Roast Duck with Dried Blueberry Sage Wild Rice Stuffing

My sister and her Aussie partner are coming over for dinner tonight, so I wanted to do something fairly North American for him to try.  So I decided since Christmas specials caused a rather economically-priced duck to show up in our pantry, I'd do something special.

Roast Duck with Dried Blueberry Sage Wild Rice Stuffing

The Stuffing

2 small onions, chopped
1/2 tbsp butter
1/2 tbsp frying oil (canola, olive, whateva)
1/4 cup of wild rice, cooked (I just use my rice cooker with a little more water than usual)
1/8 cup fresh sage, chopped (half a package-ish)
1/4 cup dried blueberries (they're expensive, so feel free to substitute with currants or cherries)
salt
pepper

Chop the onions.  Heat up the butter and oil and sauté the onions on medium-high heat (not too hot - they shouldn't brown) until translucent.  While they're cooking, chop up the sage and mix in a bowl with the other ingredients.  When the onions are done, throw them in as well.  Let sit.

The Duck

First, a note.  Duck is an exceptionally fatty bird.  This is great, because it means you get some taaaaasty cooking fat from it.  Not so good because it's a challenge to cook crispy instead of soggy.  I have tried a few methods because of this (steaming, boiling, scoring) and have arrived at the below as the easiest and most efficient.

Ducks are usually brined and frozen in the liquid.  If frozen, take your duck out of the freezer a day before and let thaw.  If thawed in the fridge, take your duck out of the fridge a couple hours before its cooking time and rinse with water thoroughly.  Pat it as dry as possible.  Now, put it back in the fridge without covering it up and leave it in there for an hour or two.  The fridge and cold will help dry your duck so that the skin feels almost rubbery.  Don't worry - it'll soften up while cooking.  Once it's dried out some, bring it out of the fridge.  Take a very sharp knife and score the skin.  This means drawing a whole lot of diamonds (if you're an artist, think cross-hatching) over the whole duck.  You want to go deep enough to cut through the skin, but not deep enough to get to the meat.  What you're doing is allowing all sorts of exit routes for the fat, so the outside of the skin is as crispy as the inside.  And as it cooks, it'll seal over the whole bird and keep the meat all moist and tasty.

Once completely scored, stuff that duck with the stuffing.  If you have any left over stuffing, I recommend baking it alongside the duck with a bit of broth and the neck and/or giblets so it gets some flavouring. 

Place the duck 'upsidedown' (breasts down) on a rack inside a roaster or high-lipped roasting tray.  Add a little water to the bottom of the roaster to prevent forest fires.  Cook at 425F for about 15 minutes, then turn down the heat to 375F and cook for 30 minutes more.

Once the half hour's up, flip the duck over and cook it another hour or so (might be a little longer).  Check every so often to make sure it's browning nicely.  If it looks like it's browning too much, turn the heat down a touch.


When it's done and the juices run clear (same as chicken), take it out of the oven and let it sit for a little, letting that last bit of fat fall off.  Cover it with some tinfoil to keep it warm.

And then, when it's cooler, scoop that lovely stuffing out and serve separately.  Yum!

Thai-style Pulled Pork

Sobey's had Pork Shoulder on this week, with a little tag that read "Great for pulled pork!".  And I thought "That sounds like a good idea..."

 But what recipe to use?  I didn't really want to go all traditional barbeque with it, so after a great deal of searching (both through the web and my fridge), I decided to base it all on a nearly-untouched bottle of Thai Kitchen Roasted Red Pepper Chile.  I'd made full on Thai Curry with it before, and it tasted far too much like chipotle for me to want to use again.  Since then, I'd used it to make spicy mayo for sweet potatoes, but ultimately it sat unloved in the door of my fridge.  Alas!  No more!

Here's a go at...

Heather’s Thai-style Pulled Pork

Dry Rub:

2 tsp salt

3 kaffir lime leaves, stems removed

1 tsp white pepper

2 tbsp brown or palm sugar

2 tbsp white sugar

2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp smoked paprika (pimenton)

First, grind the lime leaves fine with the help of the salt in a mortar and pestle.  Add the other ingredients and blend well.

