Amuse Bouche

Sasquatch Smokehouse, Nigel Slater & Smoked Haddock with Butter Beans

The beginning of this story goes back to our 10-year anniversary last may when we went back to England to stay in the castle where were married and to travel a bit.  One of the places I had always wanted to stay was at the Inn at Whitewell on the edge of the forest of Bowland.

Not only is the quirky inn gorgeous, with a divine dining room, but they also have a great selection of wines and cookbooks that they sell.  It was there that I picked up a copy of Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries.  It languished on my shelves for the last year or so and recently, after many had suggested his writing when I asked for cookbook selections, I moved it to the top of the stack for a read. The premise, for those not familiar, is a diary of what he cooked and ate over the course of a year.  This is not a rote recitation along the lines of, 'had a sandwich and a glass of milk', but a gorgeously written account of a year in his kitchen and garden.  Each entry is brief and each recipe is written more like you were chatting with your friend on how they made the scrumptious soup.  In other words, more 'tip in some' and 'roast until sticky' over Thomas Keller like technique.  I was smitten immediately.  The book begins in January and since Britain is obviously a bit more temperate than New England some of the ingredients he can get are well off our calendar dates, but no matter.  Somewhere around February 8 -  A Smoked Fish Supper' I became obsessed.

Sorry Nigel, but I have to quote the paragraph preceding the recipe here.

"There is something old-fashioned about a supper of smoked haddock, something redolent of the 1950's when women wore an apron when they cooked and would get a meal on the table at the same time each day, year in, year out.  I like my smoked haddock baked with a little cream as I do almost anything smoked, but until recently was never sure what to eat with it.  Mash never seemed right, buttered toast never substantial enough, rice too reminiscent of kedgeree.  It was out of curiosity that I turned to beans, pale ones from a can, their texture a pleasing contrast.  Now this is one of my favourite teas, though not the prettiest."

Now I have always loved anything smoked.  Mussels, fish, meat, even nuts, which I really don't like at all normally, add some smoke to it and I can't resist.  I had seen many recipes with smoked haddock before in Delia, Two Fat Ladies, Sophie Grigson and living, as I do, in New England, specifically not far from Gloucester the oldest seaport in the US I just ASSUMED, and you all know what happens when we assume don't you, that I could find smoked haddock. Ha! Smoked salmon, bluefish, trout, mackerel, salmon cured with tea and spices, mackerel coated in cracked black pepper and smoked but no, not one SINGLE piece of smoked haddock and let's just say I don't lack sources for ingredients given my line of work.  After a week or two of searching I popped over to my Google window and "smoked haddock, MA", and up popped a chowhound thread.  They mentioned loads of the usual suspects, but about halfway down one caught my eye.  They mentioned Sasquatch Smokehouse in Gloucester.

"My suggestion is Sasquatch Smokehouse: 44 Whittemore St., Gloucester, MA
Phone #: 978-282-7721. It's run by a Gloucester fisherman named Paul Cohan. He's an amazing seafood cook (I've tried his monkfish piccata and seafood soup.) He's also well-informed about the New England fishing community and he's an hilariously funny storyteller and bluegrass guitarist. He can tell you everything you want to know about smoking fish.  Since haddock is a local species, I bet he'd make a special order if necessary. It's a trip worth making. But call first."

So call I did.  I told him I needed some smoked Haddock and some smoked trout for work.  He told me he was putting some stuff in the smoker this weekend and to give him a call the following week.  Tuesday we made plans and Friday I took the long drive up 128 to pick up my fish. 

Paul's place is tucked away in a corner that you will never find without calling him for directions, trust me on this.  He is not far from the first Gloucester rotary, or roundabout for you Brits following along, in a corrugated steel building overlooking a river outlet. 

If you want to talk about fish, or the fishing industry, or CSF's, NOAA, NMFS or any other acronym associated with the fishing industry, smoking foods, or pickled kielbasa or bluegrass music plan on spending some time. 

Paul is a man of many interests and a word smith with many an opinion and I might add, rather hilarious.  We stood and chatted for a couple hours about the state of things and I picked his brain about the setup he had built. I have a feeling Paul is the guy you want at the end of your dinner table to keep the conversation moving.

