I’m going to be honest and say that my brain is unable to formulate anything witty or quirky at the moment, but I will say this though; this recipe post might have just caused me to earn myself the workout of a lifetime.  Feel free to just proceed for recipes and see how today’s cooking marathon went. I posted the steps for the recipes in the chronological order that I did them in - this allows maximization of time to get everything done as quickly as possible. In any case, if you’re ever curious as to what it would be like to cook 4 different food in the span of a few hours, feel free to follow the steps to the letter and see yourself reaching the finish line (even if completely worn out) rather victoriously.

Eggs have a special symbolic significance in China as they symbolize fertility, and even though I’m not looking towards incubating anything anytime soon, I made these because I love the look of marbled eggwhites. I think it’s fun to see what kind of pattern you get as you peel the eggshells…or maybe that’s just me. In any case, enjoy. 

TEA EGGS:

[ 5-6 eggs + 3/4 cup soy sauce + 2 star anise + 2 tablespoon (or 2 bags) of black tea + 1 cinnamon stick + 1 teaspoon sugar + 1 tablespoon Chinese 5 spice powder ]

Put the eggs in saucepan and cover with water until fully immersed. Add some salt to the water and put on high heat. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat so that it simmers for about 15-20 minutes.

At the same time, combine soy sauce, sugar, star anise, cinnamon stick and Chinese 5 spice powder with 2 cups water and bring to a boil in a saucepan.

Remove from heat and add tea. Let steep for 10 minutes.

Drain and rinse the eggs with cold water and then using a spoon or a knife, gently tap the shell to crack it.

Return the eggs to the soy-sauce mixture saucepan. Bring to a boil and let cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Take off from the heat and then let cool in marinade for an hour or two before serving.

Once the eggs have cooled down, leave it alone to steep while you prepare other things, like the duck, for example;

I must admit I’ve never cooked a whole anything before so this duck was my first (there was a lot of squirming while I stuck my hand to rub inside the cavity. It also came with the head still attached and I literally begged the household management team to discard it for me). I personally am not particularly fond of duck because of the gamey smell.

Making crispy skin duck itself proved to be a very daunting task because you always hear cooking tales of crispy duck; how it has to be bathed in boiling water or have air blown in between the skin and meat to ensure crispness. I for one know that I’ll want a foolproof recipe and I happened to find one courtesy of Jamie Oliver. I don’t know if I’m allowed to call it a Peking duck since it’s not a Peking duck and it’s cooked in a shortcut rather than the traditional method, but that was the name on the recipe.

Trivia: Did you know that duck symbolizes fidelity in the Chinese culture?

CRISPY [PEKING] DUCK (recipe by Jamie Oliver)

[ 1 whole duck + 1/2 tablespoon salt + 1 tablespoon grated ginger + 1-2 tablespoon Chinese 5 spice powder ]

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/325ºF/gas 3.

Rub the duck with salt, inside and out. Rub the grated ginger round the cavity, leaving the ginger inside to flavour.

Dust the duck all over with 5-spice powder and then place it on a rack on top of a roasting tray.

Leave it in the oven for the first 1 hour and all you’ll need to do is check on it every so often and spoon away the excess fat that has rendered out of the duck. This will make the skin go wonderfully crispy.

While you wait for the bird to cook, do something else, like make the Flaky Swirl Mooncake (make it, but don’t bake it yet!)

The Flaky Swirl Mooncake has intrigued me for a while now. I found a picture of it accidentally while browsing for I-don’t-even-remember-what-anymore, and thought that it looked very unique. Unlike the more popular mooncakes, this one doesn’t use a mold and is very flakey instead of gelatinous. It’s made from 2 types of dough - the “water” dough and the “oil” dough; rolled up a couple of times to make the signature planet-like appearance.

FLAKY SWIRL MOONCAKE (recipe from House of Annie) = WATER DOUGH + OIL DOUGH + FILLING

WATER DOUGH:

[ 2 cups all purpose flour + 1/4 cup icing sugar + salt + 1/3 cup cold butter + 1/3 cup cold water ]

Sift flour, sugar and salt. Then cut butter into flour mixture using fingertips or pastry blender until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Add in water and mix to form a soft, non-sticky dough. If it is sticky, you will need to add a bit more flour to get it to be the right texture.

