Freakin' love me a farmers market.

It has been 6 months. 6 months of London life; a move, a new neighborhood and culinary experiences that have ranged from the informal drunken joy of discovering the new local chicken shop to culinary-gasiming over the raspberry souffle cloud of dreams in high heels courtesy of Micheal Roux at the Langham.

A few weeks ago I had the joy and merriment of discovering my new local farmers market in Queens Park. (I now live in Queens Park. Or alternatively I say Kilburn. It depends on how fancy vs 'urban' I feel that day.) This pretty much involved my flat mate and I running around eating every cheese sample available and spending far too much money on purple cauliflowers.



We were keen on something Thai for dinner but didn't fancy the usual chicken or prawn vibe so decided to go a little left field and bought some duck from a raather nice man at the farmers market. To accompany it I made a thai green curry vegetable broth. It was a real Sunday treat and serving the duck as such ensures you get the rendered down crispy duck skin vibes everyone loves.

Serves 2 with leftover paste.

2 duck breasts, skin scored and seasoned
1 tbsp flavourless oil

For the curry paste:
2 lemongrass stalks
2 kaffir lime leaves
stalks of a bunch of coriander
3 fat garlic cloves
2 inch piece of ginger or galangal
zest of 1 lime
2-3 hot thai chilles
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 red onion

An assortment of vegetables , I used aubergine, cavolo nero and cauliflower
Tin of coconut milk
1 chicken stock cube
500 ml water
palm (or brown) sugar
lime juice
the leaves from the bunch of coriander, chopped
2 more lime leaves finely shredded
fish sauce

Steamed rice

Pre heat oven to 200˚C

Blitz all the ingredients for the paste in a processor or bash it up in pestle and mortar.

Now get the duck on. Place it skin side down on a medium heat in a frying pan for 6-8 minutes until golden brown, pour off the fat regularly and then seal the other side for 30 seconds.

Now on a rack in a roasting tin in the middle of the oven roast the breasts for 8 -12 minutes (8 for rare, 12 for medium, cook it anymore and you don't deserve to eat it because your a bad person)

While the duck roasts take two table spoons of the paste and sweat in the oil until fragrant. Add the cubed aubergine, stock cube, water, coconut milk and shredded lime leaves then leave to simmer until the aubergine is nearly cooked through and the sauce has reduced by about a 3rd. Now throw in the cauliflower, broken into florets and the cavolo nero shredded for the last 5 minutes.

The duck should be about done now, whip it out and leave to rest for 10 mins.

When the veg is cooked balance the sauce. Taste it, think about it and then pimp it with the sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and coriander and even freshly sliced chilli if required until you have a salty/sweet/spicy/sour dreamy harmony.

Serve the veg and sauce on a bed of steamed rice and top with the sliced duck breast.

Southern Indian Vegetable Curry.

Now, there is absolutely no denying it. I am a complete chili addict. I'm the person that could be eating pizza, pasta, a roast or a burger and will ask you to pass whatever appropriate spicy condiment is on offer. Be it hot sauce, horseradish or crushed chilies, if it makes my mouth burn, I'm all over it.


Taking this into account one may assume that Southern Indian cuisine may not be my bag. With all those subtle flavors of mustard seeds, curry leaves, coconut milk and no promise of chili to assault my taste buds,  you may predict me uninterested. But no. 


Having been fortunate enough to travel around India I completely fell for every element of its cuisine and after sampling the traditional breakfast of Southern India, a Masala Dosa (aka the KING of all breakfasts) I fell head over heels for this type of food. 


The recipe that follows is a take on Southern Indian cooking and ticks all of the expected boxes with a bit of added chili for some bite, simply because I couldn't resist. 

Serves 4

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed.

2 large handfuls of spinach or the leafy end of the chard, shredded.

1 large onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

a thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

4 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped

a bunch of curry leaves

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 ½ tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

½ tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp garam masala

1 can of coconut milk

fresh coriander, chopped

In a wok or large, deep pan on a high heat add your oil and mustard seeds, when they start to pop add the onion.

When the onion begins to soften, add the garlic, chili, ginger curry leaves and spices, fry that for 3-4 minutes then add the chopped tomatoes and sweet potato and season.

Fry this for another 2 minutes to develop the flavors then add the coconut milk, cover and simmer until the potato is soft all the way through.

Add the spinach or chard and wait for it to wilt, taste, check the seasoning, then serve with rice, scattered with the fresh coriander and a wedge of lime to squeeze over.