Our conversation was punctuated by his popping into the walk in to remove tasty morsels like the Kielbasa he had smoked and pickled himself some smoked mussels and he even passed along some dog treats he makes.  Dog treats, which are most amusingly made from dog fish, dehydrated slices of dog fish.  Trust me,your dog wants some NOW.

I took home a load of smoked haddock (all the smoked fish freezes well) and the trout I needed for the class.  I had Paul point me in the direction of a good place to pick up some fresh fish and he pointed me down to the next rotary to the waterfront and Steve Connolly.  Bring cash because that is all they take, but I picked up cod for class that night for $6.49 a pound.  Cod I might add that Whole Foods was selling for $14.00 per pound.  The very same Whole Foods that had a truck parked out back of Paul Connolly's docks.  Need I say more?

Now if you have made it this far, what you see below is what you want to make for dinner.  You really WISH you had SMELL-O-VISION for the picture you see here.  I cannot accurately describe in words how this smelled when it came out of the oven.  This is also the kind of dinner you can have on the table any night in 30 or so minutes.  Come in, turn the oven on, spend 5 minutes mixing things and pop it in the oven.  Go and sort your mail, change into your jammies, pour a cocktail, set the table and before you know it that smell will begin to waft from the oven.  The most heavenly smokey, seductive smell.  I may have seriously underestimated my haddock purchase quantity.  Paul does not hard smoke his fish, rather they are still moist and supple so I skipped a step in Nigel's recipe for basically poaching the fish in milk and water that you discard once the fish flakes.  There is NO NEED to do this with Paul's fish.  It is also not as salty as a lot of smoked fish, so do season a bit if you are following along using Nigel's recipe.  My adaptation is listed below.  And if you go and visit Paul at Sasquatch Smokehouse, and believe me, you should, ask him to play you his Sarah Palin ditty, it's a hoot.

Smoked Haddock and Butter Beans

All the ingredients here are estimates because this is one of those meals.  WING IT PEOPLE, you really can't go wrong.

• 1 smoked haddock  - skin removed
• 1 gratin dish or shallow dish lightly buttered
• Some heavy cream, oh say 3/4 cup
• A few tablespoons milk
• Some nice freshly minced flat leaf parsley, minced (don't skip this)
• A few tablespoons of whole grain mustard
• 1 bay leaf
• Freshly ground pepper
• Kosher or sea salt
• 1 tin of Butter Beans, rinsed.  I always find these in the Goya section and they are the best beans for this recipe in my opinion since they are soft and absorb all the flavours of the smoke and cream.

Oven 350F, butter dish, break fish up into a few chunks.  In a bowl mix chopped parsley, cream, milk, whole grain mustard and then tip in the rinsed beans.  Stir, season with some salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Lay the pieces of fish in the gratin dish.  Tip the contents of the bowl over the fish, nestle things around a bit leaving some of the beans to stick up and get a crust. Tuck in the bay leaf and pop it in the oven.

Bake 30 - 35 minutes or until nice and bubbly.

45

....Happy Birthday to me.

The makings of birthday dinner. 

Keith, if you are reading, this Sauternes is the one you sent about 10 years ago with the lovely basket of Foie Gras.  I've held on to it all this time and I figured what the hell, I'm turning 45, I'm buying a cooking school*, it's time to crack the bottle, and yes, I left the dust on the bottle as it adds to the character!  The foie I bought myself as a present.  Note the 'A'. Don't worry, it's not ALL for dinner, there will be a few preparations, but dinner will be grapes soaked in the Sauternes with seared foie and a salad and I shall sip more of that wine.  Simple.  Beautiful.

And nothing makes a girl happier than a stack of reading and listening from friends and family.  Pretty  hard to tear myself away and head to work!

*What?  I forgot to mention I was buying a cooking school.  More on that later kiddies, I'm off to Russo's for grapes.

Scallop, bacon and potato salad

Yet again, dinner comes out of The French Market by Joanne Harris & Fran Warde.  If i haven't convinced you by now that you want this book, I guess I never will.
No photos of dinner, just a view into the kitchen from my side garden as the bacon was rendering.

Scallop Bacon and Potato Salad

Take some fingerling potatoes and steam them until tender. 

