Posts tagged: lychee

Produce glossary

By , March 9, 2010

Scomazzon's fruit stall image Catseye Productions

I thought it might be of interest to some readers to see the main items that will be covered in the Produce Glossary of Tropical Cuisine: Cooking in Clare’s Kitchen. As you may already know this cookbook is the first of what will be several volumes, and in each one a new set of produce will be featured. You may also know that in the produce glossary I am focusing on featuring produce which is available in markets and quality retailers, and/or grows easily at home, but with which many people are not so familiar. One aim of Tropical Cuisine: Cooking in Clare’s Kitchen is to provide information that assists people to experiment or make greater use of the fantastic array of produce we have available in tropical Australia. Continue reading 'Produce glossary'»

Duck and lychee salad with Davidsons plum sauce

By , December 7, 2009

Duck and Lychee Salad (plum sauce out of shot) image © Catseye Productions 2009

This a such a beautiful combination of flavours, and given the short season of lychees is one to enjoy right now.  As well as this salad recipe, I will have my roast duck recipe in Tropical Cuisine: Cooking for Clare’s Kitchen.  For now, either buy ready roasted duck if you have access to it, roast a duck according to your current recipes, or for a quicker route, pan cook or roast a duck breast per serve.

If you don’t have access to fresh or frozen Davidson Plums, and you can’t buy a ready-made Davidson Plum sauce (try Rainforest Bounty), then you can make a plum sauce using temperate blood plums.

The recipes below are general in their directions, and will be more specific in their final form in the cookbook:

Davidsons Plum Sauce

About 500gm fresh or frozen Davidsons plums

2/3 cup castor sugar

2 cloves

2 cardamom pods, crushed slightly

6 allspice, whole

1/2 tsp salt

water to cover plums

Place plums, spices and salt into a saucepan just big enough to fit them in one layer, cover with water and bring to the boil.  Add castor sugar, and reduce to a low simmer until the sauce has thickened.  Run the mixture through a food mill or pick the stones and spices out by hand then blend with a stick blender.

Duck and lychee salad

to serve 3 – 4 people

1 roasted duck or 4 cooked duck breasts, sliced or torn into edible amounts, excess fat removed

equal amounts of watercress and rocket sprinkled in two layers on each plate

about 8 pitted fresh lychees, torn in 1/2, per person

Compile the salad by laying the rocket then watercress onto each plate, scatter over the duck pieces, the torn lychees, then top with a drizzle of Davidsons plum sauce aiming to get it mostly on the pieces of duck.  Serve.

© Clare Richards 2009-2010

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