BLOOD ORANGE BOOK RECIPES

Steps:

• 1. Score the duck skin, rub all over with sea salt and black pepper, then place skin side down in a large non-stick frying pan on a medium-high heat.
  2. Sear for 6 minutes, or until the skin is dark golden, then turn and cook for 5 minutes, or to your liking. Remove to a board to rest, leaving the pan on the heat.
  3. Slice 10 thin slices of baguette (keeping the rest for another day).Place in the hot pan with the walnuts to toast and get golden in the duck fat, then remove and arrange the toasts on your plates.
  4. Meanwhile, top and tail the oranges, cut away the peel, then finely slice into rounds (removing any pips).
  5. Finely slice the duck, place on the toasts, dotting any extra slices in between, then add the oranges in and around.
  6. Dress the watercress with any resting juices on the board, then sprinkle over.
  7. Finely grate or crumble over the walnuts, sprinkle from a height with a little extra seasoning, and serve.

Steps:

• Note: You can leave out the baking powder and bicarb if dietary requirements make that desirable, but in that case, I'd use a 23cm tin instead and expect it to need slightly less cooking time.

  Put the whole orange or oranges in a pan with some cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 2 hours or until soft. Drain and, when cool, cut the oranges in half and remove any big pips. Then pulp everything – pith, peel and all – in a food processor, or see below if you're proceeding by hand.

  Once the fruit is cold, or near cold (though actually I most often cook the oranges the day before I make the cake), preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C. Butter and line a 20cm springform tin.

  Add the eggs, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, almonds, sugar and cocoa to the orange in the food processor. Run the motor until you have a cohesive cake mix­ture, but still slightly knobbly with the flecks of puréed orange. Or you could chop the fruit finely by hand, and with a wooden spoon beat the eggs one by one into the sugar, alter­nating with spoons of mixed ground almonds and cocoa, then the oranges, though I have to say I've only ever made this the lazy way.

  Pour and scrape into the cake tin and bake for an hour, by which time a cake tester should come out pretty well clean. Check after 45 minutes because you may have to cover with foil to prevent the cake burning before it is cooked through, or indeed it may need a little less than an hour; it all depends on your oven.

  Leave the cake to get cool in the tin, on a cooling rack. When the cake is cold you can take it out of the tin. Decorate with strips of orange peel or coarsely grated zest if you so wish, but it is darkly beautiful in its plain, unadorned state.