Cut them into a few pieces each and toss with 1 TBS of white wine vinegar, I happened to have champagne vinegar. 

Add some chopped fresh herbs, she recommends tarragon, but I don't happen to grow tarragon, and I couldn't find any at the store or at the farmer's market so I added about 2 TBS chive, 2 TBS basil, a few sprigs or marjoram and a tiny tip off a rosemary sprig. 

Toss it all with some sea salt and pepper and set aside.

While the potatoes are steaming render some nice smoked bacon, preferably slab if you can find it.  When it is nicely cooked to your liking, drain it and then toss it in with those potatoes.
Now, remove some, but not all of the bacon rendering. 

Take some nice sea or diver scallops and pat them dry, season both sides with some sea salt and pepper and heat that pan with the bacon rendering back to hot, hot, hot. 

When it's ready, add those scallops in a circle like the face of a clock and watch the sides for opacity.  Cook 1, maybe 2 minutes depending on how thick they are and then flip the scallop, again, following the clock motion you used to put them in the pan,(12o'clock, then 1 o'clock, etc.) Cook another minute or 2 depending on how done you like your scallops.  I like mine barely cooked through.

Put those lovely scallops on a plate and top it with some of that potato, herb and bacon mixture, give it a loving anointing drizzle of some fruity extra virgin olive oil and call it done.  I had it with a nice cold rose of course.  Can you also tell that is my summer quaff of choice?

She:  What I just told you about, now go and make it!

He: Grilled tuna steak that was marinated in ginger, garlic, tamari, kecap manis, mirin, sesame oil and rice vinegar with a splash of hot chili oil.  Steamed rice drizzled with the heated remaining marinade.

The Sweet Melissa Baking Book

By now, you all should realise that I am forever, and ever on the hunt for new recipes, good recipes, recipes that work.  Not every cookbook can be opened and the recipe executed perfectly.  There are some cookbook writers that I have come to inherently trust, Hi Ina(!), and others whose recipes must be tested before executing them with 30 or 40 unsuspecting pre-teens - yea, I'm looking at you Nigella, mistress of flung together recipes.

When Viking Studio offered to send me a copy of their latest, The Sweet Melissa Baking Book I jumped at the chance. 

A nicely designed and very nicely written cookbook with very easy to follow recipes, this new book contains recipes by Melissa Murphy the owner of Sweet Melissa Pâtisseries in Brooklyn. 

I flicked through all of the recipes and considered my limitations of number of burners, number of students, nut allergies, oven space, time, difficulty of execution, and chose her recipe for Chocolate Orange Macaroons.

I had one of our resident pastry chefs B test out the recipe and she gave it a hearty approval so we put it on the curriculum for this past week and I can assure you that it was a huge hit.

Rather than having the kids chopping the chocolate off of the Callebaut that we get in 11-pound blocks we used a high quality chocolate chip made by Callebaut that we get from our supplier, if I were to make these at home I would definitely choose a really good high quality chocolate.  A recipe with so few ingredients relies upon each of them being of high quality.  Also, don't try to sub out the dessicated coconut that you find in Whole Foods for the sweetened coconut called for here it will not work in this recipe.  You need the sticky, moist, sweetened coconut to make this work.  Macaroons by their very nature are a sweet cookie, I suppose you could cut back a bit on the sugar, but it is a sweet people, not a food to live on!  Also, take the ingredient of 'zest of 1 orange' with a grain of salt, one man's tangerine sized orange is another man's grapefruit sized one so zest wisely.  The household Brit gives these a big two thumbs up not to mention my peeps! 

Next week we're making Bear's Peach Cobbler, I shall report back.

Chocolate Orange Macaroons

Recipe from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy

6 ounces best-quality solid semisweet (58%) chocolate
14 ounces sweetened coconut
zest of 1 orange
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large egg whites

1) Before you start Position the rack in the center of your oven.  Preheat the oven to 325F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil.

2) Using a serrated bread knife, finely chop the chocolate and set aside.
3) In a large bowl, combine the coconut and zest, rub together with your hands. (This will break up the coconut and release the orange oils).

