New Year's Day .... Roast Duck Dinner
Duck, duck ... fat
I've cooked duck about half a dozen times before today's attempt. They were raised by my parents and gifted to me to use up as my parents didn't have room to store the extra ducks in their own chest freezer. At that time, my own freezer wasn't quite as packed as it's become.
They had recently purchased 36 acres out in the county and moved there so that my dad could finally have the farm he'd always wanted in Canada and grow his own fruits and vegetables as well as raising chickens for meat and eggs. After they gave up raising ducks (ducks were fussier to raise than chickens and my mom didn't particularly care for the taste), it was amazing how many people asked if they had any to sell. :)
In any case, I probably didn't appreciate what I had at the time, especially all the duck fat that I discarded over those few years. Now that I have to buy my ducks, I'm more liable to use as much of the duck as I can.
I wanted to usher in the New Year with a special meal and Food Basics was selling utility grade ducks for $6.15 per kg so I bought a 2.7 kg one and roasted the whole thing very simply. I got lazy and decided not to start my bird breast side down and flip it half way through ... disappointingly the underside of the duck didn't brown very much even though there was good circulation underneath the rack the duck was sitting on. And the breast got a bit overdone even though I covered it for the first half hour.
To go with my duck I made a sweet cherry gastrique and served a simple baby arugula salad garnished with pomegranates, sauteed kale and a mix of regular and wild rice.
Baby arugula salad
Dinner
I'm sorry that the cherry gastrique didn't show better in the picture below. Instead of sour cherries, I used the preserved sweet cherries that a friend of my mom's put up a while ago. I omitted the extra sugar in the recipe as a result. I was tempted to snatch all the crispy skin off the breast and devour it immediately but I resisted and, unfortunately, it got limp by the time I finished taking the pictures. I felt deprived ... next time, I'm eating all the crispy skin first. Maybe in some chinese pancakes like mu shu duck skin.
Dessert ... whole pears poached in a cranberry-honey mixture, a chocolate sauce and french vanilla ice cream. The dessert was a bit disappointing because I cheated on the chocolate sauce (made the same one from my churro post) rather than making a ganache type which would have coated the pear better and been richer in flavour.
The poaching liquid for the pears was inspired by a bottle of cranberry mead that I had been gifted with by my brother. I decided to drink the rest of the mead instead of using it to poach the pears and made something similar in flavour with 4 cups of water, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of honey and 1 cup of dried cranberries simmered together before the pears were added. :)
The inspiration for the dessert
ETA: I whipped up a quick cup or so of duck gravy with some of the duck fat. Between the pan drippings and rendering the fat trimmed off the uncooked duck, I harvested over 1 cup of duck fat. (More on the duck fat later.) The gravy and the duck legs are frozen away for the future in my ever filling chest freezer.
I've cooked duck about half a dozen times before today's attempt. They were raised by my parents and gifted to me to use up as my parents didn't have room to store the extra ducks in their own chest freezer. At that time, my own freezer wasn't quite as packed as it's become.
They had recently purchased 36 acres out in the county and moved there so that my dad could finally have the farm he'd always wanted in Canada and grow his own fruits and vegetables as well as raising chickens for meat and eggs. After they gave up raising ducks (ducks were fussier to raise than chickens and my mom didn't particularly care for the taste), it was amazing how many people asked if they had any to sell. :)
In any case, I probably didn't appreciate what I had at the time, especially all the duck fat that I discarded over those few years. Now that I have to buy my ducks, I'm more liable to use as much of the duck as I can.
I wanted to usher in the New Year with a special meal and Food Basics was selling utility grade ducks for $6.15 per kg so I bought a 2.7 kg one and roasted the whole thing very simply. I got lazy and decided not to start my bird breast side down and flip it half way through ... disappointingly the underside of the duck didn't brown very much even though there was good circulation underneath the rack the duck was sitting on. And the breast got a bit overdone even though I covered it for the first half hour.
To go with my duck I made a sweet cherry gastrique and served a simple baby arugula salad garnished with pomegranates, sauteed kale and a mix of regular and wild rice.
Baby arugula salad
Dinner
I'm sorry that the cherry gastrique didn't show better in the picture below. Instead of sour cherries, I used the preserved sweet cherries that a friend of my mom's put up a while ago. I omitted the extra sugar in the recipe as a result. I was tempted to snatch all the crispy skin off the breast and devour it immediately but I resisted and, unfortunately, it got limp by the time I finished taking the pictures. I felt deprived ... next time, I'm eating all the crispy skin first. Maybe in some chinese pancakes like mu shu duck skin.
Dessert ... whole pears poached in a cranberry-honey mixture, a chocolate sauce and french vanilla ice cream. The dessert was a bit disappointing because I cheated on the chocolate sauce (made the same one from my churro post) rather than making a ganache type which would have coated the pear better and been richer in flavour.
The poaching liquid for the pears was inspired by a bottle of cranberry mead that I had been gifted with by my brother. I decided to drink the rest of the mead instead of using it to poach the pears and made something similar in flavour with 4 cups of water, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of honey and 1 cup of dried cranberries simmered together before the pears were added. :)
The inspiration for the dessert
ETA: I whipped up a quick cup or so of duck gravy with some of the duck fat. Between the pan drippings and rendering the fat trimmed off the uncooked duck, I harvested over 1 cup of duck fat. (More on the duck fat later.) The gravy and the duck legs are frozen away for the future in my ever filling chest freezer.