Roast Duck

That’s Just Ducky

Although I love duck I find it easiest to buy a duck breast at Fresh Market and then pan roast it. Nevertheless, I roasted a whole duck a few weeks ago. Something I hadn’t done in several years. It was wonderful. The technique I used is essentially the way duck is prepared for Peking duck (which is a dish and not the same thing as the Pekin duck breed).

Duck is notoriously fatty and while the fat is wonderful stuff you need to draw most of it out if you want an edible bird. When I pan roast breasts I can trim off excess fat and then score the skin and I can do the same thing when cooking legs as in this recipe for Canard au Vin. But it’s more problematic for a whole duck.

Duck is notoriously fatty and while the fat is wonderful stuff you need to draw most of it out if you want an edible bird.

The best way I know to do it is to simmer the whole duck after poking holes in the skin to allow the fat to escape as it melts. You’ll need a large stockpot and it’s a two-part process, but the two parts result in that most luscious of lipids (duck fat) and a wonderful broth you can use for cooking beans or making soup.

Roast Duck
Makes 4 to 6 servings.

1 5-6 pound duck
1 large yellow onion — peeled, trimmed and quartered
2 large carrots — cut into 1-inch lengths
2 medium stalks of celery — cut into 1-inch lengths
Large handful of flat-leaf parsley with stems
12 peppercorns
2 bay leaves
2 large cloves garlic
2 tablespoons dried orange zest (you can find dried zest in the spice department)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons dried, ground rosemary
1 orange, washed and cut into 8ths
1 small onion — peeled, trimmed and quartered
2 cloves garlic

Defatting:
Remove giblets from duck cavity and cut off wing tips.

Using a small paring knife, poke holes all over the duck’s breast, legs and back. Insert the knife at an angle to avoid penetrating the meat — figure you have 1/4 inch of fat beneath the skin on the breasts and thighs and about 1/8 inch on the legs and back — but insert as deeply as possible without making a cut more than about 1/2 inch long.

Place the duck in a large stockpot, add onion, carrots, celery, neck and wing tips. Add enough water to completely cover duck. Remove duck from pot, add parsley, bay leaves and peppercorns and place pot over high heat. Bring to a boil skimming off any scum that forms.

Carefully return duck to pot and bring back to a boil then immediately reduce heat to a simmer. Place a plate with a heavy can on top of the duck to keep it submerged and simmer for 45 minutes, removing any additional scum as it forms but allowing fat to accumulate.

Remove duck and pat dry, being careful to avoid tearing skin. Cool to room temperature. At this point you can move on to roasting, or you can refrigerate the duck on a dish, uncovered, which forces some additional fat out as the skin contracts and produces a crispier skin.

Refrigerate the stock you’ve made overnight. The fat will rise to the top and you can skim that off and save it frozen for up to a year. The stock can be reduced (concentrated) and used for making gravy (with some of the duck fat) or reserved for other uses (there’s no salt in it and it’s simply flavored to keep it flexible for other dishes).

Roasting:
If you refrigerated the bird, remove from fridge and warm on the counter for 3 hours. Heat oven to 500 degrees, place an oven rack one level up from the bottom and heat a roasting pan that can hold a roasting rack. Don’t heat the rack.

Mix together orange zest, salt, pepper and rosemary. Sprinkle half the mixture inside duck and sprinkle remaining on the outside, patting to make it stick. Stuff cavity with orange, onion and garlic and roast for 30 minutes (rotate front to back after 15 minutes). Remove from oven and let rest 15 minutes before carving.

Note: Save the duck bones and the back, add them to the reserved duck stock and simmer it for another couple of hours to make a richer stock. Certainly save the fat for other cooking projects.

Try roast duck with…
Potatoes Savoyard
Beets Dijonaise
Blueberry Crisp

Tip: Safe Cooking Temperatures

Let me get the disclaimer out of the way up front. I’m a cook and food writer — not a microbiologist. The information presented here is a result of my research into the subject. And I am not making any recommendations. But I’ve found this information helpful in determining what’s safe when it comes to cooking meat.