Dry off your pork shoulder, and then 'apply liberally' all over.  Rub that rub in good.  Then, wrap it up good (I just used aluminum foil, but plastic lovers love their cling wrap) and let it sit in the fridge for as long as you can wait (4-5 hours is okay, overnight's great, overnight and a day's what it ended up for me).


Here's where I borrow greatly from Foodie's Arsenal.  Set your oven to 220F.  Fill up a roasting pan with about an inch or two of water (whatever level works without you spilling it all over the place when you pick it up).  Put a grill rack over the pan so it's balancing not-too-precariously over it.  I stole my grill rack from the toaster oven, but a cooling rack or a full on bbq rack would do, if it fits.  You're gonna put the pork on the rack, and then stick the whole darn thing in the oven.  The water helps keep moisture going in the oven without sacrificing the yummy crunch a good oven-roasted pork pull creates.

This is where we get to the cheating.  Ideally, you want to use a meat thermometer and check the meat every so often.  The trick, as I understand it, is to get the meat up to 190 as slowly as possible.  190 is where all the connective stuff (collagen) starts a meltin' away.  But not too much longer, because then it just gets dry.  But the whole process can take up to 12 hours.

So yeah - the cheating.  I've put a 4lb shoulder of pork in, with the assumption it's going to take about 12 hours.  This means that when I get up in the morning, we should be at go-time.  


Assuming that the pork turns out deliciously, the trick then is to let it swim in the sauce (but not too much sauce, since the pork is tasty as is).  I am going to make my sauce out of:

Wet Sauce:

2 cloves of garlic, smashed and mashed


2 tbsp rice vinegar (mine is seasoned, but to each their own)
1 bottle Thai Roasted Red Pepper Curry (it has yummy tamarind in it)
1/4 cup honey (unrelated, mine is from Zambia!)
salt to taste

Mash up the garlic to make a smooth paste.  A little salt will help you in this. Once well blended, add all the other ingredients.  Add more salt to taste if it needs it, with the idea that it's a sweet sauce and shouldn't be to salty.  If it needs more sweet, add more honey.  If it needs more zip, add more vinegar.  And make sure you wait a second after tasting it - the roasted chili paste gives the sauce a LOT of depth, so let it unravel in your mouth before making any sudden decisions. 

Once perfected, mix in with your pork.  You really don't want to overdress the pork, so don't worry if you think it isn't enough.  Let it wallow in its flavour awesomeness - in the fridge, though.  It can be reheated gently (NOT the microwave) when ready to eat.  If you think it's too dry before reheating, add a wee bit of water to let steam it all together.


NOTE - This amount of sauce wasn't NEARLY enough for all the pork.  So I set aside a couple cups of the shredded pork and sauced that, then left the rest undressed to 'do with as I will'.  Many people prefer having sauce on the side with their pulled pork anyhow, so this works out.

Another salad... but this one has figs!

We are celebrating my mother's birthday late this year, and I have the distinct honour of hosting the dinner at my apartment.  I think this is technically the first time my mother will have been over for dinner!  How exciting.

Anyhow, I couldn't help go a little 'nuts' and decided to concoct a tasty salad to go with our Roast Beef (see recipe here).  I give you:

Grilled Figs & Pistachios - A love story salad

Dressing ingredients:

1/2 tbsp honey
pinch of saffron
1 tbsp apricot jam
3 tbsp rice vinegar (can also use champagne or white wine vinegar)
light salad (sunflower/grapeseed/etc) oil to measure

To make the dressing

Combine everything but the oil and blend until all is dissolved and mixed.  Add 2-3 times as much oil as there is everything else (this is the usual measure for a vinagrette).  Shake/blend until awesome.  If made beforehand, the flavours will marry better if left out of the fridge for a few hours.  Don't worry - nothing will go bad!  Serve at room temperature, as sugars taste sweeter when they aren't cold.

