Breast of Turducken

Intrigued by the idea of an extravagance like the infamous "turducken", but without the oven space (or the army of people to eat it up)? Why not make a smaller beastie overall by stuffing a turkey breast instead of a whole turkey? After all, Valentine's Day is coming, and if you were wanting a sexy little meal for two, with a bit of extra panache and just a few leftovers for sandwiches or a casserole, then this is the recipe for you.

Sure, it looks difficult, what with the layers and all, but I assure you that it is actually quite simple. It's just showy that way. Best of all, it's really two dishes in one, since the gravy is made from the braising liquid.

My initial inclination was to use duck confit for the "duck" portion of the turducken, but whilst shopping at Oyama Sausage Co., I noticed that they had a special on black truffle duck sausages, and asked myself "What could be fancier than that?" Since sausage is a ground mixture, it also solved the question of how I was going to keep the disparate layers from falling apart when sliced; I simply placed the sausage layer between the flattened turkey and chicken breasts.

Which is, in essence, almost my entire recipe, but for the cooking instructions. You could easily figure the rest out for yourself, I'm sure, but here are the details, just for fun:

Breast of Turducken

Serves 6 - 8

1 large turkey breast (about 750 grams)
250 grams duck sausage
1 large chicken breast (about 200 grams)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 tablespoon peanut oil (or other)
1/2 cup dry vermouth
1 1/2 cups turkey broth
2 tablespoons flour
salt & pepper to taste

Butterfly and pound flat the turkey breast. Take the duck sausage out of its casings, and spread three quarters of it evenly over the inner surface of the turkey. Add the chicken breast (also butterflied and pounded flat) and place the last bit of sausage in a thin line down the centre of the stack. Roll up (in such a way that the centre-line of sausage will run the length of the resulting roulade) and tie with butcher's twine at two-inch (or so) intervals. Rub the surface of the roulade with peanut oil (or olive oil, or grapeseed oil) and sprinkle with salt.

In a large skillet, over medium-high heat, sear the roulade on all sides. Add the vermouth, cover well with foil, and transfer to a preheated oven at 375 F for 1 hour, or until completely cooked (use a probe thermometer to get it to a safe temperature).

While the roulade is in the oven, you can prepare any side dishes that you like. Mashed potatoes are a great one, since you're going to have gravy. Carrots, corn, Brussels sprouts, yams, any or all of these make a fine side to your breast of turducken.

Let stand for 15 minutes on a carving board (loosely tented with the foil) to let rest before slicing. This gives you enough time to make some gravy (not shown, because it obscured the pretty bullseye pattern of the sliced roulade).

If your turkey broth is cold or room temperature to start (you could, of course, also use chicken broth or duck broth), shake it with the flour in a lidded container (holding tightly), and add to the now-empty skillet - do not clean the skillet first! Stir over medium heat until the gravy thickens, scraping up any goodness from the bottom of the skillet. If it is too thick, you can add a little more stock or water, or any vegetable water you might have from, say cooking potatoes, or carrots, or corn, or some other side dish.

If your turkey broth is hot, shake the flour with a little cold water and add it to the skillet after you have added the broth. Feel free to proceed in your usual gravy fashion, if you don't care for either of these methods. Let the gravy simmer very gently on low while you carve the roulade (make sure you remove the strings, first) and plate the rest of the meal, and then pour it into a gravy boat or bowl with spoon and take it to the table.

Venetian Chicken Frisinsal

There is a wonderful, medieval attraction to the notion of tearing apart a roasted chicken with one's bare hands, and this dish can be the wonderful result.

There are quite a few recipes for this floating around, many of which appear to be derivatives of "Tagliatelle W/ Chicken From The Venetian Ghetto" from Nigella Lawson's "How To Eat" or "Tagliatelle Frisinsal" which appears in Claudia Roden's "The Book of Jewish Food" which appears to be its antecedent.

