I’m out of action this week, so resharing one of my favourites from last year.
It's the perfect time for a new romance. The summer flings are over, everyone's hunkering down for the winter. When your crush reaches for your hand and their palm is all clammy and gross, it's because they're nervously making a move, not because it's a thousand degrees outside. The sweating has calmed down, but our noses aren't yet frozen. We're all wearing our nice jackets. Instead of stretching out your legs in the afternoon sun caught in a beer garden - god I miss that - you can stretch an arm around your significant other in front of a roaring pub fire, with a Guinness and scampi fries to boot.
Of course, I have absolutely no frame of reference for this as I'm now married and haven't been on the dating scene since I was 22, although at that age it's not all (our Queen) Taylor Swift says it's cracked up to be. Don't get me wrong, my marriage is plenty flirty, but there's no sneaking about. We've got society's free pass to openly flirt on whatever public transport takes our fancy, oh my. Not meaning to toot my own horn - these jokes write themselves - but we are pretty good getting some date nights in the calendar for pre-scheduled romance. It's a joint calendar, so it still counts as seduction when you book a meeting.
Small batch kimchi is always on the go in my kitchen, as are passive aggressive post-it notes from past me to future me.
The only challenging part is if you'd like to make your own kimchi in advance, for which I'd recommend Kimchi by Byung-Hi Lim. If you don't fancy this process you can buy it in most good supermarkets or find your local korean supermarket. Either way, just get your hands on some kimchi, give the wraps a go, crank up the sexy tunes and treat yourselves.
So, in honour of underground romances, I'm dedicating this week's recipe to that lovely TfL couple. I hope they take many a crisp autumnal walk together, followed by a nice ride on the tube.
Duck lettuce wraps
Ingredients
Whole head of garlic
About 150g rice, ideally sticky rice but jasmine works too
2 small duck breasts
A floppy head of lettuce
About a handful of kimchi
3 spring onions
Ssamjang - optional but if you can get it, it's worth including
Coriander
A few lime wedges
Method
Set your oven to 200°C. Wrap your garlic in tin foil or put it in a small covered pot and leave it in the hot oven for at least 30 minutes, so start this a few minutes before everything else.
Cook your rice either according to the packet instructions or however you cook rice. If you have a rice cooker, use that and tell me which rice cooker you have, because I want a rice cooker and need recommendations. Prepare the other ingredients while the rice cooks.
Season your duck breasts all over with sea salt, and put skin side down in a cold, oven-proof frying pan. Turn on a medium heat and leave the duck breasts to heat with the pan.
After about 5 minutes the fat should have seeped out of the duck and the skin will be lovely and golden. Turn the duck breasts and sear on the non-skin side for about 1-2 minutes.
Once the non-skin side has started to brown, turn the duck breasts again so they are skin-side down. Put the pan in the hot oven and set a timer for 5 minutes.
While the duck cooks, chop your kimchi, wash some whole lettuce leaves and chop your spring onions into about 2 inch lengths.
Check the duck is cooked, either by pressing with your finger (you should feel a little resistance but it's still soft), a thermometer (around 61°C degrees) or cut into one if you're not sure. It should still be pink.
Remove the duck from the pan and rest for about 5 minutes. During this time, fry the spring onions in the duck pan.
Once the duck is rested, slice it into about ½ cm slices and top with the spring onions. Get the garlic out the oven.
Assemble the wraps by placing some rice, a few pieces of kimchi, a couple of slices of duck, some ssamjang, some spring onions and coriander all on a lettuce leaf. Squeeze some roasted garlic out of one of the cloves and add. Give it a squeeze of lime juice, then wrap it all up and take a huge bite.