4) Stir in the sugar and chocolate to the coconut and mix to combine. 
5) Add the egg whites (we whisked them a bit to lighten them up).

6) Use your hands to mix until everything is coated and the egg whites are distributed evenly.

7) Using a 1-ounce cookie scoop, firmly pack the dough in the scoop and unmold, 2-inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheet.  Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown.  Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

One of the benefits of this dough is that you can make the cookie base up to 1 week ahead and keep it in an airtight container in the fridge and just the bake the cookies when desired.  They keep well in an airtight container at room temp for 3 days.  If you want to keep them longer, wrap in plastic and then aluminum foil and freeze them for up to 3 weeks.

Glorious Guinea Fowl

I've really never hidden my adoration for D'Artagnan products.  I've used their demi-glace and duck fat for years now, I've had the white and black truffle butters gracing the inside of my fridge door, sure they use a mixture of truffle oil (sure it's really 2,4-dithiapentane - I know - I know!) and shaved truffle slices (which are likely tuber aestivum and not likely to be tuber melanosporum) but I don't really care it tastes like heaven and more than a little earth on a slice of toasted Iggy's Francese for breakfast. 

I buy their duck breast and my freezer has a supply of their confit and a saucisson l'ail all ready for cassoulet season. I've made their wild boar before, but this week at John Dewar I noticed a few new items in the case.  I was torn between the pheasant, the rabbit and the guinea fowl and since I have tasted both rabbit and pheasant before I decided the guinea fowl would win. 

When I got home I started flicking through my cookbooks, Hugh Fearnley Whitingstall recommends a salmi preparation, Anne Willan braises hers with cabbage and bacon, Julia didn't seem to have any thoughts which surprised me, but I was looking up guinea fowl and not the French term for the bird which is pintade.  None of the preparations really knocked my socks off but husband and I were heading off to the Topsfield Fair for the day so I grabbed Anne Willan's new book Country Cooking of France and  D'Artagnan's Glorious Game Cookbook and put them in the truck.  As we headed home back down 128 in Friday traffic I had husband read me the recipes from both books.  In the end, we decided on the Guinea Hen Two ways from D'Artagnan.  Besides, I was halfway there already since I already had garlic confit in the fridge.

Guinea hen and Guinea fowl can be used interchangeably for either the male of the female of the species.  They have 50% less fat than chickens which is visibly noticeable when you look at the legs the skin layer is so thin that you can see through to the dark, almost blue, meat right through it.  They are a bird that likes to be left alone. The peck and poke for their own food, they don't take kindly to laying their eggs where you can find them, they prefer to sleep on the highest branches of the tree and they are a mighty, mighty loud alarm clock,screeching loudly when threatened or when they feel their territory has been invaded. They also aren't the most attractive of bird, certainly not as cute as this guy from the Topsfield Fair.

Okay, shall we make dinner?

Follow that link above and make yourself some garlic confit.

Slice 3 lemons, thinly, and place these in a non-reactive pot with 2 quarts of water and 2 TBS of salt, and add 20 or so peeled garlic cloves.  Set this on high and boil until the water evaporates stirring occasionally.  When it becomes just a sludge of disintegrated lemon essence and garlic, add 1 cup of cream, or more to taste depending on how tart your lemons are, and season with pepper, no salt will be necessary.  Keep it warm.

Salt and pepper your rinsed and dried guinea fowl inside, rub 1 TBS of duck fat on the outside and salt and pepper the outside.  Place it on its side in a roasting pan. Roast it in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. While it roasts, dice a carrot and an onion.  After 20 minutes, flip the bird, add up to 1 TBS duck fat to the pan and toss in the onion and carrot.  Return the pan to the oven for a further 20 mins.

Remove the pan from the oven.  Cut off the legs and tent the breast with foil to keep warm.  Return the legs to the pan, now on the stove top, and cook over medium-high heat to crisp up and finish the legs.  Be careful to not burn your aromatics.  When the legs are ready, remove those from the pan, tent them with foil and keep them warm.  Now you will build your second sauce.