I've adjusted the name into something that makes better sense for the amendments that I've made. Gone is the Tagliatelle, because I'm using broad egg noodles instead (and less of them). Other adjustments include opting in for the parsley which Nigella uses (absent from the original), and roasting the chicken on ribs of fennel (to be discarded after), which adds a subtle perfume to the dish, and lifts the chicken off of the roasting pan.

This is a glorious recipe. It may not look terribly exciting, and it is assuredly not low-fat, but it is wonderfully fragrant and delicious, making it a beautiful comfort food sort of meal.

Venetian Chicken Frisinsal
Serves 4

1 medium chicken
3-4 stalks of fennel
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
kosher salt, as needed
1 long sprig of fresh rosemary (about 5 inches)
1/3 cup golden sultana raisins
1/2 cup pine nuts
225 grams broad egg noodles

Rub the chicken with olive oil and salt lightly on all sides. Place the chicken, breast side down, onto your roasting pan (I use a large cast iron skillet) which has been lined with enough stalks of fennel to keep the chicken elevated from the bottom of the pan. Roast at 400F for 50 minutes, then turn the chicken breast-side up, and continue to roast until the chicken is completely cooked - 20 minutes to 1/2 hour will do nicely for a 3 pound chicken. Remove the chicken from the roasting pan to a plate, and allow to cool for twenty minutes or so, until it is cool enough for you to remove the chicken from the bones with your bare hands.

While the chicken is roasting (and then cooling), soak the sultanas in a little water for about half an hour, and then drain. Toast the pine nuts until just lightly golden brown - this can be done in a dry skillet on the stovetop, and only takes a few minutes. Mince the rosemary finely, and set aside. Chop the parsley as you like it, and set aside.

While the chicken is cooling, remove the fennel stalks from the roasting pan (let the drippings on them fall back into the pan) and discard. They are stringy and tough, and now overcooked, so there's not much use for them; they have given up their flavour to the chicken juices, which is as good a fate as they could hope for. If you really need to watch your fat intake, pour all of the drippings from the chicken into a bowl, and let the fat rise to the top. Skim off some of the fat as desired. Otherwise, just leave the drippings in the skillet, add the chopped rosemary, the pine nuts, and the drained raisins to the drippings, and bring to a simmer. Next, pour any liquid that has pooled around the chicken (on its cooling plate) into the skillet with the rest of the drippings. Reduce the heat to very low and cover, while you prepare the rest.

Bring a large pot of water up to the boil (for the pasta) while you remove the meat from the chicken. Using your hands, strip the meat and skin from the bones and tear into bite-sized shreds, putting them in a large serving bowl. Be sure to use the crispy skin, as well, but any flabby skin can be discarded with the bones. When all of the chicken is shredded* (you can put the bones aside to make stock or to freeze for later use), quickly cook the pasta (do add a little salt to the water). Egg noodles only take a few minutes to cook, which is handy. Drain the noodles, or use a spider-tool to lift the noodles right from the water onto the shredded chicken meat in the bowl. Pour the sauce of drippings, raisins, rosemary and pine nuts over the top, add the parsley, and toss gently to combine.

I recommend a fresh salad with a bit of crunch, to balance the richness of this dish. Fennel & Radish Salad is about perfect with this (since you already have the fennel).

In the spirit of full disclosure, I note that I actually removed the chicken breast (but not the tender) to a separate plate, because a whole chicken's worth of meat was more than we needed for the four servings of this dish. You could, of course, increase the amount of pasta, use all of the chicken, and feed two to four more people, especially if you had a side dish or two to round it out. The chicken breast that I hived away in this instance made a lovely chicken and fennel white pizza two days later.

*When you are stripping the meat from the chicken, be sure to take the meat from the back of the chicken - especially the two lovely roundish bits referred to as "the oysters" from just above the thighs. This is the closest thing to a tenderloin on a chicken, and is a wonderful bit not to be missed. They are small, firm, intensely flavourful bits of dark chicken meat, sometimes doled out as a special favour, or harboured as a cook's treat.

