Warm bean and citrus salad

This recipe was originally created for Urban Harvest, do go check out their website for some great produce and other recipe ideas.

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This is a great way to kill two birds with one stone, take advantage of the abundance of beans available at this time of year and utilise the citrus on offer. It’s not too complicated and definitely not time consuming to make, I used a variety of beans to profit from the various sizes and textures, but if you prefer green beans will do. The salad makes a satisfying light lunch or a ideal salad to accompany a BBQ, the weather giving us all an excuse to dine al fresco.

400 g Beans
2-3 Oranges
2-3 Lemons
Ewes milk feta
Olive oil
Dijon mustard
Mint (optional)

Put a pot of decently salted water on to boil. Pinch (or cut) the stem end of the beans off and discard. When the water is up to the boil, blanch the beans for about 4 minutes, you want them to be almost cooked, still have a good bite, as we’re not shocking them in ice water the beans will continue to cook once strained.

Peel the oranges with a knife and cut the segments by running the knife down each side membrane, or in other words supreme the oranges.

In a bowl combine 1 part lemon juice, 3 parts olive oil, a spoonful of dijon mustard and whisk together, the mustard helps emulsify the oil and juice together to create a homogeneous sauce. Season well with salt and pepper.

When the beans are cooked, drain off the liquid and tip into the bowl with the vinaigrette along with the orange segments, toss the beans and adjust the seasoning as necessary.

Arrange the beans on a serving plate, scatter some finely sliced mint over top, crumble over the feta and finish off with any remaining vinaigrette.

Wine Cocktails

Hot summer days are always a good and easy excuse to get boozy, especially if it is ice cold and does a particularly good job at hiding how potent it is. One such drink that seems to crop up again and again in our household on particularly scorching days is the good old wine cocktail. The quantities below will comfortably fill a two litre jug and keep a small group happy and boozy.

1 Bottle still white wine
1 Bottle sparkling white wine (drier the better IMO)
250 ml Brandy
1 Orange sliced and frozen
1 Peach sliced and frozen
Pomegranate seeds and Strawberries to garnish

It's not rocket science, mix the whole lot together in a jug and then place a couple of sliced strawberries and generous amount of pomegranate seeds in each glass, pour, and oh yeah drink responsibly (no left overs).

Duck Confit

Confit of duck with a citrus fennel salad and green beans. The acidic salad really helps to cut the richness of the duck and green beans clean the palate.

With the prep all done and 24 hours later the duck was ready to cook. I'm cooking it in the slow cooker on warm mode. I spent most of saturday checking the temperatures of a slow cooker filled with water every 30 minutes. On low the water started getting up to 80°C and it looked like it was levelling out, but no it started going up to 100°C. So I tried the keep warm setting next, this thankfully levelled out at 80°C.


I vacuum sealed in a separate compartment some spoons to weigh down the duck.


The duck leg out of the cure and rinsed, ready to dry. Once patted dry it gets placed in the bag and vacuum sealed.


Almost midnight, the duck gets put in to the slow cooker.


9am, the duck is pulled from the slow cooker and allowed to cool before refrigerating.


Out of the fridge at dinner time and ready to get cooked.


Scrape all the fat and jellied cooking liquids of the duck legs.


In a very hot dry pan place the legs skin side down to crisp up it. When the skin is golden and crisp place it in to a hot oven.


Cook until the leg is warmed through.


The skin is crisp but at the same time melts on the tongue. The meat is moist, and falling off the bone tender.

Fennel Salad

The main players: Orange, Lemon, Fennel and Sorrel. I wanted to make something sharp and acidic to cut through the rich fat of the duck.


I toasted some fennel seeds to add another layer of the fennel flavour.


Thin slices of fennel with orange supreme, dusted with the ground toasted fennel seed.


Dressed with some Dijon mustard, orange and lemon juice, herb oil and sliced sorrel. Let this sit for a few minutes so the acid starts to wilt the fennel.

Orange Salad

A good day out shopping in the weekend, slightly disappointing lunch (they had just sold the last lamb brain before I ordered). But got home with some goodies, elderflower cordial, buffalo mozzarella, smoked salt, paprika and more vacuum bags.

I whipped up a quick salad for a light afternoon tea, and really wanted to taste the smoked salt. I tore up some of the mozzarella, sliced a little onion paper thin, supreme an orange, laid it out on the plate drizzled some olive oil and orange juice over it, and sprinkled over the smoked salt.

Went really well with my elderflower (vodka) & soda.