Mock Duck

In 6 weeks i'm heading off to China and Hong Kong for a bit of a holiday. So, in preparation for my trip i thought i'd play around with some weird and wonderful ingredients. The first is mock duck - from a can!

I know i'm not the first person to use this, however I still found this ingredient a bit gross, especially when it plopped out of the can!

Investigating further, it seems that this mock duck is fairly harmless having quite normal ingredients - gluten, soy, oil. Nonetheless, by using this ingredient i have probably ruined my reputation of being quite a decent cook!

So, unsure of how it would taste I decided to make a stir fry, using multiple ingredients to drown out the taste/texture of the duck should it be terrible. Now I am a terrible hoarder of sauces and condiments, the pantry and fridge are full of bottles and jars from all over the world. So I grabbed a few of my favourite asian condiments - chilli bean paste, ya cai, minced ginger and soy sauce along with some garlic, broccoli, eggplant, lotus root and spring onion and got ready to stir fry!

The result wasn't too bad! The duck had a 'meaty' texture but its flavour was fine. To be honest the predominant flavour was the chilli bean paste. It still creeps me out that the duck came from a can!

Just in case any of you have a penchant for mock duck i'll post the (rough) recipe below.

Bring on the next weird ingredient! Suggestions anyone?

Sarah xx

Mock Duck Stir Fry

1 can mock duck, drained and sliced

1 small eggplant, sliced into 4cm rings then quartered

1/2 head broccoli

2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

8 slices of lotus root, halved

1 heaped tsp minced ginger

1-2 tbsp chilli bean paste

1 tbsp ya cai

4 stalks spring onion, sliced

Soy sauce to taste

Steam eggplant and broccoli until cooked (the eggplant will take much longer than broccoli.)

Heat a wok and add oil

Add garlic and ginger and cook for 30 seconds

Add lotus root, duck, chilli bean paste and ya cai, cook for 2 minutes

Add broccoli and eggplant, cook for 3-4 minutes until everything is cooked through

Add soy sauce and spring onion, cook for 1 minute

Serve

Homage to My Brother - Tempeh 'Non Carne'

It's widely known in my family that my brother's famous dish is his chilli con carne. It was in fact his only dish for several years! So when i stumbled across a recipe for Tempeh Chilli Con Carne in the Thermomix Vegetarian cookbook i knew it had to be made asap. I actually didn't end up following the recipe as i wanted to make a version that would remind me of my brother's as i haven't eaten his dish for many years since becoming vegetarian. In addition to the chilli, i also made a quick guacamole (1 avocado, juice of 1 lime and 5 sprigs coriander blitzed up) and cooked my rice in the Thermomix.

It took all of 20 minutes to cook the chilli then another 12 for the rice and 1 for the guacamole. I'd say that's a quick meal given that you don't need to actually stand and cook the whole time - you can write blog posts in the meantime!

Thank for the inspiration Sam - i had a delicious dinner! Hope i didn't completely bastardise your version! I think some of the leftovers will be turned into jaffle fillings, on baked potato and in wraps. I love versatile recipes!

Sarah xx

Tempeh 'Non Carne' serves 4

1 onion, quartered

2 cloves garlic

1 long red chilli

200g tempeh, roughly chopped

15g oil

400g tin diced tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)

1/2 tbsp vegie stock concentrate

400g tin kidney beans.

Place onion, garlic and chilli into Thermomix bowl and chop for 3 seconds on speed 6.

Add tempeh and oil into bowl and pulse twice then saute for 4 minutes at 100C on reverse & speed soft.

Add all other ingredients except kidney beans and cook for 8 minutes at 100C on reverse & speed soft.

Add kidney beans and cook for 1 minute at 100C on reverse & speed soft.

Serve with guacamole and steamed rice.