We’re taught that food should never be held at temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s because most bacteria will quite happily reproduce in that range, but reproduce very slowly, if at all, below 40 and above 140. But note, the temperatures at which bacteria is killed varies according to the microbe.

Read more…

Wordless Wednesday

Recipe here…

Seriously Useful

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for OpenSky, a merchandising venture that I first heard about when Michael Ruhlman signed on. Ruhlman was pretty enthusiastic but beyond reading his blog post I ignored it — just another marketing/advertising scheme. Then a couple of weeks ago my friend and colleague, Chef Jim Gray (The Kitchen Guy), announced he’d signed up for Open Sky and I decided to check it out.

For the first two or three years after starting Seriously Good I summarily dismissed any commercial taint to SG’s noble purpose of promoting seriously good food. And then I found myself needing to earn income from SG. Furthermore, as a writer and cooking instructor I found myself often questioned about my tool and ingredient preferences. I certainly had evaluations I could offer, and I’ve never been shy, so…

I don’t have any illusions about income potential — if I can generate enough to cover part of my Internet connection bill I’ll be happy.

Google Ads was a boondoggle, I had no say over what appeared. Amazon Stores was better, but if I thought the Carlisle loaf pans were superior to Chicago Metallica (I do) and Amazon didn’t carry Carlisle pans (they don’t) I was stuck. OpenSky promises to find a source, if at all possible, for any specific product I want to recommend. Ok, this sounds good to me.

I started making a list of products that have made a big difference in my kitchen as both a home cook and a professional and was appalled at how much time I spent searching out sources. For example, there’s a particular set of dry measuring cups I like. The handle and cup are a single piece so there are none of the cracks between welded handles and cups that collect food debris. Unfortunately my set has no brand stamped on them so I spent a couple of hours (seriously) going through Web sites and image files looking for them. I did find the cups and hopefully OpenSky can source them (they offer other products from the same company).

It’s all well and good for me to say, “Use single-piece measuring cups because there’s no crack between handle and cup for food to catch in,” and then leave it to you to find them. Far better if I can say, “Use the Amco one-piece measuring cups because… and here’s a source.” I can’t say that in the case of these cups yet, OpenSky still needs to make arrangements, but I hope to shortly.

I hope to make a few bucks off of this, and I could use the money. But I don’t have any illusions about income potential — if I can generate enough to cover part of my Internet connection bill I’ll be happy. But I’ll be happier still if you find a tool or two in my list that makes your kitchen life easier, happier, or more successful. This blog will never be profitable, I write it because it’s become a central part of my life. But there’s nothing in my list I don’t or haven’t used and I stand behind every recommendation.

Although some of my recommendations are expensive (copper ain’t cheap), many aren’t (cast iron is cheap).

The store is just getting started and while I’m still calling it Seriously Useful it’s already more useful than when Amazon was my host. And as OpenSky arranges sources for the 30 or so tools that aren’t already listed it will become even more useful.

So check out my link to Seriously Useful in the left side-bar. Keep in mind that Jeff Bezos (Amazon) is rich and probably can’t cook while I’m not and I can. And if there are other tools you wonder about and I haven’t mentioned, drop me a note. If I can offer advice I will, and if I can’t I’ll say so — no charge either way. I really am here to share.

And as for sharing, the first five people to make a purchase from Seriously Useful will get a free phone consultation on (almost) anything cooking related. I can help create a special menu, offer advice on cooking problems, or even create a recipe just for you. Just keep in mind that I’m not a pastry chef (although I do know bread).