Deglaze your pan with 5 ounces of ruby port scraping up all the good sticky, shmooie bits as you go.  Add 1/4 cup of cream and bring it to a nice bubbling boil.  Tip all this carefully into a blender (works better than a food processor if you have a choice, the blender creates a nice vortex and will pulverize everything more efficiently), add your garlic confit (I must have had about 15 cloves), place the cover on the blender and loosen the center cap, just before I run the blender I tilt it to allow some air in so that the top doesn't blow off from the heat.  Puree this until smooth and then strain it through a chinois or a double mesh strainer.  Return it to a small clean pan and season to taste with salt and pepper.

I carved off the breast meat , sliced it thinly and arranged it over a small pool of the port sauce with a bit more on top. I placed the leg leaning on a pile of mashed potato with celeriac and sitting in a pool of the lemon sauce.  Yea folks, I know boring composition, no colour, but I wasn't going to make a green veg just to please the eye, this was all we wanted.  I drank a bottle of this with it, and yes, I did eventually wipe the dust off the bottle, I've had it awhile.

So in the end, how was it?  Unbelievably good.  The guinea fowl has amazing big flavor and because the fat layer under the skin is so thin the skin crisps up nicely.  It has a mild gamey taste and the two sauces play nicely off of that. Husband was making happy food noises as he was eating and we both declared that this dish is a repeat.  Now I know that you'll go look at the $21.00 price tag for a 3 - 4 pound guinea hen and scoff and decide it's too much money but this meal could have been served in any restaurant easily as a $36.00 entree per person and you certainly wouldn't call that too pricey.  Add that bottle of wine that I paid $28.00 for and you would be paying $75.00 - $80.00 for after the markup and I call this meal a bargain.  I even froze the rest of the lemon sauce, Chef Jan taught me to freeze everything, it can always be turned into something else later.  I assure you her mantra has been a lifesaver.

Seek it out, cook it and love it.

Morimoto, Willinger and Bourdain

*cough*

Hi.  Remember me?

I guess I am back if you call three weeks with a cough and a throat that feels like a baseball is lodged on the left where my tonsil should be.
During my time spent bonding with the couch and my slanket willing my taste buds to return I bonded with a couple of new books.

This one is one of THE most GORGEOUS books I have ever laid my eyes on.

Morimoto:The New Art of Japanese Cooking

If this were available in a print, it would be hanging on my wall. 

Not only is the book gorgeous, but the tutorials on slicing fish, cutting vegetables, making sushi rice are invaluable.

Morimoto doesn't just stick to Japanese food, he spins traditional food from other cultures with an Asian twist.

Faith Heller Willinger's Adventures of an Italian Food Lover mixes little vignettes of her friends in Italy with watercolours done by her sister Suzanne.

I made this yesterday.  You should make it soon.

But the cookbook I was all over when my taste buds returned? This one.

Made this last night.  I feel much, much better now.  Pork it cures everything.

Like a teary eyed mother

For the past year I have been a teaching assistant at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts working with a group of Professional chef students as they wend their way through the 37 week curriculum. We started together back at the beginning in egg class and wound our way through baking and basics, Italian and French, Asian and American and ended a few weeks ago in a fusion cuisine class.
I hugged everyone as I left and ended up as I always do with goodbye as a teary eyed mess.  It's a good thing I don't wear mascara on a daily basis.

One of the benefits of teaching as a profession that I didn't expect as I entered my new career was how proud I would be at seeing the accomplishments of the students I work with at the end of their training.  Sure I have taught 6 and 7 week classes where I see the same faces weekly.  I get to know their personalities, their strengths, what they like and dislike, I hear about their families and their dirty little culinary secrets that they wouldn't normally tell a polite audience.

This group was different.  We were together every week for 9 months.  I watched them all come in on day one, very much like I was, lost in the kitchen, kit still all complete and tidy, not knowing where anything was, amazed that you could actually stand in the fridge (walk in), uniform still sparkling and white, hats donned and shoes new and clean, Ralph and Ted leading them around the kitchens and stores, telling them the rules and regulations. 

They were all a bit deer in the headlights.

