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!

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!