You should be able to form a soft ball that won’t stick to your hands. You don’t have to knead it. Cover and set aside to rest for 20 mins.

Now prepare the oil dough:

OIL DOUGH:

[1 3/4 cups all purpose flour + salt + 1/2 cup oil + 1 teaspoon food colouring of flavour essence of your choice ]

Sift flour and salt.

Then, make a well in the centre of the flour and add in oil and food colouring or essence.

Draw in the flour from the sides and mix to form a soft even coloured dough (same thing here, if it’s too sticky, add more dough till you form a soft ball that doesn’t stick to your hands). Do not over-mix. Cover and set aside for 20 mins.

ASSEMBLY:

Divide Water Dough (WD) and Oil Dough (OD) into 10 equal pieces and roll into balls.

Take one ball of WB and flatten it up using your palm or a rolling pin. Take one ball of OD and put it in the middle. Wrap WD around OD. Pinch to seal edges.

With the sealed side facing up, roll into a rectangle. Roll up tightly to form a cylinder.

Turn the cylinder 90 degrees, with the sealed end facing up. Roll out again into a long thin strip.

Roll it up tightly again and then using a sharp knife or a pastry cutter, cut the cylinder in the middle into two pieces.

With the cut side facing down, flatten the dough, making the edges slightly thinner than the centre.

Wrap the filling and pinch to seal. Try not to ‘tug/pull’ too hard, otherwise the layers will tear. Best to flatten the dough larger than smaller so it’s easier to pinch. And when you pinch, you will find that the bottom looks ugly—don’t worry about it. Repeat these steps to the rest of the WD and OD balls; it’s a bit time consuming but definitely worth it.

Set these aside until it’s time to bake them.

Check on the duck:

Make sure that the heat is high enough (but not too high) that the fat is rendering out. You can now flip the duck so that he belly side is facing up and then return it in the oven for another hour or so.

Generally, after about 2 hours of complete cooking time it will be perfect – the leg meat will pull off the bone and the skin will be wonderfully crisp. Near the end of the cooking time, you can turn the heat up to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6 for a short while until the skin’s really crispy.

Now you can carve and cut duck meat, put it in a plate and tent it with foil and then leave it in the oven to keep warm. Get the storebought pancakes and plum sauce, scallions and cucumber sticks ready. If you can’t get storebought pancakes, then make some:

PANCAKE for CRISPY DUCK:

[ 1/2 cup all purpose flour + 1/4 cup water + 1/4 cup milk + 2 tablespoon cornstarch + 1 egg ]

Whisk all the ingredients together until combined, then leave the batter to sit for 5-10 minutes.

Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Brush with some oil or butter.

Pour a tablespoonful of batter into frying pan. Spread to form a thin pancake, about 16cm in diameter. Cook for 2 minutes. Turn and cook for a further 1 minute. Transfer to a plate.

Repeat with remaining batter. Set pancakes aside.

Now we’re coming up to the last leg of the marathon, and this is where things get speedy. Get your duck out of the oven and turn it up to 185C.

Get your mooncakes and place them sealed side down on lined baking tray and bake for about 30 mins until the top and bottom are a light golden brown.

While this is happening, go make the long-life noodles:

Noodles are eaten as part of the Chinese tradition on birthdays, new year and weddings because noodles are said to represent long life, so be prepared to slurp these baby up or risk having your life shortened by a couple of ends.

NOODLES with GARLIC-PONZU SHRIMP (adapted from the recipe by Wolfgang Puck):

[ 1 pound fresh large shrimp, shelled and deveined + 2 tablespoon vegetable oil + 1/2 cup sliced shiitake mushrooms + 1 cup sliced baby bok choy or tatsoi leaves + 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced + 2-3 shallots, sliced + 1 pound lo-mein noodles or spaghetti, cooked al-dente following the package instructions + 1/4 cup storebought Ponzu sauce + 1/4 cup thinly sliced scallions to scatter on top ] 

NOTE: If you can’t find Ponzu sauce, then substitute it by adding orange juice, lemon juice and dried red pepper flakes to some regular soy sauce.

Preheat wok or large skillet over high heat.