Breakfast at home: Arepas (rellenas de queso)

I've been wanting to make these for ages, so I finally decided to get to it. After all, they didn't appear to be terribly difficult, and they are an absolute staple of the cuisines of Colombia and Venezuela (with other corn cakes variants throughout the rest of South America).

Naturally, there are an awful lot of versions out there, but I went straight to one of my favourite recipes blogs, My Colombian Recipes, and chose the one that best suited my purpose: arepa rellenas de queso.

As you can see, I was using yellow masarepa, instead of the prescribed white, but as I understand the only difference to be the colour of the resulting arepa, I wasn't worried about it. In fact, the golden colour of the finished arepa looks quite pretty to me, although if I had been eating white ones all my life it might look a little strange. Still, the very fact that the manufacturer makes yellow masarepa, which is, after all, specifically flour for making arepas, gave me all the permission I needed to go ahead.

This is a very simple recipe. In my online perusals, I found versions that had cheese (and sometimes egg yolk) mixed right into the dough, but I thought that it would be better to go with a "straight up" version, and add the cheese after the fact. I can't give you better directions than Erica does over at My Colombian Recipes, so skip on over to this link to get the recipe.

I made a half-recipe, which was three arepas, because I didn't want to have leftovers. Now I understand that they hold up rather well for a day or two (and can be re-purposed to dip into soup, or split, dipped in egg and re-fried), so I will probably make a full batch next time. I also made a note that I could easily turn a half-batch into four arepas (or a full batch into eight), to portion-control the sizes a little more. They are rather filling! The uncooked dough can also be kept in the fridge for a few days, if well wrapped and sealed to prevent it from drying out.

I note that the middles took a little longer to cook than the recipe expressly indicates, but it may have been that my skillet temperature was a bit low (or my arepas were a little thick). It didn't take much longer to get them to a point where I could split them, although splitting hot corn cakes is a tricky business if you want the result to be tidy. I clearly need more practice in this regard. I also note that other recipes suggest covering with a lid at the end or popping the fried arepas into a hot oven, briefly, to ensure that the middles are cooked. If I'm making more arepas with the same amount of dough next time, I suspect they'll be a bit thinner, and cook a bit faster. There's also the temptation of arepitas, which are little bite-sized arepas. Perhaps a fun party food?

As you can see below, we went the "benedict" route for our arepas rellenas de queso. I filled the arepas with monterey jack cheese, and we topped them with steamed eggs and hot sauce. That's fried garlic sausage on the side - hardly culturally accurate (a nice chorizo would have been preferable) - but we had some that needed using up, and we both gravitate toward fried meats at breakfast. Scrambled eggs would have also made a good topping, or avocado slices. Or more cheese!

Winter Salad: Fennel & Radish Salad

Sometimes, I feel an urge to add more vegetables to my dinner. This happens most frequently in the winter, when I'm not gobbling down fruit by the handful, and when summer salad vegetables are both more expensive and no longer at their peak. By late December, I've given up hope on fresh tomatoes until next year.

Salads can feel a little boring, in the winter. The summer vegetables are just too tired to make it through the winter (even if they're available, they have only a fraction of the flavour), and sometimes I forget that there are other kinds of "pure" vegetable salads - that is, without added pasta or grains - than garden, Greek, and chopped.

There are others, sure: there's roasted beet salad (delicious, but which takes quite a bit of time, plus use of the oven), and pear-walnut-blue cheese (costly ingredients, none of which I am likely to have just lying about on any given day), and cabbage slaws (arguably more of a summer salad), and these are all delicious. But this little number here, hand shaved fennel and thinly sliced radishes with an utterly basic vinaigrette - this becomes a winter salad that is fresh, crisp, simple, and something very much to look forward to, during the winter months when fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is at its peak. Quick and easy to make, this plays nicely as a side dish for those winter dinner blues. Since it's January right now, I might as well also note that this is a nifty little number to help bulwark any resolutions about healthy eating that we may be tempted to let slide right about now...

