The leftovers have lasted us for three meals so far, with very little sign of running out in the near future. Last night we sliced and fried the roast potatoes and ate them with cold meat; for lunch today I made a leftovers soup; for mid-work-snack there are sandwiches and wraps - and still we have half a tupperware of meat, another one of sweet potato mash, and a couple of the biscuits left.
As I write this I am eating my second portion of leftovers soup - it gets better with age. This soup is actually brilliant, as my usual problem with soup is its thinness. Last week's sweet potato soup was delicious, and I had two servings of it for lunch at 1.30, but by 4.30 I was faint and dizzy with hunger. This soup is much chunkier and feels like you're actually eating something - I was full for hours.
I'm considering using the rest of the sweet potato to make a version of butternut squash macaroni cheese. I've seen about a hundred recipes for that over the last couple of weeks, but this is the only example I can pull up now. So that will make a fourth leftovers meal!
Oh: also, I can now report that persimmon chutney does taste great with poultry.
Thick, Tasty Leftovers Soup
Makes 4 small servings
Note: everything starred (*) was already cooked in my version.
1 onion
2 handfuls broccoli*
2 handfuls chard with garlic chips*
2 cups mashed sweet potato*
1 1/2 cups of Thai chicken soup (from a 'cup a soup' sachet like last time)
1 cup cream
1 glug red wine (I would have used white but the red was open)
1 teaspoon garlic sauce
1 handful of shredded chicken or duck*
Seasoning
If you are not using leftovers, you will have to do this following: boil the broccoli, sauté the chard with garlic chips, boil and roughly mash the sweet potato with some cream, butter and seasoning, and fry, bake or roast some kind of poultry before pulling it to pieces. It'll be worth it.
I chopped the onion and threw it into an oiled pot with the broccoli, chard and garlic to fry for a while. Added the sweet potato and stirred for a minute before adding the stock. Added some cream, wine and garlic sauce and allowed the sauce to simmer for about ten minutes, using the spoon to break up larger clumps of broccoli and sweet potato. Turned off the heat for a minute and then ladled about half of the soup into the blender, in batches, to purée before replacing back in the pan - you could do more or less depending on how chunky you like soup to be. Mine had no large lumps as I'd focused on getting all the broccoli and chard into the blender, so I still had small bites of, for example, garlic and onion. I reheated the soup and added a handful of small pieces of meat from the chicken and duck. Served with buttered bread but was just as brilliant without.
Showing posts with label duck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label duck. Show all posts
29 November 2010
28 November 2010
Thanksgiving: The Birds (part 1)
That was an intense day. Wow.
We got up at 10 and started the cooking at about 11ish - Tom chopped the more unsavoury parts off the duck while I went to the butcher's to buy a second (which turned out to be a chicken. Thankfully that was definitely a mistake we could pass off as 'on purpose'). I peeled potatoes, tore up bread for stuffing, put the second bird in the oven, made the stuffing, made biscuit dough, defrosted the vegetables, boiled potatoes, peeled more potatoes for sweet potato mash, made persimmon chutney, boiled the sweet potatoes, sliced garlic, boiled and sautéd vegetables, baked everything that needed to be baked, and made both gravy and a savoury black raspberry and cranberry sauce. Oh, and a pumpkin pie with rum cream.
Tom was wonderful and did all the things that a busy woman who is scared of getting her hands burnt couldn't do.
I wore my new apron all day and was very happy.
So, the duck and chicken. I used an amalgamation of probably four recipes, focusing mainly on Nigella's brine and Sophie Grigson's slow-roasted duck method. Personally I think that two and a half hours at 180 degrees does not a 'slow' roast make, but whatever, we were busy.
Roasted Duck and Chicken
Serves 5 with plenty of leftovers
1 duck (2.5kg)
1 chicken (2kg)
Salt
Pepper
Cinnamon
Parsley
Thyme
3 bay leaves
Lots of water (I used roughly 2.5l)
2 tangerines
2 onions
I started the duck the day before cooking, having decided ten minutes before I had to leave for work that I wanted to brine it, despite having read at least seven articles online about how brining does nothing for duck meat. I quickly scrubbed a bin that was being used for tin recycling, shoved the duck in, poured in the water, and added several tablespoons each of salt, pepper, cinnamon, parsley, thyme and bay leaves, that being what was on hand. I stirred the water briefly, covered the whole thing with a plate and left it for six and a half hours. The duck wasn't quite submerged, so I then turned it upside down and left it for a further four hours. I drained the water and let the duck dry in its bucket overnight.