Using paper towels, pat shrimp dry. Lightly season shrimp with salt and pepper. Add 1 tablespoons oil to wok. Heat until oil swirls easily and gives off thin haze. Immediately add the shrimp. Stir-fry for 2 to 3 minutes or just until they turn pink. Remove shrimp to strainer. Set aside to drain oil.

Drizzle remaining oil into hot wok. Heat until hot. Immediately add mushrooms and bok choy. Stir-fry for 3 to 5 minutes or just until colors are bright and vegetables are tender but still slightly crunchy.

Add garlic, shallots and noodles to vegetables in wok, separating noodles as you add them. Stir-fry for 2 to 3 minutes or until noodles are heated through and garlic is fragrant. Return shrimp to wok. 

Add ponzu sauce. Stir-fry, tossing well, until the sauce is hot and coats all ingredients.

Transfer mixture to serving bowl or platter. Arrange some shrimp attractively on top. Garnish with scallions. Serve immediately.

Now get the rest of your food; the duck and pancakes (with all the extras)…

Drain the eggs out of the marinating mixture…

And serve!

Enjoy and a Happy Chinese New Year!

foodchallenges:

Well, here we are, tumblr! September 1st! Make sure to check out the list of thank-yous before proceeding with this post to find out your mystery ingredient for the month! And.. let’s try to pretend I’m not a half hour late, haha.

Now… drumroll please?

Dun dun duuuuuuuun!…

And again I’d like to take a quick second to thank my super über best friend Chilly, for providing us this month not only with the secret ingredient itself, but the photograph as well!

That’s right folks—the mystery ingredient of September 2011 is now revealed! Bananas!

Please excuse me if I come up with any less-than-witty puns while writing this, because it just might happen…

More specifically though than just ‘bananas’, the challenge does include all fruits that fall under the genus ‘musa’. This means not only the sweeter variety of banana as pictured above (often referred to as ‘dessert bananas’), but also plantains, known also as ‘cooking bananas’. And if you can get your hands on any red bananas, latundans, banana leaves, wild bananas, banana liqueurs, or any of those other crazy varieties or banana parts… well, have at them!

Bananas are a non-seasonal plant, which means they’re available year round around the world! They’re fairly simple to grow and cultivate in various places, and there is an absolute abundance of them, which also means cheap prices in general.

Cooking Tips:

The different stages of ripeness in a dessert banana or cooking banana makes a difference! On average, plantains/cooking bananas are used while still slightly green for firmness or lightly yellow with spots. Dessert bananas are usually used while yellow or darker brown. And this is because..

The greener a banana or plantain is, the higher the starch content of the fruit is. The darker brown the outer skin begins to turn, the more sugar content it has! Over time, the starch slowly decays in to sugars. This is particularly good when using bananas in desserts, they bring such a large amount of natural sweetness.  Plantains, being generally larger than dessert bananas, have a higher starch content than dessert bananas. They don’t ever really get too sweet.

The higher the starch content, the greener and firmer the banana or plantain is.

The higher the sugar content, the browner and softer the banana or plantain is.

Usually, at what stage people end up using them is entirely personal preference!

In conclusion…

This is the very first tumblr food challenge, ever! Get on the wagon and join us, spread the word, and come up with a wonderful dish that includes a wonderful fruit and you’ll win the very first challenge!

After you have conceptualized and made your dish, take a picture if you can and blog about it! Inform me here through the ask box so I can then reblog it, or submit your post directly to the blog! Watch other recipes come flooding in, and feel free to store away recipes for future use.

And when you’ve done that, hop on over and suggest the theme ingredient/dish for next month and have a chance to have it chosen and get a feature!

Remember, you will only win the challenge if you make a post and submit it before 11:59pm in your timezone, the 30th of September.

So let’s go blog about bananas!

The Tumblr Food Challenge is the brainchild of aspiring chef Andy of SuperCulinaryTimes.

Get the brain stormin’ and join in the fun!

A friend of mine gave me a link for desserts in jars and I thought they were absolutely ingenious. It’s a great use for those jars that have accumulated from the jams and/or exotic dish pastes you’ve bought (because there’s no way in hell you’ll ever be able to make them). And it just seems more personalized to serve a person their own individual dessert in jar rather than have them cut a piece from one dish. Anyways, I thought lemon meringue pie would be good inside a jar, partly because I was too lazy to make a cake. And this really is the express recipe, only requiring about 30 minutes because there’s no fussing about with making a shortcrust pastry and the leftover lemon curds can be used for…just about any other desserts.

