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Garden Pond!

Garden Pond recipe

The tale behind this oddity is nearly a silly as the end result.......

I went on my morning forage to the discounts isle yesterday and spotted some interesting looking sausages. Your standard low cost sausages are off the menu for us as they use Wheat Flour as a packer. On Wednesday evening we’d made a tray bake and the ludicrous question appeared in my mind “What would you call a combination of a giant Yorkshire pudding Toad In The Hole and a Tray Bake?” I came up with Garden Pond! We had all sorts of bits and bobs of vegetables which really needed using up so after joking with Sue I quickly scuttled back to the Supermarket and bought said sausages.

We didn’t have a great deal on yesterday afternoon so a silly idea soon developed into a full scale project. I foraged a few extra fresh herbs to dress the dish and Garden Pond was born! The planting around the pond is Sage, a Ruby Chard flower and Rosemary. The water lillies are Tomatoes, Sage leaves and Chive flowers. In the middle of the pond you can just see Sue Carrot Coy Carp!

Clearly we don’t expect anybody else to try this at home. But if you can’t get the kids to eat their veg a slightly more sane version would make a great talking point and possible incentive…. Nothing was wasted and we finished it this evening.

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Vietnamese Style Caramelized Chicken with Glass Noodles recipe
 
(Yes we have hidden Sprouts – it's Christmas after all!)
 
Vietnamese Style Caramelized Chicken with Glass Noodles recipeFor the Chicken marinade
 
Ingredients:-
 
6 tbsp Soy Sauce
4 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tbsp grated Ginger
1 ½ Lemons juiced
175g soft brown Sugar
2 red Chillies finely chopped
 
Method:-
 
(1) Add all the ingredients to a saucepan.
(2) Heat gently stirring well to prevent the sugar burning.
(3) Simmer until you have a syrup.
(4) Set aside.
 
Roasting ingredients:-
 
1 small Chicken
6 dried Bullet Chillies
Cracked Black Pepper
A dash of Oil
½ Lemon
3 cloves of Garlic
 
Method:-
 
(1) Place the ½ lemon and Garlic cloves in the cavity of the Chicken.
(2) Pour a small amount of oil over the Chicken and season with the cracked Black Pepper.
(3) Pierce the skin of the Chicken three times through each breast and insert the dried Chillies. If you cut the stem end of the Chillies and squeeze gently the seeds will fall into the meat.
(4) Spread half of the marinade over the skin of the Chicken. Keeping the remainder on one side.
(5) Heat the oven to 180c and roast for about an hour or until the juices run clear if you spike the thickest part of the thigh. Don't over cook as you want the meat to hold together in the stir-fry.
(6) Set aside.
 
Stir-Fry:-
 
You can choose your own combination but as this was our Christmas meal we added de-constructed Sprouts for a bit of fun!
 
Ingredients:-
 
4 outer leaves of a Savoy Cabbage
8 Sprouts. Strip the leaves and break up the centres (Yes Sue is a little insane!)
3 small Carrots
2 medium Onions
 
Method:-
 
(1) Drain the cooking juices from the Chicken.
(2) Cut as much meat from the Chicken as you require into medium sized chunks. Not too small or it will break down when you fry it. You can remove the skin if you wish.
(3) Finely chop all the vegetable ingredients. Set aside 2 leaves of the Savoy. You are going to deep fry these.
(4) Heat a large frying pan or Wok.
(5) Depending on whether you are serving with rice or noodles add them to boiling salted water and boil until ready. Drain and cover.
(6) Heat your deep fat fryer.
(7) Add the vegetables to the Chicken cooking juices when the frying pan / Wok is smoking hot and fry until tender.
(8) Add the Chicken at the end and turn everything so the Chicken is heated and coated in the frying broth.
(9) Fry the 2 remaining sliced Savoy leaves until crispy and drain.
 
To serve place your noodles or rice on the plates. Add the stir-fry and dress with the deep fried Savoy leaves and a sprinkling of Coriander if you wish. We have also found by experiment that Glass Noodles behave like Prawn Crackers if you break them up and deep fry them. Warm the remainder of the syrup and put it in a bowl. This can be drizzled over the plated dish and also used as a dip.
 

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