Fennel & Radish Salad

Serves 4

1 fennel bulb, trimmed of stalks and fronds
8 radishes, trimmed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar (or white balsamic vinegar)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

If you have a mandoline or v-slicer, you can make very quick work of slicing the fennel bulb. Otherwise, I recommend trimming and quartering the bulb, removing the v-shaped core, and then slicing very thinly on the diagonal. For the radishes, slice them in half pole-to-pole, then slice them into very thin half-moons.

Toss the vegetables in a salad bowl (or layer them, which is pretty in a glass bowl). In a small bowl, combine the oil, vinegar and salt, and blend thoroughly. Pour over the fennel and radishes, and refrigerate for 15 minutes (or up to an hour). Decorate sparingly with fennel fronds, if you like. You can eat it right away, of course, but it seems to benefit from a quick chill.

I think making it with sherry vinegar has the best flavour (white wine vinegar was not quite as perky), but it will discolour the crisp whiteness of the fennel, ever so slightly. White balsamic, or champagne vinegars would be good substitutes, if you want to keep the fennel from taking on a beige tinge.

Another addition that would be quite lovely is thinly sliced green apple - added just before serving to prevent discolouration. I think the sweet-tart of the apple would offset the fennel and radish beautifully, and that's how I intend to serve this, next time around.

Khachapuri: Georgian Cheese Bread

There are quite a number of types of khachapuri, and this one is generally referred to as Ajarian (Acharuli/Adjaruli). There are also round Imeruli, kubdari (which also contains meat), Megruli (which has extra cheese on top), Ossuri (also contains potato), and many other intriguing looking variations.

I'd been wanting to try this for ages. As a lifelong fan of all combinations of bread and cheese, and as someone who enjoys a nice eggy filling, in retrospect it's kind of a surprise that it took me this long.

I usually bring freshly made bread to housewarming events. However, I had been eyeing a few recipes with intent* prior to my friend Lisa's housewarming / birthday party, and decided that this Khachapuri recipe (from Everyday Russian) was the perfectly over-the-top bread to bring to the a housewarming party that was also a celebration of a significant birthday.

* When I say "with intent", you can imagine the same sort of intent that a kitty has, when crouched low, eyes fixed on target, and tail twitching with increasing agitation. That kind of intent.

So, in order to prevent myself from chickening out at the last moment, I told everyone that this is what I would bring. And so, I did. Here's the various stages of first-time Khachapuri-making, in pictures:

Mix up the dough (link for recipe) and let it rise - the dough is quite similar to a rich challah dough, full of egg and quite yellow (although, that may depend on your eggs):

Meanwhile, mix up the filling of cheese (I used a combination of grated full-fat mozzarella and crumbled feta), butter, and hard-boiled eggs, mashing everything together into a crumbly mass:

Divide risen dough into four pieces.

Roll out one piece of dough into a large circle, as though you were making a thin pizza crust, and cover the dough with a quarter of the filling, leaving a bare dough perimeter.

Beginning at the near side, start to roll the dough up over the filling, as though you were making a jelly-roll. Stop rolling just before you get to the middle:

Beginning from the far side, roll the dough up over the filling, again stopping before you get to the middle, so that there is a little window of filling:

Pinch and fold the unrolled ends to make a little boat shape:

Place the boats on a foil-lined baking sheet, and let rise for another 20 minutes or so (this step seems to be missing from the original recipe), then brush with beaten egg so that the finished bread will have a shiny golden brown glaze to it:

Bake at 425 F for approximately 20 minutes, or until puffed, golden, and delicious looking.

I failed to take a close up of one of the breads once it was sliced and ready to serve at the party, but I can say with confidence that they were very well received indeed, and definitely take a place of pride as a fun and somewhat unusual (in these parts, at least) item to bring to any event. I'm quite keen to make this again, hopefully soon. I might even devour them all myself!