Little by little though they gained confidence. They made it through one chef and on to the next learning each ones style,they learned how to work as team and not just as an individual, they learned that food is art as much as it is taste and that what you put on the plate needs to appeal to your eyes as much as it does to your nose and stomach. In those 9 months I watched Ana move from a terrified girl in the kitchen to a confident take charge woman, no more asking before she did every single task.  Eventually we all figured out Marina's accent and we could understand what she was talking about and we were all blown away by her mean knife skills, that girl could seriously brunoise wood. Will worked his way through school in the kitchens of Rialto and came in with newer and better tricks up his sleeve each week. Amber, Kerry and Sally all worked so hard and developed their own styles and sorry Amber, I was always leaning in your just sanitized and cleaned space.  Sandra came in the middle and joined us until the end, she was the Mom of the group, not sure what she was going to do with her education but enjoying the ride for all it was worth. And I always take one bird under my wing, the one I see has potential but just needs to be gently nudged in a direction, Patrick was my project this term.  Someone has to show a nice polite Southern boy that there is more to the world than Barbecue.  He caught on quick, just don't ask him to make a Genoise please. Come to think of it, don't ask me to make one either.

Saturday my peeps graduated.  I came home from that last fusion class to a message from them that they bought me a ticket to their graduation, they wanted me to come and see them finish.

Husband and I polished ourselves up and went to the very same place I was just 18 months ago.  I couldn't have been more proud to watch them all get their awards, meet their families, and have them all tell husband how much they enjoyed having me with them all year.
They all pitched in and bought me a gorgeous copy of The Best of Art Culinaire that I had long coveted, I was flabbergasted and quite humbled.

But the proudest moments?  Amber,Tzu-i, Kerry and Marina all picked up academic and lab awards.  Patrick received the blossom award and Will was awarded the Young Professional award from the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, he received a medal and a stipend.  I think I clapped so hard that day my hands still hurt.

Now they all head out to new places, Amber to the West Coast to try and open her own place, Will to the Carolina's for some new restaurant, Tzu-i to Hong Kong for two years as the wife of a diplomat - and hopefully to learn how to make hand pulled noodles and work in a kitchen in the city.  The others will find their niche one day I am sure and I look forward to hearing back from them one day.

I am sure I will go on to teach many more classes and see many more students come and go, but like your first bike ride without training wheels or your first raw oyster you will always remember the first one as the sweetest.

Chicken pot pie - fast

If you have ever had the pleasure of knowing an English person, you shall soon realise that as far as dining goes, anything encased between two sheet of pastry is good eats.  One of husbands first large shocks upon his arrival on this shore was that you couldn't simply nip into any shop and pick up a pie.
I admit one of the larger reasons for going to culinary school in the first place was to finally learn how to make pastry well.  An expensive lesson sure, but learn it I did.  The only problem?  I hate pie crust.

Seriously I do not like it flaky, I do not like it tender, I do not like pie crust at all Sam I Am.

The one way I can get away with crust for husband and a taste that I like is using puff pastry for the crust instead of pate brisee.  Of course one of the other benefits of culinary school was learning how to make a mean full or quick puff pastry dough.  I can paton and detrempe with the best of them when required, but on a weeknight are you gonna roll and turn, roll and turn, wrap and chill 4 or 6 times?  Uh...no.  Pillsbury makes a decent puff pastry but the fat of choice is margarine and me and margarine we just don't get along.  Just the word instantly flashes me back here.  *shudder*

Rather amusing that we finally realize just how true that ad campaign was.  If you are looking for puff pastry made naturally with all butter, look to the freezer case of your local Whole Foods for Dufour Puff pastry. Heaven in a package that stuff is.

The recipe I used to make the filling is based on an Alton Brown show I saw once. he makes his own curry powder mix with cumin seed, cardamom seeds, coriander turmeric, dry mustard and some cayenne.
You roast a frozen mixed veg mix in a hot oven with a little canola oil, sweat some aromatics like celery and onion in a pan and make a roux (just flour and a fat), add some chicken stock and milk and some of the curry mixture add the roasted veg and some poached chicken pieces (I poached them in the chicken broth I was going to use for the roux) and bung it all in a baking dish top it with circles of puff pastry and then bake it in the oven until the circles of puff are cooked and nicely browned and everything else is nice and bubbly.

