Notes in the key of duck...

Apologies, viewers, for the very long interruption to your foodporn viewing.

You'll be pleased to know I have been marinating ideas to blog about in my brain and I've also been marinating, as well as actually cooking, in the kitchen. As you know I luv a duck, but I'm concerned I may be turning into a one-hit wonder with my glass noodle salad. Here's a view of the devious plans I've been hatching and scheming in relation to duck. Mwahahahaha...


Duck Red Curry

If you've ever lived in Alice Springs, you'll know how great the local market garden and Vietnamese restaurant out by the airport is for a lifetime of happy memories. Tinh & Lan's is to blame for my weird duck curry addiction. Sadly, I've never had the dish live up to their high standards, so I've decided to experiment in the coming months to find the perfect do-at-home version. Hope you get to go there one day. Just don't miss the turn!

Some ideas:
Margaret Fulton, by way of SBS Food.

Luv-a-Duck's take on how to curry their fabulous Peking Duck product is probably reliable. If you're ever in Port Melbourne, swing by and say hi for me. Duckalicious warehouse of awesomeness makes me think of "Daemon and the Duckolate Factory". I may have burst into song last time I was there.

taste.com.au have a lovely looking version too.


Duck as the protein topping on soup noodles

I usually only have ham if I'm down to soup noodles at home but this looks nice, thanks SBS.


Braised Duck with Long Pasta

You know my love of Ragu/Ragout/Ragoo with Roo and long fat pasta - so this Pappardelle Duck recipe looks soo appealing.

This looks great too, love a good braise and slather...

I hope winter lasts long enough to get through all these hearty ducky ideas!


(I do have one more idea but I can't seem to find any decent recipes online for this, it must be too traditional. You know that delicious course you get at a full Peking duck banquet, where they use the lower layers of meat in a fine dice to serve either as dry fried rice, on white deep fried "polystyrene" noodles or in sang choi bau (or all or both or a combo)? Does anyone have any ideas on this one? I might have to ask my parents for their opinion too! Old skool!)

Honey soy duck leg

I've had a really lovely day, but it did involve a fair bit of racing around. Racing home in my car, I pulled in at the local grocer's to pick up a specific item and, I thought, some instant dinner (they make roast dinners in a box) as I had absolutely no "actual food" in the house. In the end I went with semi-instant real food; so here is how you make a stupid-easy-quickie dinner that I guarantee will make you even happier than you were before. (I do luv duck, and I certainly luv Luv-A-Duck!)

Here's how you do it:

Screech home, pull out the rice cooker, plug it in, pour about a cupful (or what's left in a bag in the back of the pantry shelf) of rice, fill with water until the waterline above the rice is up to your first knuckle (distal PIP joint for the technicals amongst you) - this is the ancient measuring system I was taught by my Mum. Push the button from 'warm' to 'cook'.

Turn the oven onto 180∘c.

Race out the door to walk the dog around the block. If you don't have a dog, you may omit this step. Don't go out of your way to source a pet just to follow the recipe, that would be daft. You can do something else whilst the oven pre-heats, honest.

Race back in the door, open the duck pack and place the honey soy duck legs onto a baking paper-lined backing tray and plonk it in the oven.

Save the duck pack as it will have rendered then re-solidified fat in it (which will look disturbingly like atheroma, just ignore that. Stop being so technical!). Scrape a spatula-endful out and splat it into a wok on high heat. Chop up the bunch of broccolini you bought - stems chopped, chuck them in the wok first; then the florets; then a tray of mixed mushrooms in order of cooking lenghth. (King oyster, shimeji, oyster, enoki.) The rice will have cooked and the duck will be crisp and perfect.

Layer:

(and don't forget the sprinkle of fresh chives off the windowsill)

Then eat. Watching Jamie Oliver on the telly. He would be proud. Fast food but not too naughty!


P.S. Watching Jimmy and Gwyneth Paltrow play chubby bunny was just too funny!

Nasturtium Stir'ems

As you know, my front garden is alight with nasturtium plants this winter, and I had heard that they are quite edible. Eaten raw they are SUPER peppery; even for me who is in love with watercress as a salad base. So I thought I'd pick a bagful and try them out cooked. They really are quite appealing, lovely looking leaves and stems:


So I decided to add them to my standard Duck and Glass Noodle Stirfry Salad in place of the usual watercress (which is getting easier to buy, but is really rather difficult to grow).

All in all it was pretty straight forward, I just cut up the stems and leaves with a pair of scissors and added them into the wok at the appropriate time.


I only used duck, green beans, garlic and ginger as the other stuff so I could really see what the nasturtiums had to say.


It turned out nicely (although I have a right wrist injury in a splint so left-handed stirfrying caused a bit of kitchen carnage I must say):
...but I must say the nasturtium didn't really add much flavour that I could notice, not like watercress does; but the stems add a nice texture, and you are left with a funny tongue coated peppery feel once you finish eating, which is a new sensation.

I think the verdict is that I'll use the front yard plants for my stirfries if I haven't got watercress to hand, but I can't say it will be replacing it all together. I'll carry onto the next nasturtium experiment...

Glass noodles come with a warning, but no sharp implements

This evening was a bit of a slow TV night, nothing to watch, grumpy grumpy grumpy. The fridge is also looking a bit sad and sorry tonight. Just the remains of a massive wine/cheese/antipasto platter I had for Eurovision (crud, all my chopping boards and knives are all filthily strewn about the apartment), a bottle of tomato juice and some leftover takeaway Chinese roast duck. Oh yeah, some random vegies rattling around in there too. Hmm, glass noodles in pantry. A-ha!
Wok on, ingredients in (in this order):
Shredded duck meat and skin by hand
A splash of olive oil
Green beans snapped into pieces
A bunch of watercress torn into short segments
Soy sauce
Dry sherry
Black pepper
Glass noodles (which I soaked in cold water at the start of the wokking)
Enoki mushrooms
The remainder of the takeaway plum sauce (I seem to have no sugar at all in my apartment at the moment)

Heat off, stir stir stir

Mmmmmmmm

Except I could not for the life of me convince myself to not have a third helping, even thought I KNOW that glass noodles swell up in my stomach and render me incapacitated with a mild bellyache for the rest of the night.

Ah, it was worth it. Yum yum yum!

Leftover duck and glass noodle salad

{A retrospective post from October 2010}

qwack qwack

I had some leftover "Siew nyap" or Chinese roast duck from the local BBQ house.

Decided to make a random glass noodle salad to noms it with - green beans, cucumber, lime juice, soy, chilli (too much!), garlic, ginger and a sprinkle of sugar. Basically, just shredded the duck meat, skin on whilst setting the glass noodles in a large dish of cold water to soak, cut the vegies on a sharp angle, then mixed the whole lot together. A gentle nuke in the microwave just to warm it through and hey presto! classy leftovers to snack on, or refridgerate to bring to work where it can be gently nuked and you can feel smug about a bit of comfort on your break...