Mahlzeit - Food without Borders

Pedro is a friend at work. He loves cooking as much as I do. Every now and then we talk about food. I asked him last week for a recommendation. So this is him. This is very easy and simple: one needs duck breasts and rice.  I bought 4 duck breasts. They were frozen. I did defrost 2 of them in the fridge for 24h. After defrosting them, I did pad dry them, sliced a skin just a little bit. Season with salt. I didn't use any pepper on them. In the biggest frying pan I could find (has about 1ft in diameter), add the duck breast skin side down. Keep the temperature to a very low setting.  The purpose is, to render the fat and get the skin crisp. The breast meat does tense up at during the process.  For my duck breast it took about 15-20 minutes for the fat to render. Now I didn't put a timer on it. Turn up the heat and sear the breast all around. When you are satisfied, remove the breast from the pan, put aside and let them rest.  In my fridge I found a small little jar wi...

A few weeks back I talked about a duck I bought that was pretty much just fat on my FB feed. They did send me a replacement duck and some extra. It was time to do the duck breast. What can I tell. It looked so nice: The left side was below on the right size. The different color from the skin comes from the red meat sitting on top of it. But cleaning? Why was that not properly cleaned?  And I didn't even pull everything out. And here again fat, fat, fat. I trimmed as much as I could, then salt and pepper onto the meat side and just salt onto the skin side. 2 pans were heated up without fat. Put down the breast, skin side down and let the fat render. I used 2 different pans, as I wanted to do 2 different recipes. Let the skin get crusty over medium high heat. Then I turned the breast around, turned down the heat. I then covered the pans. This will take the crips out, but at the end I am going to crisp it up again. 2 of the duck breasts got basted with Voodoo Sauce from Lucky 32 South...

I while ago I complained to a company that was raising and selling ducks, that their duck basically was 50% fat. I got from them as make-up a new duck, 2 duck breasts, 2 duck legs confit and 2 duck legs. On Friday I started to defrost the 2 duck legs in the fridge. Saturday night they were defrosted. So this is the process inspired by the French duck confit process. Pad dry the duck legs, slightly salt the skin side and put them meat side down in a glas container. They should all lay flat, not stacks. Add 1 sprig of fresh rosemary, a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme, and some juniper berries (about 5 per leg). Cover with cling wrap and into the fridge over night. From that duck disaster a few weeks back, I still had plenty of duck fat left. Preheat the oven to 300F.  Remove the duck legs from the bowl and clean it from the spices. Don't reuse the cold bowl for roasting. Chances are it will shadder. Salt the legs from all sides, add some more fresh thyme, rosemary and juniper berries...

When I go to the east end, I am stocking up on a lot of things. Meat, tea (if I am out of it) and some spices.  So aside from chicken bones I also got a couple of ducks, 2 rabbits as well as pork hearts, frsh noodles. I really wanted to get 2 different meals out of the duck. It all starts with roasting on of the ducks. The other one was still frozen, so it went into the freezer right away. When roasting ducks, I like the combination of a balsamic pomegranate molasses as a baste. But let's start from the beginning. Ducks from a Chinese store come with the head and the feed attached. They got cut off as well as parts from the from the wings and put into a bag into the freezer for the next duck stock. Salt and pepper from the out and inside. I got myself a new roasting pan. The old one had lost some of the non-stick coating. I didn't want to risk more of this to show up in my food. In  the bottom of the pan add so much water, so it does not touch the duck. For me that was a almos...

I think I am reversing my opinion about not smoking a duck again. I came up with the following strategy and that turned out great. Recap: When I removed the duck from the smoker, I put it on a plate and covered it with heavy duty aluminum  to rest. A lot of the juices ended up on the plate. When it was time to eat, I quartered the duck.  All the rest ended up in the fridge. I have a small roasting pan. I think that thing is now about 30 years old. It is German size = a lot smaller then a roasting pan for turkey.  I preheated the oven to 375F. 2 cups of water into the roasting pan, the remaining duck quaters skin side up into the pan as well as all the solidified fat and liquids. Into the oven it went for 1h. Every 20 minutes I poured some of the liquid over the duck parts. I had to add another 1/2 cup of water after 40 min, so the fat does not burn. After 1h I removed all of it. The liquid was made into gravy with a little salt, sauce thickener and half and half. The skin...

I thought it was a good idea to try to smoke a duck. I read up on the internet and here is what I came up with. The defrosted duck gets the skin pierced so the rendered fat can drip off. Then I salted it generously from all sides and in an open container it went into the fridge over night. Before I went to bed I turned the bird around and drained the water.  The next morning I rinsed the bird so that all the salt gets removed. I filled the cavity with an apple and a peeled orange. The outside gets coated with olive oil and a Moroccan  BBQ spice powder.  The smoker was preheated to 225F. The challenge was a bit to find a spot to get the probe inserted. After 3.5h the internal temperature was at 160F. The skin was still a little on the light side. So I bumped up the temp to 350F for 15 min. Then I pulled the bird, put it on a plate , wrapped in heavy duty aluminum foil and let it rest for 30 min. In the meantime I finished the sides, potato dumplings and red cabbage.  ...

Christmas deserves a good dinner. My favorite Asian store had ducks. They have usually a lot less fat than what one can buy in the domestic grocery stores. They also have the head and the feed still attached. I don't know what to do with that. I cut them off and throw them out. For the duck we start out with all of this: 2 apples salt and pepper 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar 1 tbsp honey (I love clover honey) Preheat the oven to 400F. Wash the apples and clean cut them into small pieces. They will fill the cavity of the duck. Wash and pad dry the duck, remove any extra fat if you like. Salt from all sides including the inside. Suff the duck with the apples and close the entry of the cavity.  Pepper a little bit from the outside.  In a bowl mix the balsamic and the honey. Make sure the honey is disolved.  In a roasting pan with a rack add water so it get to the rack. Add the duck  breast side up. Brush some of the balsamic honey mixture on it. Into the oven the duck goes. a...

4.July is the BBQ day in the states. I didn't want to make steak. So I decided on a duck. We start of with making a brine. Desolve 3/4 cup of kosher salt and 1 cup of brown sugar in 1 gallon of water. Take the duck out of the freezeer. Remove the plastick wrapper and put it into the brine. Make sure it is fully submerged. Let it defrost over night. The next day remove the duck. Cut it in half so it can lay flat on the BBQ. Prepare the hickory chips for the BBQ per the manufacturers instructions. Keep in mind the dripping duck fat can ignite into flames. That happened to me. So be prepared to deal with that. Put the duck skin side down onto the rost and let it BBQ in the smoke. Then turn off the heat. Remove the duck into a roasting pan skin side up and finish it up in the oven. Every 15 minutes baste it with your favorite BBQ sauce. I used  BBQ sauce and marinade produced locally in Charleston, SC. Depending on the size, my duck was done after 90 min in the oven. As sides serve red...