Apparently, in many places there is a further step of sliding a raw egg into the middles, and putting them back in the oven until the egg is cooked to your liking. This seems to be a breakfast iteration, and is very popular in cafes - which makes perfect sense, as someone else gets to get up early to make the dough. I imagine you could cobble together some sort of advance preparation and hold them in the fridge until ready to cook, but frankly even the idea of that makes me a little nervous, and would take up a lot of precious real estate in my tiny fridge. Perhaps some of the more adventurous bread bakers out there can let me know if they've had success with such a method.

Banana Pineapple Muffins

It wouldn't be wrong to say that these muffins are the flavour of my childhood.

I don't know where my mother got the recipe for these, or what she might have done to any original recipe she might have been working from. "A recipe is an excellent place from which to depart" was pretty much her battle cry in the kitchen. We made all manner of variations on this, though. Very strict naming protocols do apply: if you leave out the banana, for example, it becomes Un-Banana Pineapple Muffins. If you decide to make a tea loaf instead of muffins, they become Banana Pineapple Un-Muffins. I even recall a singular day when we had Un-Banana Un-Pineapple Un-Muffins. I think my father might have been suspicious as to what exactly was still in those ones.

These are a homely little muffin - not winning any beauty pageants, but a solid coffee/tea/snack break workhorse and (clocking in at about 200 calories per) for far fewer calories than even the driest of coffee-chain muffins. Pep them up with a 15 second blast in the microwave after the first day.

Banana Pineapple Muffins

Makes 12 regular sized muffins

3/4 cup golden sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 egg
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup crushed pineapple, drained
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt (I use Kosher salt)

Mix ingredients in order given, being careful not to over-mix. Spoon batter into lightly spritzed muffin cups.

Bake at 350-375 F for about 20 minutes, and use a toothpick test for doneness (an inserted toothpick should come out clean). If you like, add a little nutmeg or cinnamon to the batter and sprinkle some on top as well, before baking.

My sister reports that adding two (heaping) tablespoons of cocoa powder and a quarter cup of large flake coconut makes a wonderful variation, and I'm looking forward to giving that one a whirl myself.

Coconut Friands

These were the sleeper hit of the season!

I generally tend to have dried coconut around the house - it's wonderful in a lot of baked goods, perks up a bowl of oatmeal, and makes a nifty sambal or chutney. A spoonful in a choco-banana smoothie almost turns a breakfast beverage into a party single handedly.

For all of that, I don't often feature coconut in all of its glory all that often. Sure, I've made the odd macaroon in my day, who hasn't? People like coconut macaroons. But! I suspect that people would probably like coconut friands even better.

I found this recipe on the delightful Girl Cooks World blog, where she subtitles them "little coconut tea cakes", which is a very good description to highlight the differences between friands and macaroons. She also differentiates them from the potentially related financiers, for which she also has a few recipes (and boy, they look good!).

These are gluten free (Girl Cooks World is quietly, entirely gluten free), which makes them an excellent treat to take to festive occasions where such bounty might be thin on the ground. Your gluten-free friends will be delighted, and so will anyone else who tries them. I halved the recipe, with excellent results (as listed below), but you can certainly "double" it again to get 24 lovely little cakes. Don't worry, they won't have a chance to get stale.

Coconut Friands

Makes 12 mini tea cakes

2 large egg whites
3/4 cup finely shredded unsweetened dried coconut
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons superfine rice flour
1 1/2 tablespoons potato starch
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Spritz a 12-whole mini muffin tin with cooking spray, generously. Set aside.

Whip the egg whites until smooth and frothy, but not stiff. Add each of the remaining ingredients, in order, stirring well with a spatula between each addition.

Divide the batter between the muffin-cups. Bake for 17 - 20 minutes, or until the edges are tinged with gold. Remove from the oven, and carefully invert over a rack. A quick tap on the bottom of the pan should remove any stragglers, or you can use a little fork to help lift them out. Re-arrange so they are all right-side-up, and allow to cool at room temperature. Dust with confectioner's sugar, if you like.

Excellent, hot or cold.

Next time I make these, I plan to add a little lime zest in with the sugar. Doesn't that sound delightful?