Lemon Curd (recipe from Simply So Good):

[ 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened +  1 cup sugar + 2 large eggs + 2 large egg yolks + 2/3 cup fresh lemon juice + 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest ]

First things first: separate the eggs and juice the lemon. You might want to pass the lemon juice through a tea strainer once just to get the seeds and pulp out.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes.  Add the eggs and yolks and beat another minute.  Mix in the lemon juice. The mixture will look curdled, but it will smooth out as it cooks.

In a medium, heavy saucepan, cook the mixtue over low heat until it looks smooth.  The curdled appearance will begin to disappear as the butter in the mixture melts.  Increase the heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens.  It should take about 15 minutes.  It should leave a path on the back of a spoon when you run a finger through it and will read 170 degrees on a thermometer.  Don’t let the mixture boil.

Remove the curd from the heat; stir in the lemon zest.  Transfer the curd to a bowl.  Press plastic wrap on the surface of the lemon curd to keep a skin from forming and chill the curd in the refrigerator

To make the pie in a jar, all you need is some crackers (Graham, or any other kind for that matter) and use the leftover egg whites from the lemon curd recipe to make a meringue.

Cracker Crust:

[ 1 1/2 cup of crackers + 2 tablespoons unsalted butter + 1 tablespoon sugar ]

Crush the cracker using a food processor or a rolling pin. Add in the sugar. Melt the butter and mix until combined. Set aside.

Meringue:

[ 2 large egg whites + 110g caster sugar ]

Put the egg whites in a large clean mixing bowl. Beat them on medium speed until soft peaks form. 

Turn up the speed and add the caster sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, beating 3-4 seconds between each addition. Don’t over beat or the meringue will weep (turns watery). Set aside.

**Assembly:

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees C.

Prepare your jars. Spoon 2-3 tablespoons of cracker mixture into the bottom of the jar and press down to make a firm base. 

Use a piping bag to fill the jars with the lemon curd until up to 2/3 of the jar height.

Use another piping bag to pipe the meringue on top of the lemon curd layer. 

Put in the oven until the meringue firms and browns.

Enjoy!

Tortellinis are unheard of here (I’ve looked through the supermarkets), and to see frozen ones available is akin to a mirage in the middle of a desert. So today I made tortellinis (and Ricotta!) from scratch…while listening to Westlife. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal in some countries, but that’s okay because Eka has made a request for them and I never say “No” to a foodwish.

Also, I really want to thank my readers for putting up with me being MIA. I’ve lost a couple of followers along the way but I guess that’s life. On a brighter note, my thesis proposal is done and dusted and I still have a few more days to go before exam week rolls in. All is well.

Ricotta & Parmesan Tortellini:

**BEWARE: Making pasta is a long and winding process. Ye have been warned.

Pasta dough (from Thebarefootkitchenwitch):

[ 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour + 5 eggs ]

Mound the flour on your work surface and make a well in the center.  Put your eggs in the well.

Whisk the eggs together with a fork.  As you do this, begin to incorporate flour into the eggs, working around the edges of the well, keeping the walls intact so you don’t have a flood of egg on your counter.

Dust your hands with flour and start kneading.  It will take a while for the whole rough mass to come together into something actually workable. 

When the dough has been kneaded the right amount, you will know.  The surface will be smooth and soft, and as you are kneading, you’ll notice that when you do that pulling part, stretching the surface of the dough, the surface won’t crack any more.At this point, wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

During this time, it is wise to make your filling while waiting:

Ricotta & Parmesan Filling:

[Ricotta cheese + Parmesan, grated + a sprinkle of black pepper]

I know this is very arbitrary, but I really didn’t measure the amount for the filling. Go with your guts and mix in the ratio that feels right to you (eyeball it if you have to!). Mix the ingredients together and set aside.

Unwrap the ball of dough, and cut it into quarters.  Keep one of them out and wrap up the other three.  This is a very dry dough - it won’t stick to your work surface, for instance, so you do not need to dust that with flour.  It’s great to work with, but if you don’t keep it wrapped up, it will dry out quickly. 

