Five magic spices

It's been a scorcher of a day and I have had no plans. Gipsy Spread and I have secured these last few weekends in July for ourselves. This has meant that I have had nothing else to think about today other than dinner. This was also a no brainer considering the ingredients in the house. We started with the Gressingham duck legs that Gipsy Spread needed to eat. It might have been a cassoulet, but we only had venison sausages which he wanted to eat seperately. So, tamarind and ginger duck it was for him, accompanied by vegetable noodles.

Sadly the gyoza wrappers had warped in the freezer, so my recipe for these will have to wait for another time, although it's a similar bunch of ingredients and spices.

What you will need
Noodles for 2 (I used wide flat rice noddles I pick up in China Town)
3 cloves garlic
Thumb size piece of ginger
2-3 green chillis (optional)
Soy sauce
Rice wine vinegar (shaoxing is best and can be picked up in china town)
1 aubergine/3-4 baby aubergine
2 leeks
1/2 courgette
1 pepper
1 packet halloumi (optional)
The five spices;
1 star anise
1/2 tea spoon of ground cloves
1 tea spoon of black peppercorn(this is meant to be szechuan pepper)
1/2 tea spoon ground cinnamon
1 tea spoon fennel
Sesame oil (or another)

Firstly, grind all the spices together. I had to grind the star anise, black pepper and fennel together in a pestle and mortar and then added the ready ground cloves and cinnamon I had. The smell is magnificently sweet.

Slice the vegetables, ginger and garlic and add to a tablespoon of oil and saute until, browned, but still crisp. Give the onion, ginger, garlic and aubergine a bit longer.  Add the ground spices and cook for a couple of minutes. Clearly, use or supplement with whichever vegetables you fancy or have in the house.

Whilst this is happening, and if you opted for it, cube half a pack of halloumi and set under the grill to brown, turning as necessary.

Cook the noodles as per pack, just before you want to eat. Then add to the vegetables and spices. Followed by a tablespoon of soy sauce. Be careful with this as you don't want to over salt; although add more if necessary to season the noodles. Add a capful of the shaoxing wine, the chillis and stir the noodles and vegetables together just for a minute, you may need to drizzle over a bit more oil to stop them sticking.

Serve the noodles with the optional halloumi mixed through and some fresh coriander.

 

 

For Gipsy Spread's duck, I scored the duck skin in a criss cross pattern and browned the skin to crisp up. I then mixed a heaped tea spoon of tamarind concentrate with some sliced ginger and a tea spoon of sesame oil and rubbed over the duck. This was then cooked in the oven for 20 minutes at 180 degrees. The duck was faleked through his noddles.