Smoked Tuna Skillet Dinner

I didn't grow up with tuna noodle casserole. My mother didn't buy canned fish, and the only pasta casserole that she made was a (delicious) baked spaghetti. I was highly sensitive to fish when I was young, we considered an allergy even though it wasn't a true anaphylactic risk. It was fairly unpleasant, and when the rest of the family was having fish, I usually had a fried egg instead. Also, I hated peas with the fiery intensity of a thousand suns. I'm over both of those things now, but you can only imagine how shocked my poor mom would be, if she could see me making this dish.

The beauty of not having a childhood tradition to draw on for tuna + noodles is that I don't have any sense of nostalgia forcing my hand in terms of specific ingredients, methodology or presentation in order to get it "right." I just get to mess around with some tasty food, and share the results with you.

This is a grown-up sort of skillet dinner - the smoked tuna is quite strong, so you don't need as much of it as some other recipes might suggest. If you can't get smoked tuna, you may wish to use a little extra of the regular kind, and perhaps add a drop or two of liquid smoke to get a similar effect. This recipe was adapted from Eating Well.

Smoked Tuna Skillet Dinner

Serves 4

200 g broad German egg noodles
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced small
100 grams cremini mushrooms
2 teaspoons Mushroom Base (I use Better than Bouillon)
2 tablespoons dry Sherry
1 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour
3 cups 1% Milk
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
160 grams Smoked Albacore Tuna
1 cup frozen green peas
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons Panko-style bread crumbs

Position rack in upper third of oven and preheat broiler.

Meanwhile, heat butter in a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, mushrooms and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring often, until the onion is softened. Add sherry and cook and stir until evaporated. Shake together the milk and flour until smooth. Add milk and pepper and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly. Then, stir in the dry noodles, along with an extra cup of hot water (the pan will be very full). Cook and stir until the noodles have absorbed the extra water, and are tender, and the sauce has thickened. If it starts looking too dry, add a little more water, a couple of tablespoons at a time. Stir in tuna (broken into small chunks), peas and 1/2 the Parmesan until evenly incorporated.

Sprinkle the casserole with panko and the remaining Parmesan. Broil until bubbly and lightly browned on top, 3 to 4 minutes. The broiler does dry the dish out a bit more (the one pictured is actually a little drier than I wanted it to be), so if you think it's just right going in...keep a close eye on it, or add an "insurance" tablespoon of water to loosen thing up.

There's not a lot of vegetables in this, obviously, so a nice broccoli on the side is a good idea (or tossed green salad, or other tasty plant of your choice).

Pork Breakfast Sausage

We wanted to have breakfast in, today. However, it was already quite late, and while we had eggs, we had no bread-stuffs (not even tortillas!), no potatoes, no bacon or sausage, and no mushrooms or tomatoes to grill. We had eggs and cheese, but nothing else to round out into omelettes, for example. Last week's "clean the fridge" efforts had been a little too effective.

However, all was not lost! On my way home last night I impulse-purchased a package of fresh ground pork. Because that's the kind of impulse-buying I do - not candy, not chips, oh no. I buy raw meat. And sometimes broccoli, but that's a different story.

We live close to a lovely Italian bakery, so I sent Palle out for bread (to serve as a toast raft for scrambled eggs, as you can see from the picture). While he was gone, I put the coffee on and started mixing up some homemade sausage. It didn't take long at all, and I had a nice ball of sausage meat ready for shaping and cooking when he arrived with a fresh loaf of Tuscan bread.

These have a fairly pronounced fennel flavour - if you do not want fennel to be quite so prominent, reduce the fennel seeds to 1/4 teaspoon. If you are aiming for a spicy sausage, add a 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne (depending on the level of heat that you want), and a big pinch of chile flakes to your spice mixture.

If you are watching your sodium, you might want to cut the kosher salt back to 3/4 teaspoon, but these are already lower in sodium than many sausages on the market.