Sign Up Now

For those of you in the Knoxville area, Terri tells me my March class at Glass Bazaar is almost full. This class is on March 3 and is called Spring Fling. We’ll be making lamb chops with gremolata, asparagus parmigiano, a rather special pear vinaigrette on a green salad with herbs, and rhubarb mousse if I can find rhubarb in March — otherwise another spring-ish dessert to be determined the day before the class. In fact, aside from the lamb gremolata and a salad, everything else will be based on what I can find the day before the class.

I try to teach concepts and principles. If you haven’t been to one of my classes yet, come to this one, it may involve dandelions if I can find them. And as always, the food will be great and the wine is free.

SG Archives: Lamb Daube

Call Me Sentimental

It’s lambing season. At least it is in Missouri where, last Sunday, Clare, one of Susan’s ewes, gave birth. Call me sentimental, but when I see a cute little lamb like that it immediately brings to mind images of fields turning green, new buds on trees, daffodils, birds calling for mates, and dinner. Somehow piglets don’t affect me the same way — I go straight to thoughts of dinner.

For some reason, a lot of Americans don’t like lamb — or at least they think they don’t. I suspect they’ve just never had well-prepared lamb. We don’t have a tradition of eating it here and so many people have no idea how to fix it. And, too, lamb has a slightly gamey taste and, for palates used to the insipid blandness of most American beef and pork, lamb is like granola when you’re used to shredded wheat.

For palates used to the insipid blandness of most American beef and pork, lamb is like granola when you’re used to shredded wheat.

This isn’t the case in the Mediterranean countries where lamb and even mutton have a long and honored tradition. Spain, Greece, Morocco, and Turkey are all big on lamb, as is France. For instance, the LaRousse Gastronomique lists more than 130 ways of cooking lamb from the mundane lamb chop (Cotelettes d’Agneau) to lamb’s head (Tête d’Agneau a l’Écossaise) — and that’s not counting mutton.

I know this because I was looking for a traditional French lamb recipe. In addition to checking LaRousse I did the usual Google scan and looked though Julia Child, Patricia Wells, and the handy-dandy, full-color, for-a-limited-time-only Time/Life Book of Lamb that I got for 95 cents at a used book store. I finally settled on making a daube. You can’t get much more traditional than stew because stews have been part of most cuisines since pottery was invented. In addition, it’s been cold and snowy here — good stew weather.

Daubes are a distinctly French take on stew. In a daube the meat is marinated with vegetables and herbs in wine for some period of time (I have a beef recipe that calls for marinating for 48 hours). I wanted to do a daube with a Provençal accent and found a number of ideas on the Web and in my books. Lemon is the most common citrus used in Mediterranean cooking, but I found one recipe calling for orange peel that sounded interesting and Child suggested capers and anchovies. I decided to skip the capers and but go with anchovy paste.

To accompany the daube I made mashed rutabagas and fixed an apple crisp for dessert. And wine. I needed wine for the marinade and, just to be contrary, I decided on a New Zealand Pinot Noir. Specifically, I bought a bottle of Dyed-in-the-Wool — it just seemed appropriate.

Daube d’Agneau a la Provençal
Serves 6.

2 lb lamb — cut into 3″4″ cubes
1 lg onion — peeled and diced
3 carrots — peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic — smashed
1 orange — zested
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp dried Herbes de Province
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 btl red wine
6 slice bacon
1 can diced tomatoes, 15 oz
1/2 c flour, for dredging
1 c beef stock
1 tbsp anchovy paste

Mix together lamb, onions, carrots, garlic, orange zest, bay, herbs, olive oil, salt, pepper, and wine in a large Dutch oven. Allow to marinate for 3 hours, mixing occasionally.

Heat oven to 325F.

Drain and reserve marinade. Separate meat from vegetables (reserving vegetables) and pat dry. Dredge lamb in flour, shaking off excess.

Lay three strips of bacon on the bottom of a Dutch oven. Sprinkle with half the veggies, add half the tomatoes including juice, add half the lamb. Repeat. Pour in marinade and add enough beef stock to almost, but not quite, cover the mixture. Bring to a simmer on top of the stove and then cover and place in lower third of oven.