Salad ingredients:

6-8 figs (depending on size, guests, etc.)
1/2-2/3 cup pistachios, crushed to very coarse pieces  (shelled first, of course!)
1/4 cup pancetta bits (can substitute bacon bits)
arugula
2 shallots, shredded
olive oil

To prepare the salad

Shell the pistachios.  Put aside.  (Crush just before you add to salad, and the flavour will be fresher.)
Cut pancetta or bacon (or any other cured ham type) into little confetti bits - about 1/2 cm cubed.  Fry lightly without adding any oil (they will provide their own) until crispy and brown.  Let them cool on paper towel to absorb the extra grease.  Put aside.
Shred the shallots just before serving.  Like the pistachios, they'll bite better when freshly cut.
Finally, remove the stem ends and halve the figs.  Heat up a grill to medium-high heat.  Cover the figs liberally with olive oil, and when the pan is hot press them on the grill face first.  Allow to grill/caramelize for 2-4 minutes until lovely brown gold with pretty stripes.  Let cool enough to make the halves quarters, then add to the salad with all other ingredients.  Dress with the vinagrette.  Serve and enjoy!

Blood Orange Salad

Hi all,

Salads, salads and more salads.  I believe I mentioned before that whenever my family has an impromptu dinner, I get asked to bring salad.  This is mostly because my husband and I are quite picky about our salads, and so if we make it, we know we'll like it.

This happened last week, and after asking the spouse what he wanted to eat, he said "do that one with the blood oranges".  Needless to say, I hadn't any clue which one he was talking about, so I set to finding a good arugula and blood orange recipe.  None of the ones I found appealed to me, so I threw all caution to the wind and made up my own recipe.  Here it is:

Arugula & Blood Orange Salad with Mint Vinaigrette

 

Salad Ingredients

spiced almonds (see below)
parsley, without stems and coarsely chopped
arugula
3-4 blood oranges, peeled and pieced
half a fennel, sliced paper-thin (either use a mandolin, or super-sharp knife/shaver)
manchego cheese, shaved (easier to do when quite cold)

Spiced Almonds

1/2 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons pimenton/smoked paprika
1 cup almonds slivered

To spice the almonds, warm up the oil on a frying pan to medium-high.  Once hot, toss the almonds until slightly toasted and completely covered in the oil.  Then sprinkle the pimenton over so the almonds are uniformly covered.  (This may not need all 2 tbsp. of the pimenton)  Let cool before adding to salad.

Mint Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons finely chopped mint
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
pinch of salt
1/4 cup olive oil

I usually make my dressings by putting them in a tight-seal tupperware and then shaking the hell out of them.  If you're all fancy and gadget-philic, you can use a hand blender to get these ingredients smooth and supermixed.  Either way, the dressing tastes best if you let it sit blended for a little while, to let the flavours marry.

Drizzle the vinaigrette over the assembled salad, and toss with gusto.  You're done!

Spanish-fusion Blueberry Hazelnut Salad

I whipped this salad together for a family get-together.  See, for ages, I hated salad with a fiery passion bordering on mania.  Lettuce and I did NOT get along.  But in my older, wiser years, I have learned to work around this hate by using arugula - a leaf my husband and I both love.  This usually means that we're asked to bring the salad for our family to-dos, as then they know we'll eat it!

This salad in particular was, as usual, inspired by something left over in the fridge: blueberries.  As anyone who is familiar with Spanish or Catalan cuisine is aware, berries don't feature that often.  But I was determined to make it work, so here it is.

 

Spanish-fusion Blueberry Hazelnut Salad

Ingredients

1/2 cup lightly toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika or ground rosemary

1/3 cup sherry vinegar (rice wine or champagne vinegar works too)

1/2 teaspoon saffron threads

1/2 cup olive oil  

1 heaping spoonful of honey

1 heaping spoonful of Dijon mustard, smooth or whole-grain

salt and freshly ground black pepper

arugula, fresh

1 cup fresh blueberries

1 cup fresh red pepper, chopped coarsely

Spanish Manchego cheese, shaved

To toast the hazelnuts:

First, chop the hazelnuts coarsely - in quarters approximately.  Heat up a saute pan to high.  Add the nuts to the pan, and move them around constantly until fragrant and a lovely golden brown.  If you wish, add a drizzle of olive oil and season with ground rosemary or smoked paprika.

To prepare the dressing:

After the nuts are toasted and set aside, turn the heat down to medium high and use the same small saute pan to bring the champagne vinegar and saffron to a boil for 1 minute.  In a jar with a tight fitting lid, combine the olive oil, honey, and mustard. Season with salt and pepper. Add the vinegar and saffron mixture and shake vigorously to mix well.

