting events: a review dinner for the revamped Eight Over Eight on the Kings Road, where the Black Cod is not quite as game over as Nobu but is yummy nevertheless, a tea at the Carlton Club with the scrummiest of ginger biscuits and just beautiful setting (I challenge anyone not to be won over by the old school charm of claret coloured dining rooms and hold nothing back cornice work,)and finally my favourite  divinely authored appointment: lunch with a gourmand homeless person. 

The homeless person didn’t buzz in. We met as he stood outside St James Piccadilly and he asked me for a sandwich. I said I would get him one, but then he stopped me in my tracks: “You cannot possibly know what I want to eat. I’m sick of people playing God and giving me any old **** to eat just because I’m homeless.” I was shocked by his outburst but he had a point. The default of most, even when doing a supposed act of charity is to assume that the recipient will be grateful for whatever we give, however little it is. Homeless chap had a point; so I asked him what he would like: he replied a beef and Emmental sandwich on ciabatta and it should be toasted. He also made a polite request for extra salt and pepper and bemoaned my resistance to not going to a chain as apparently if I walked a little further he could also ask for extra Dijon mustard on the side as that gave everything a real ‘kick’. Not in the teeth I quipped. And then he smiled and I saw he was missing a few and I inwardly cringed for about a half minute and then he laughed as did I. 

Another truism about giving; it needn’t be earnest and a lightness of touch is always preferable to those who labour the point, rather like sermons. As a foodie I totally felt this man’s predicament, the fact that we are so quick to see someone’s problem and totally fail to discern their individuality. Luckily for us the believer we do not have an Almighty with a similar one size fits all observational skills-set, as Christ himself said

“that even the very hairs of your head are numbered”

Meal bought and exchanged, my new friend thanked me. I said he was welcome and turned to go but he stopped me again. ‘I am not thanking you for the meal, I am thanking you for seeing me for me.” Just as God does for all of us.

Cool Chic and in Christ

Could there be such a thing? That’s been the question that has posed to me in many ways and by many people. Apparently the cool people have a monopoly on cashmere champagne, and Chanel (long may the 2.55 be in production) and Christos like me are meant to be wearing itchy garments, drinking watery squash and toting an almost life-size bible. 

Cool Chic and in Christ was founded in 2007 for elegant evangelists around the world to talk about matters spiritual in environments you wouldn’t normally expect. There have been events in London and Lagos and forthcoming ones in Kampala and New York. You can find out more about the group on www.heaveninyourhandbag.com/ccc 

If you like your piety without a side portion of levity then look away now. The purpose of this blog is not so much to create a community as to give an outlet for believers like me to engage with their faith. Yes, we love Jesus, but we like our clothes, art, food booze and music too. So expect verses of the day, dresses of the week and entirely random reviews and discussion points,

Love and Prayers,

Mazzi