Cook for 1 1/2 hours. Remove cover and stir in anchovy paste. Return to oven and cook, uncovered, another 1/2 hour.

The daube was outstanding — seriously good. As expected the anchovy disappeared as an identifiable flavor but brought depth and savor to the dish. (Anchovies can be sly little fishies.) The orange zest was best described as seriously fun. It didn’t particularly stand out, but it did quietly and firmly make its presence known and it made me smile every time I noticed it.

The rutabaga, simply seasoned with salt, butter, and a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup, was an excellent accompaniment — a combination of bitter and sweet to supplement the savory stew. The wine? Oh well. It worked fine in the daube but as for drinking it was a bit closer to dye than I would have wished. Drinkable, but only just.

Originally published in February 2006.

Try this daube with…
Mashed Rutabaga with Maple Syrup and Bourbon
Spiced Apples
Potatoes Parmigiano

Filipino Pulled Pork

South Seas Savor

I plan almost all my meals a week or so in advance. I first began the practice when I was working 60 – 70 hours a week and only had the time and opportunity to cook on the weekends. These days I continue to plan ahead because I have to continually come up with new recipes to publish on Gather, Seriously Good, and About.com as well as less frequent venues. That’s a lot of cooking so I’d better be organized.

Because of this plan-ahead approach it’s seldom that I have anything other than pantry items in the house that isn’t already earmarked for a specific dish. However, last week the local supermarket had a sale on whole Boston Butts. So I bought one and had it cut in half. I knew what I was going to do with the first half, but it took awhile to figure out what to do with the other half.

I quickly found a bunch of closely related articles where cubed pork is braised in soy sauce and vinegar.

For some reason (and I’ve no idea why) I decided to look up Filipino recipes. To the best of my knowledge I’ve never cooked anything Filipino before but I quickly found a bunch of closely related articles where cubed pork is braised in soy sauce and vinegar. The idea really appealed to me so I assembled my own version and made it. Absolutely delicious.

My roast was bone-in and instead of cubing the roast I decided to cook it whole. That way the flavor and gelatin from the bone would enrich the sauce. And although most recipes called for braising the meat then browning it, I did the reverse — again to produce a richer broth. Served over basmati rice it was a winner and, although time-consuming, it only needs about 15 minutes of hands-on cooking.

Filipino Roast Pork
Serves 6.

3 lb bone-in Boston butt or pork shoulder
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp cooking oil
2/3 c white distilled vinegar
1/3 c soy sauce
5 cloves garlic — peeled and smashed (left whole)
5 whole cardomom pods
2 bay leaves
1 1/2-inch fresh ginger — peeled and thinly sliced
1 tbsp fresh orange zest
1 medium yellow onion — peel, quartered, and cut into 1/4 rings
2 tbsp sugar

Heat oven to 325F. Generously season the roast with salt and pepper.

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat, then brown roast on all sides. Move roast to a plate and pour excess oil out of pot.

Deglaze the pot with the soy sauce and vinegar, then add a cup of water. Add garlic, cardomom, bay, ginger and orange zest. Return the roast to the pot and add 1/4 of onions.

Bring back to a boil, then cover and place Dutch oven in the center of the oven. Simmer for 1 hour then turn roast over. Cook another hour and turn over again. Cook 1/2 hour then add remaining onions. Cook 1/2 hour longer.

Add sugar to broth and shred roast using a pair or forks in the pot. Taste and adjust seasonings (In addition to salt, I ended up adding about another 1 1/2 tablespoons of vinegar and soy sauce.

Serve over basmati rice.