Get your rolling pin out and flatten the piece of dough a bit.  Now start rolling.  This isn’t a quick and easy process, like rolling out cookie dough.  Blame the gluten strands.  And just keep rolling.  You want to roll from the center out - away from you and toward you.  Flip the dough over, and do it again.  Middle, away.  Middle, toward.  If your work surface is large enough, you can roll this out into a circle, or something approximating a circle.

You can always use a pasta machine to make it easier on yourself. You need to start the dough off as a long, slender piece and put the pasta machine on the widest setting, pass the dough through a couple of times, and then move the setting to the next one, rolling the dough through a couple times and narrowing the space between the rollers, over and over, until you get a long, very thin, sheet of dough.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the luxury, so I ended up rolling out the sheets of dough to the appropriate thickness. I can feel the hum of my biceps and trapezius muscle during this pastaerobics. 

Anyways, cut circles on the dough using whatever circle-thingamajig you have.

Spoon in a half to one teaspoon of filling for each circle (this of course, also depends on the size of your circle. Again, eyeball the amount that looks right).

Now we get to the fun part; the actual folding and nipping to make the tortellini shape:

Dab some water on the edge the circle.

Fold circle in half and seal tightly.

Using your thumb or index finger, push the filling up and then fold the edges inwards and seal tightly. You should end up with a shape that’s similar to the one below.

Keep doing it until you’re surrounded by these little cuties. Set aside.

Now Eka asked me to recommend a dish that goes well with tortellinis. Every time I think about tortellinis I think soup. Or pesto. And I don’t like pesto so I’m going with soup, Minestrone to be exact. Now there isn’t a set recipe for Minestrone because it always uses vegetables that are in season. So play around with it and see what combinations you can come up with. The one below is my version of it:

Minestrone Soup:

[ 1 tablespoon Olive Oil + 1 small onion + 3 cloves of garlic (not in picture) + 1 carrot + 4 tomatoes + a bunch of button mushroom + 1 courgette + 1/2 green bell pepper  + 500ml stock (vegetable,chicken, whatever) + Salt&Pepper to taste ]

Chop the vegetables (I am soooo not going to dictate on how you chop your vegetables. Do it whichever way you like).

Heat the olive oil in a pan. Add the onion and garlic, season to taste. Cook for 5 minutes or until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the carrot and cook for another 5 minutes.

Add in the tomatoes and break up slightly with a wooden spoon.

Add in the stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Add in the courgette and mushroom last, leave to simmer for another 5 minutes. 

Now you have 2 choices, you can either:

- Cook the tortellinis in a separate pot and then put them in at the last minutes, or

- Throw in the tortellinis straight into the soup and cook for 3-4 minutes.

I went with the latter in attempt to minimize the dishwashing afterwards.

Serve in a bowl/plate with parsley scattered on top and with shaves of Parmesan.

Enjoy!

A fellow foodie and I once talked about how awesome it would to be to stuff Caprese salad (Fresh tomatoes, basil and mozarella drizzled with olive oil and sometimes balsamic vinegar) between two slabs of bread to make a sandwich. He then came up with the idea of stuffing it between two slices of bruschetta, hence this recipe.

I’ve held back from making this sandwich because there’s no fresh mozarella to be found anywhere in this place. It’s considered taboo to put aged mozarella in a Caprese. More so than putting in grilled tomatoes. But when the supermarket hands you aged mozzie, then you’re going to use the aged mozzie. If you have the fresh alternative, then use that to get the more authentic flavour. I also used French baguette instead of Italian bread, but I think any bread that will hold its shape will do.

Grilled Caprese Sandwich:

[ Italian Bread or French Baguette + 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided + 1 teaspoon minced garlic + 3 medium ripe tomatoes, sliced + Mozarella cheese, sliced thinly + A handful of medium basil leaves + 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (optional) + Sea salt + Freshly ground black pepper ]

Cut 4 slices of bread, each about 1/2 inches thick

Combine 1 tablespoon of olive oil with the minced garlic and 1 tablespoon with the balsamic vinegar.

Prepare a grill or oven for medium heat (150-180 degrees celsius). Brush 1 side of  of bread with the garlic-oil.