The next morning, both the duck and chicken were prepared as follows: the neck was sawn off and put to one side for future use in stock. Each was stuffed with one tangerine and one peeled onion. The skin was lightly pricked and covered in salt and pepper. The birds were put in the oven at 200 degrees (390 Fahrenheit) for twenty minutes, then at 160 (320 Fahrenheit) for a further two hours. Tom basted the birds regularly. They were removed from the oven, wrapped in foil, and left on top of the ovens to keep warm. Ten minutes before carving, they were placed back in the oven in their foil coats to reheat through.
Both were delicious, although the chicken had dried out somewhat. It hardly mattered as there was an abundance of sauces and other dishes to cover that up, and the dryness contributed to a sense that we were actually eating turkey!
We got up at 10 and started the cooking at about 11ish - Tom chopped the more unsavoury parts off the duck while I went to the butcher's to buy a second (which turned out to be a chicken. Thankfully that was definitely a mistake we could pass off as 'on purpose'). I peeled potatoes, tore up bread for stuffing, put the second bird in the oven, made the stuffing, made biscuit dough, defrosted the vegetables, boiled potatoes, peeled more potatoes for sweet potato mash, made persimmon chutney, boiled the sweet potatoes, sliced garlic, boiled and sautéd vegetables, baked everything that needed to be baked, and made both gravy and a savoury black raspberry and cranberry sauce. Oh, and a pumpkin pie with rum cream.
Tom was wonderful and did all the things that a busy woman who is scared of getting her hands burnt couldn't do.
I wore my new apron all day and was very happy.
So, the duck and chicken. I used an amalgamation of probably four recipes, focusing mainly on Nigella's brine and Sophie Grigson's slow-roasted duck method. Personally I think that two and a half hours at 180 degrees does not a 'slow' roast make, but whatever, we were busy.
Roasted Duck and Chicken
Serves 5 with plenty of leftovers
1 duck (2.5kg)
1 chicken (2kg)
Salt
Pepper
Cinnamon
Parsley
Thyme
3 bay leaves
Lots of water (I used roughly 2.5l)
2 tangerines
2 onions
I started the duck the day before cooking, having decided ten minutes before I had to leave for work that I wanted to brine it, despite having read at least seven articles online about how brining does nothing for duck meat. I quickly scrubbed a bin that was being used for tin recycling, shoved the duck in, poured in the water, and added several tablespoons each of salt, pepper, cinnamon, parsley, thyme and bay leaves, that being what was on hand. I stirred the water briefly, covered the whole thing with a plate and left it for six and a half hours. The duck wasn't quite submerged, so I then turned it upside down and left it for a further four hours. I drained the water and let the duck dry in its bucket overnight.
The next morning, both the duck and chicken were prepared as follows: the neck was sawn off and put to one side for future use in stock. Each was stuffed with one tangerine and one peeled onion. The skin was lightly pricked and covered in salt and pepper. The birds were put in the oven at 200 degrees (390 Fahrenheit) for twenty minutes, then at 160 (320 Fahrenheit) for a further two hours. Tom basted the birds regularly. They were removed from the oven, wrapped in foil, and left on top of the ovens to keep warm. Ten minutes before carving, they were placed back in the oven in their foil coats to reheat through.
Both were delicious, although the chicken had dried out somewhat. It hardly mattered as there was an abundance of sauces and other dishes to cover that up, and the dryness contributed to a sense that we were actually eating turkey!
15 September 2010
Eating Out
I have eaten at restaurants twice recently - TWICE - which has blown my mind with wonderful ideas for food. Mere menus get me excited. I know that it's very early days yet, and that I have other career plans in the meantime, but I think I might quite like to go into food journalism someday, if I can figure out how.