Now I know that curry powder in your chicken pot pie may not appeal to you, but if you happen to be a child raised in the 70's and you remember having Lipton Giggle Noodle Soup as kid you will remember the taste of chicken and curry seasonings.  Okay, maybe that wasn't a great example for some of you, but I can assure you this is one delicious and FAST chicken pot pie.  You can have this on the table in about 30 - 40 minutes and that my friends is some good eats.

Live Blogging: The Five Hour Roast Duck

Ladies and Gentlemen welcome, today we are live blogging a cooking event.
Since I am working tomorrow morning, I consider today to be my Sunday and in honour of the Sunday roast tradition I will be live blogging cooking my Five Hour Roast Duck.

The recipe idea came from The 150 Best Recipes which is a book I can HIGHLY recommend.  It is put together by Fran McCullough & Molly Stevens (of All About Braising fame, another book I can recommend highly as well - Hey if it can win a James Beard cookbook award it can cook its little pages off) as a compilation of what they consider to be the best recipes of the past decade culled from cookbooks, magazine, newspapers, fliers, the Internet, top chefs and unknown cooks.  I can get right behind that credo since I can tell you that just because someone wrote a cookbook, famous chef or not, doesn't mean the recipes will work, nor does it mean that you will like them.
Already from this book I have culled about 20 must make recipes for either my classes or for us at home.  This one was on my list.

And since it is my Sunday, the laundry done, the dog washed, a fire about to be lit in the fireplace, even though it is 50 degrees out, I thought I would live blog my cooking event.
Sit back, hit the refresh button, we're making some kick butt duck.

I picked up my duck at Whole Foods yesterday and unpacked it from the packaging and placed it on a plate in the fridge overnight to better dry the skin. This morning I cut off any major flaps of fat and emptied the giblets and neck pieces.

I've had my lovely sous chef, aka husband, assist with salting and peppering the inside of the cavity.

I have already decided to make the Chinese alternative method for my duck so I chopped 8 cloves of garlic, 1 bunch of scallions and peeled and chopped two good knobs of ginger to stuff inside.

I decided to leave the wing tips attached as they were tucked nicely underneath and carefully I cut dozens of holes in the duck skin on an angle so as not to pierce the meat underneath.

Into the oven it went, breast side up.  Up to the bar fridge I went.  Now I am going to imbibe this lovely Cassis Lambic in my favourite glass while the timer ticks down the first hour.

I hope to use my giant measuring jug to figure out just how much fat will render out of this duck in the five hours.  Shall we take bets now?

**Update: Hour One

The timer.....

This is the colour after an hour of roasting time.

I pour off the fat, not too much for the first hour, after all this is low heat at 300.

Again I pierce the skin several more times and flip it over so that the breast is now on the bottom.

The smell has a faint hint of Chinese restaurant.  Back in the oven it went and the timer is set for another hour.  I'm back to buy more music off iTunes and finish my beer.

***Update Hour Two

The duck is taking on a nice amber hue, but I am sure the final hour will really bring it home.

Again I remove it from the oven and pour off the fat, still not quite 2 cups.

I prick it full of holes again and flip it back on to it's back, breast side up while the Beagle hopes and prays that I slip and drop the sucker right on the floor.

Quietly I slide the tray back into the oven, the smells are beginning to get more intense.  The beer finished, I'm off to have a nice soak in the tub with a LUSH bath bomb for the next 55 minutes until it's flipping time again.

****Update: Hour Three

Ah, nicely showered, hair brushed out (no easy feat) and the timer has beckonned yet again.
Out comes the duck.  As you can see the skin is beginning to blister now, most of the fat has rendered with only the occasional pocket here or there still to drain.  I poke and prod at these the most with the knife.

The duck still hasn't rendered two cups of fat yet, but i bet it will be there by the end.

I flip it yet again and put it back in the oven for hour number 4.  These are the ingredients for the glaze that will be brushed on for hour five.  Right now it is equal parts Hoisin sauce, Soy sauce, Sesame oil and honey, but I will taste it in an hour and decide if it needs a bit more soy for saltiness.