Lay bread oil side down on grill and cook until slightly toasted, about 2 minutes. Turn 2 of the slices of bread over, lay tomato slices on bread then lay cheese slices over tomatoes.  Cover and cook until cheese starts to melt, about 4 minutes.

Transfer sandwiches onto a platter, put basil leaves over each sandwhich and drizzle with the balsamic vinegar-oil. Sprinkle with some salt and pepper to taste.

Put the other 2 grilled slices of bread on top of each sandwich.

Enjoy!

Don’t be scared off by the word Frangipane; what it is is just a filling flavoured with ground almonds or almond meal. Sometimes when I look at recipes of fancy pastries and cakes I’d get intimidated when alien words like Crème Chantilly (whipped cream flavoured with sugar and vanilla) or Zabaglione (light custard) pop up . I don’t know why pâtisseries decided to invent such terminologies. Anyways, this is a jam and frangipane tart that will put a pleasant end to any meal. You can always substitute the blueberry jam with any other flavours or even some fresh fruit that’s in season. Mine turned out much runnier than expected; the frangipane is supposed to turn out like sponge cakes. I think it was because the ratio of butter and almond meal (in the recipe that I used) was not 1:1; so I did some research and fixed that in the recipe below. Fingers (and toes) crossed!

Blueberry Jam and Frangipane Tart:

1. Pie Crust = [125g frozen, unsalted butter, chopped + 250g all purpose flour + 1 teaspoon salt + 2 to 3 tablespoon iced water (if needed) ]

2. Frangipane = [ 150g caster sugar + 150g unsalted butter + 150g almond meal + 1 tablespoon flour + 1 egg + 1 teaspoon vanilla essence + zest of half an orange ]

3. Blueberry Jam [ OPTIONAL: + juice of a quarter of an orange ]

To make the pie crust: add the flour, salt and butter to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add water (if needed) until the dough comes together.

Wrap in cling wrap, then rest in the fridge for a minimum time of 30 minutes

On a lightly floured surface, roll out half of the pastry until 3-4mm thick.

Line the tart tin with pastry. Poke some holes for vent using a fork.

Then line the pastry with foil, fill with baking beans or pastry weights and bake blind for 15 mins until firm. Carefully remove the foil and beans and bake for a further 5 mins until the pastry base is dry and lightly golden. Allow to cool.

To make frangipane: Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg then fold in almond meal, orange zest and vanilla. Chill the mixture.

Assembly: Get the pie crust that has been cooled down, the frangipane mixture and the jam.

Spread the cooled pastry base with the berry jam and spoon dollops of frangipane on top. Then spread another layer of berry jam and then lastly the rest of the frangipane. Spread the frangipane layer evenly.

Bake at 160ºC for 20 to 25 mins or until lightly golden and firm. Serve warm or cold.

I served mine with some yoghurt but feel free to serve it on its own or with a dollop of ice cream or whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Sausages and potatoes have always been relied on for a good comfort food for the winter mornings or evenings. This is also a great hangover food, so I say win-win [especially on the morning-after New Year’s]. Essentially this is just a quick braise that can be [should be!] substituted for a stew when you want something warm in a hurry. With this as a foundation, you can add other ingredients to really change it up. Use good quality sausages and serve with some bread for a complete meal.

Braised Sausages and Potatoes:

Serves 2:

[ 4 sausages (beef/chicken/pork) + 3 tablespoons of Olive Oil + 3 Potatoes + 1 onion + 3 cloves of garlic + 200ml chicken stock + A handful of fresh parsley ]

In a deep skillet or dutch oven on medium-high heat, warm up some olive oil and throw in the sausages.

Brown evenly and set aside

Turn stove to medium. Roughly chop an onion and throw into skillet with the remaining oil. Crush the garlic and cut the potatoes into bite sized pieces and throw them in too. Sautee until potatoes begin to brown.

Return the sausages back into the pan

Add the stock and season to taste with black pepper (and salt if needed). Pop the lid on and leave to simmer on medium heat until stock has reduced a bit.

Grab a handful of fresh parsley

Chop and sprinkle on top of the braised sausages and potatoes. Take off heat and serve immediately.

Enjoy! [I ate it with a heap of mustard] (And a Merry Christmas to those celebrating it!)