Anyway, the meals. One was a duck breast in chilli-plum sauce, with 'potato corners' (it looked like one long potato had been cut into roughly six long wedges and baked until crispy: I liked the idea of making wedges the same length as the potato to save on prep time) and a small salad. The sauce was absolutely delicious, with enough heat to taste, but nowhere near too much.
A friend had ordered goat's cheese salad with grape-balsamic dressing and pumpkin seed pesto, and found the dressing too cloying and sweet for his taste. Luckily, that meal is generally what I go for when I go to this particular restaurant, so I happily swapped some duck and wedges for a giant lump of goat's cheese. The cheese, dressing and wedges went really well together, so goat's cheese + potato has become a biiiig thought in my head at the moment. My boyfriend & I have used a goat's cheese + potato recipe before (this one, I believe - the chicken/spinach/gnocchi/sauce mixture was amazing) but substituted brie for goat's cheese as he doesn't like the latter. Much to my constant disappointment.
Then I went to an amazing restaurant, which is basically Subway for pasta. You can choose your pasta, which is freshly made on the premises (and you can buy their fresh pasta for astonishingly cheap, as well - next time I go there I will bankrupt myself on it even though it's just 50 eurocents for 100g), and your sauce, and watch it being made in front of you. The queues are fairly long, but who cares when it's so delicious and so cheap! I had pappardelle carbonara, and my only complaints were this: the waiter didn't hear me properly and put in WAY too much chilli, so I had to pick a bunch out while I was eating (wuss), and they didn't have parmesan at the tables to sprinkle. Other than that, it was perfect.
My boyfriend went for a pizza, which was huge, cheap, and made much more quickly. Some of the more expensive pizza toppings made me salivate: one was ham, figs, acacia honey, tomatoes and mozzarella, oh my god. I have to go back and have the gorgonzola, cheese, smoked cheese and figs one (yes, I memorized them, even though I also stole a menu). Wonderfully, and entirely coincidentally, my mother bought some figs the same day, so I am considering a fig tart for tonight's dinner. Sadly there is only one blue cheese eater in the house, and that would be me, so if this does happen I shall have to substitute other kinds of cheese.
Anyway, the meals. One was a duck breast in chilli-plum sauce, with 'potato corners' (it looked like one long potato had been cut into roughly six long wedges and baked until crispy: I liked the idea of making wedges the same length as the potato to save on prep time) and a small salad. The sauce was absolutely delicious, with enough heat to taste, but nowhere near too much.
A friend had ordered goat's cheese salad with grape-balsamic dressing and pumpkin seed pesto, and found the dressing too cloying and sweet for his taste. Luckily, that meal is generally what I go for when I go to this particular restaurant, so I happily swapped some duck and wedges for a giant lump of goat's cheese. The cheese, dressing and wedges went really well together, so goat's cheese + potato has become a biiiig thought in my head at the moment. My boyfriend & I have used a goat's cheese + potato recipe before (this one, I believe - the chicken/spinach/gnocchi/sauce mixture was amazing) but substituted brie for goat's cheese as he doesn't like the latter. Much to my constant disappointment.
Then I went to an amazing restaurant, which is basically Subway for pasta. You can choose your pasta, which is freshly made on the premises (and you can buy their fresh pasta for astonishingly cheap, as well - next time I go there I will bankrupt myself on it even though it's just 50 eurocents for 100g), and your sauce, and watch it being made in front of you. The queues are fairly long, but who cares when it's so delicious and so cheap! I had pappardelle carbonara, and my only complaints were this: the waiter didn't hear me properly and put in WAY too much chilli, so I had to pick a bunch out while I was eating (wuss), and they didn't have parmesan at the tables to sprinkle. Other than that, it was perfect.
My boyfriend went for a pizza, which was huge, cheap, and made much more quickly. Some of the more expensive pizza toppings made me salivate: one was ham, figs, acacia honey, tomatoes and mozzarella, oh my god. I have to go back and have the gorgonzola, cheese, smoked cheese and figs one (yes, I memorized them, even though I also stole a menu). Wonderfully, and entirely coincidentally, my mother bought some figs the same day, so I am considering a fig tart for tonight's dinner. Sadly there is only one blue cheese eater in the house, and that would be me, so if this does happen I shall have to substitute other kinds of cheese.
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