And I turn my attention to the carrots that will accompany the duck.  Ina Garten had an interesting idea in her new Barefoot Contessa At Home for glazed carrots with ginger, honey and orange.  Since this mimics a few of the flavours of the duck I am going to try these.  Now husband is a purist when it comes to his carrots, he generally will only eat them mashed with a bit of butter and pepper.  I am hoping for the best at the moment.  I will also take this moment to add that Ina's recipes are always, ALWAYS faultless.  Trust in Ina is my mantra.

Now it's cocktail hour.  I'm off to make my version of a Manhattan.

*****Update: Hour Four

The smell in the house is now overwhelming and my stomach is letting me know that it wants some of that duck.  Now.

I've pulled it yet again and flipped it for the last time.  I glazed it with the mixture I mentioned after I added a bit more soy sauce.  I even sprinkled the top of the duck with a bit of salt.  Back into the oven it goes for its final hour.  I may pull it halfway through and give it another lacquer coat of glaze.

The carrots have been started, butter, minced ginger and water in a saute pan to the boil, add carrots, cover and simmer 5 - 8 minutes.

Back to that Manhattan

See you in an hour.

*****Update: Hour Five - The End

Oh the duck...oh my..the duck.  Here is the gorgeous lacquered goodness as it exits the oven and rests on the board.

As you can see by this first slice, this is no dry duck.  Five hours and it is gorgeous.  It falls apart and my Mom who adores Moo Shi, because it is finger food, would just love this duck with a few pancakes and some plum sauce. The skin is a crispy skin lovers dream.  Not, of course, that I know ANYONE who would eat duck skin.

Here are the carrots in their mid stage in the pan.  They cooked covered five minutes and then uncovered for about 10 until the liquid evaporated.  In went half a cup of orange juice, 1 teaspoon of orange zest and some more salt and lots of pepper.  I am happy to report that husband loved these.  In fact, he said that it is what made the duck for him. They had many of the same flavours and just enough sweetness to counteract the salty soy and hoisin.   My husband is also like Jack Spratt, he cannot eat fat and can dissect a Filet mignon like no ones business to extract every iota of fat, he loved this duck.  Everything in the end was rendered away.  Two cups total.  A pint is a pound the world around they say.

I can highly suggest this treatment if you have a long afternoon and a hankering for duck.  the payoff is worth it.

The beagle is now on official cleanup patrol.

Duck Out.

Currently persuing

I am currently sprawled across the couch, on this lovely 9 degree Monday nursing bronchitis and perusing the following lovely tomes in pursuit of the 42 recipes ideas I need for the next 7 weeks of classes. 

In fact, I did a little math today and I realised that I must come up with 510 new recipes a year.

Five Hundred and Ten.

No repeats are allowed. 

All recipes must be executable by kids ranging in age from 9 - 13 and pleasing to the parents who generally eat it when it goes home with them after class.
I need a range of things since I have vegetarians, kosher eaters and food allergies, not to mention kid allergies to anything new and different.
I must plan these recipes to fit in to a prescribed amount of time varying from 2 - 3 hours.
I have 6 burners, 3 ovens and up to 10 kids in each class.
Downtime is not an option. Ever seen a group of bored kids?
Sometimes I must stick to a theme: World travel, American cities, Food fads, etc.

I can assure you that would exhaust even the best chef to come up with that many new ideas so I live with my nose buried in a cookbook or a cooking magazine.
I will search the Internet, but I won't rely on recipes from sites like Allrecipes.com or Cooksrecipes.com since I really don't trust many of their recipes. Anything made with a can or packet is rejected.  Everything must be made with fresh ingredients or things I can get from our suppliers.

When I do get things off of the internet I tend to stick to sources I know will have recipes that are relatively faultless like epicurious.com, because I can't always test a recipe before I use it.

In fact I have become amazingly adept, if I do say so myself, at glancing at a list of ingredients and deciding if a recipe will work or not.  Call it self preservation.  I also do not need a gorgeous picture to tell me whether or not to make a recipe, but of course it does help to inspire ideas.
Of course I also look to places in the food blogging world for inspiration like Elise at Simply Recipes or The Traveler's Lunchbox, Naughty Curry and Gluten-free Girl and all the other lovely places in my blogroll down over there on the right.

While you check out the book titles I am flicking through right now, why don't you leave me a note with the places, chefs and books that inspire you to cook.  I am always looking for some new inspiration.