Pork Breakfast Sausage

Makes six patties, or 9 sausages (about 3 servings)

500 g medium ground pork
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Combine the salt, paprika, fennel, granulated onion, and peppercorns in a spice grinder (or molcajete) and grind until fairly smooth (if you like a bit of bite from your fennel and black pepper, stop grinding sooner, so that there are chunky bits). Combine spice mixture with the ground pork, mixing well with your fingers to get it all worked through. The paprika will slightly darken the overall colour of the meat.

You can use this right away (as I did this morning), but it would be even better to make it up the night before, and let the flavours combine in the fridge overnight.

Divide into six pieces, flatten into patties (or roll into sausage shapes) and fry in a medium-hot skillet until cooked through, turning as needed to get a nice golden-brown colour over the whole surface.

So there you have it! Rather simple, and easily made even before the coffee has brewed: delicious sausage without preservatives or bread fillers, just pork and flavour.

We were pretty excited by how well the sausage turned out, and are already plotting and scheming future sausage endeavours. I am planning to make some up for the freezer - after all, sausage is good to have on hand: pizza, pasta, sausage & potato dinners, and skillet dinners of all kinds, as well as the breakfast applications. I think I might make some up as meatballs, too - can you visualize a sausage meatball breakfast platter? I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it!

Couscous with Lemon & Mint

This works as either a cold salad or as a hot side dish (add some chickpeas either way, to make it a main-course in itself). It is both very easy to make, and very quick. As you can imagine, the lemon and mint flavours conjure the mediterranean climate, so let that be your guide for choosing something to serve with it - a nice Greek salad, perhaps, or some falafel patties, or perhaps a braised lamb shank or a merguez tagine. Its low effort requirement make it perfect for either summer nights when you don't feel much like cooking (or turning on the stove), or as a last-minute way to round out a bit of leftover stew that seemed smaller than you remembered when you pulled it out of the freezer.

I recommend using any bell pepper except green, here. The red, orange, and yellow peppers are much sweeter, and complement the flavours of the mint and lemon. The green bell pepper would impart a more bitter, vegetal flavour - not necessarily a disaster, of course, but less harmonious for the dish overall.

Couscous with Lemon & Mint
Serves 4

1 cup coarse dry couscous (not Israeli style)
1 yellow bell pepper (or other sweet pepper), finely diced
1 green onion, finely sliced (white and green)
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 - 2 tablespoons good olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup fresh mint chiffonade
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/4 cups boiling water

You need to make this dish in a container with a tight fitting lid - you can either use a metal saucepan (heat the water, remove from heat, add the salt, sprinkle the couscous evenly over the surface, cover, wait), or a ceramic or tempered glass bowl with a lid (heat the water separately, pour into bowl, etc.) but if your lid is not tight-fitting, you may want to drape a heavy kitchen towel over the top. Make sure you allow room for the couscous to expand - allow at least four times as much room as couscous.

Whichever method you choose, prepare the couscous and let it stand, covered well, for about ten minutes, while you prepare your lemon, mint, green onion, and bell pepper.

Combine the lemon juice, zest, olive oil, and cumin, and whisk together as if you were making a vinaigrette. Place the chopped bell pepper into a serving bowl with the sliced green onion, and pour half of the vinaigrette over top. Prepare the mint chiffonade and set aside. When the couscous is ready, remove the lid and fluff carefully with a fork - be patient, and scrape the tines of the fork over the surface, going increasingly deeper, until you have loosened all of it. Add the fluffed up couscous to the serving bowl, and pour in the rest of the vinaigrette. Stir with a fork to combine thoroughly, letting the couscous soak up the liquid from the lemony dressing. Stir in the mint, and serve (hot), or chill for an hour or so to serve as a cold salad.

This dish is tasty whether you are eating it hot, warm, room temperature, or cold. If you are going to add chickpeas, add one cup of cooked (drained) chickpeas to the bell peppers and vinaigrette, tossing well to coat. If you are intending to serve the dish hot, you may want to heat the chickpeas up first.

I love having leftovers of this for my lunch - it packs really well, because the couscous absorbs all of the liquid, making for easy, mess-free transportation.