Easter Holidays

I picked this zucchini the other day:

and because it is school holidays came down the next morning to find this:

which really gives it a personality of its own.

We had a lovely Easter, with friends to stay, shooting, paddock picnics and way too much cheese:

why do I love it so much??

The boys all went to a shoot at a neighbour's lake and bought home some ducks, we decided to teach the children to pluck and breast the birds ready for cooking.

 We breasted the smaller birds and left the black ducks whole for roasting.  Wild duck can be gamey and quite strong so we decided to make a duck red thai curry.  It was surprisingly good.  Here is what we did:

WILD DUCK RED THAI CURRY

This amount would have served about 8.  If you have too much paste you could keep it for another curry.

Paste:

In a food processor combine the following ingredients:

1/2 an onion

2 cloves garlic, peeled

a small knob ginger, peeled

1 red chilli, roughly chopped (remove seeds if you don't like it too hot)

some chopped lemongrass if you have it (we didn't so I squeezed in some lemon juice)

1 teasp ground cumin

1teasp ground coriander

1 tblsp fish sauce

1 dessp sugar

juice of one lime

1 tablespoon coconut cream (we used the rest in the actual curry)

Whizz the lot and have a taste to make sure all is well.

We then put all the duck breasts on an oven tray and cooked them at 200c for about 15 minutes.  It looks like a lot but they are really quite small.

In a pan heat a slosh of neutral oil (grapeseed or the like), add a chopped onion and a clove of crushed garlic and fry gently until soft.  Add a couple of tablespoons of the paste and cook for a couple of minutes.  I also added some chopped baby spinach for a bit of green.

Slice the duck and add to the pan with the rest of the can of coconut cream and simmer gently for five minutes.  At this point you should taste it to check the seasoning.  Add more fish sauce if it needs a little salt.  Serve with rice and a good scattering of coriander.