Assembling the salad:

Assemble just before serving.  Put the arugula in a large salad bowl, drizzle the dressing over the greens and toss gently with your hands to coat the leaves. Top with hazelnuts, blueberries, and cheese (optional, of course). Serve immediately.

Pan-fried Rosemary Croissant Chicken Breasts (or "What I had left in the fridge")

What do you do when you've got half a dozen stale mini-croissants, a couple massive chicken breasts and some left-over fresh rosemary?  This!

Rosemary Croissant Chicken Breasts

2 'ample' chicken breasts
6 stale mini-croissants (or 3 large ones)
5-6 stems of fresh rosemary
1/4-1/2 tsp white pepper
1/8-1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
juice from 1/2 lime
as much walnut oil as lime juice
cooking oil (I use sunflower seed)

Using a handy-dandy mortar and pestle (though if you're lazy, you can use a food processor), crush and grind up the stale croissants into crumbs.  Chop the rosemary as fine as possible - we're talking FINE.  Combine the crumbs, rosemary, pepper and salt in a shallow dish (I used a small pyrex 6" dish).  Break the eggs into another similar dish, beat lightly (until uniformly yellow), and add the lime juice and walnut oil.  (Careful readers will note that this combination is the same as the dressing I use for my carrot salad - in fact, I just used what was leftover in the fridge!)  Make sure it's mixed well.  Set out a nice big plate by the dishes, and put your frying pan on medium-high with a dash of cooking oil.

Take the breasts and cut them up into decent-sized portions (no bigger than your palm).  If they are very thick, smack 'em.  By that, I mean pound them to about 1/2 inch in thickness.  Some people use plastic wrap or bags and a meat pounder - I use the heel of my hand and just go to town.  Whatever works.  Once portioned, dry them off with paper towel (the breading sticks better when dry).  Dip the chicken first into the egg mixture, then the breading, then put on the plate.  Repeat with all your pieces.  Once the pan's nice and hot, place your chicken in the pan.  Right away, give the pan a shake to make sure the chicken isn't sticking, and then let it stick without bothering it.  About 5-8 min. later (or when the cooked side is a nice golden-brown), flip the chicken pieces over and fry the other side.  Once cooked, remove to another plate (do NOT reuse uncooked chicken plates - bad idea) and let cool.  If you have some pieces that are still quite thick and you're worried about undercooking, just flip them every few minutes to keep from burning and press down with a nice wooden spatula to try and flatten them more.

Serve with salad, or veggies, or even a light pesto pasta salad'd be nice.

(Roger approves of this recipe, and has already informed me that he will be eating all the chicken without any help from me.)

Chicken in a Creamy Orange Sauce

"Chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and onions…"

Yes, it's another Hunger Games recipe! Here's what I came up with, and it turned out AWESOME.

Orange Sauce

Zest and fruit from two oranges (I used tangerines)
1 can of coconut milk
1 star anise
1 pinch cinnamon
1 pinch saffron
2 small or 1 large clove garlic, crushed
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp sugar (I used palm sugar)
2 large pinches of salt (to taste, really)
Cooked Chicken 
Cooked Rice

Peel the oranges carefully to remove the zest.  Use a sharp knife and avoid as much pith (the white waxy substance) as possible.  Separate and clean the segments of orange, then put aside to add later. (If you don't peel them all in one go, the outside membrane of the segments will get hard and difficult to peel!)  Bring the coconut milk to a low simmer in a saucepan - make sure it doesn't boil over, as it can cause one heck of a mess.  Add the zest, the star anise, cinnamon, saffron, garlic, sesame oil and sugar.  Allow to simmer gently until the sauce thickens and turns a lovely yellow colour - approx. 15-20 min.  Add salt to taste, and possibly more sugar if needed.  When satisfied, strain the chunks of spices out.  Slice the orange segments in chunks (usually in half is fine) and add to sauce. Let it sit on low for a few minutes (enough to warm up and soften the fruit).

Serve over cooked chicken (I used leftover breast from a roast I'd done) and rice.