Try this Filipino pork with…
Curried Plantains
Calabacitas
Fried Green Tomatoes

SouthwesternHam & Rice Casserole

This Southwestern Ham Casserole is perfect for using up that last bit of baked ham — you know, when you’ve got too little to feed two people and too much to throw away. If you happen to have some leftover rice all the better, but if not rice is easy enough to make. You can use a commercial chile powder if you wish, but my recipe for chile powder has a nice smoky flavor from the chipotles.

Recipe here…

Wordless Wednesday

Country Ham Breakfast Sausage

That Wonderful Machine

There was a strange old butcher, His name was Dunderbeck
He was very fond of sausage-meat, and sauerkraut and speck
He had the finest butcher shop, the finest ever seen
Until one day he invented his wonderful sausage machine

Oh Mr. Dunderbeck! How could you be so mean?
I told you you’d be sorry for inventing that machine
For all the neighbor’s dogs and cats will never more be seen
They’ll all be ground to sausage meat in Dunderbeck’s machine

Sausage has a reputation for being made from all the things that would ordinarily be thrown away. In truth, so long as the sausage tastes good I see nothing wrong with that. Better to use those bits and pieces in sausage than throw them away. But if that kind of thinking makes you nervous the solution is to make your own sausage.

As much as Benton’s hams and bacon deserve their national reputation, the sausage is even better.

There’s a place about 30 miles up the road from here that sells the best country sausage I’ve ever had. You may have heard of it, Benton’s Smokey Mountain Country Hams. You may not have heard of the sausage though, because he doesn’t ship it. This is a shame because as much as his hams and bacon deserve their national reputation, the sausage is even better. He sells three varieties: hot, mild, and smoked. My personal preference is the hot (the smoked is too smoky and the mild is, well, mild).

I’ve been eating Benton’s sausage for nearly 20 years now (since my father discovered it) and it’s unlike any other country sausage I’ve had. It has a strange texture — sort of grainy — and a flavor I simply couldn’t tie down. Not a strange flavor, but I it baffled me. Then I figured it out a couple of years ago — he was mixing ground country ham scraps in the sausage. He was following Dunderbeck’s lead and using whatever came to hand (and for all I know his sausage also contains pig lips and ears) and the ham scraps were a brilliant addition. So I set out to replicate it.

Benton’s sausage is still better than mine, but he’s been perfecting it for a long time. And I’m just getting started. Nevertheless I can tell you that some finely ground country ham added to the mix makes a world of difference.

Country Ham Breakfast Sausage
Adapted from a recipe by Bruce Aidells.

3 lb boneless Boston Butt roast
1 lb fat back
1/2 lb country ham
1 1/2 tbsp red pepper flakes
4 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp dried, ground (rubbed) sage
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 cup water (or pork stock if you have it)

Chill your grinder and mixing bowl in the refrigerator.

Cut pork and fat into strips and toss with seasonings. Spread in a layer over a baking sheet and partially freeze. You’re going for stiff but not hard. This takes about 1 1/2 hours in my freezer and I rotate the baking sheet half way through. (The time depends on how efficient your freezer is and how much food is already in it.)

Cut country ham into 1-inch pieces and process until very fine in a food processor or blender.

Grind the seasoned pork and fat using the 1/4-inch plate. Add water, and mix thoroughly.

Fry up a small taste and adjust seasonings, but keep in mind the flavors will mature. Refrigerate overnight. Form into patties and fry.

The sausage will keep for 3 days in the fridge and up to 3 months in the freezer. (I make patties in advance, separate them with waxed paper, wrap in two layers of foil and then freeze in a ziplock bag until needed. I can then pull out a patty or two and keep the rest frozen.

One day a very little girl came walking in the store
She ordered up some sausage meat and eggs, a half a score
And while she stood a-waiting she whistled up a tune
And the sausage meat it started up and danced around the room

Oh Mr. Dunderbeck! How could you be so mean?
I told you you’d be sorry for inventing that machine
For all the neighbor’s dogs and cats will never more be seen
They’ll all be ground to sausage meat in Dunderbeck’s machine