Archive for the 'Duck' Category

Winter Bean Peasant Stew

Published
by
marc
on November 9, 2008
in Duck, European, Pork, Poultry, Soups & Stews, Veal and Winter
. 9 Comments

It was cold and rainy in Manhattan yesterday and after a day spent wandering around the Chocolate Show and the Asian Contemporary Art Fair, I wanted something warm and fulfilling that wouldn’t take a lot of effort to make. Thoughts of Cassoulet and Feijoada both popped into my head but those aren’t the kind of things you start making at 5pm if you want to eat it before breakfast the next morning.

I picked up a ham hock, some Italian sausage and lacinato kale on the way home with some vague idea of an intensely flavorful stew I wanted to make. I had some duck stock in the fridge and a tub of demi glace that I figured I’d use to give it that extra oomph of a long-braised dish.

While I’m not sure of the exact origins of the term “peasant stew”, almost every country has a version and it typically involves adding random cuts of cheap meat to a pot with a starch (beans, potatoes, etc) and cooking it for a long time. While my addition of demi glace does make it a little fancier, it’s still a humble dish at heart and the best part is that it doesn’t require much effort. This whole thing came together with the use of a pot, a cutting board, a plate, a knife and a wooden spoon and after about 2 hours of unattended time on the stove, the meat was falling off the hock and it was ready to eat.

Whole Foods had some spring onions that looked like they were just plucked from the earth, so I roasted a few and placed them on top of the stew for a little color. As it turns out, they were incredibly sweet and flavourful, so it ended up complimenting the rich flavours of the stew nicely. As a whole the dish was lighter than Cassoulet or Feijoada but it had a similar intensity of flavour. The veggies and herbs helped offset the heaviness of the meat and overall the dish was surprisingly well balanced. With a hunk of multi-grain bread, it made for a great warming meal that’s now going on my winter rotation.

What’s your favourite stew for cold weather?
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Japanese Style Broast Duck

Published
by
marc
on August 24, 2008
in Duck, Japanese and Uncategorized
. 5 Comments

Okay, this is admittedly a terrible name. I always cringe when I see any recipe that starts with “Japanese style” (replace Japanese with any country). It tells me that the creator either didn’t feel confident enough in the authenticity of the dish to give it its proper name, or they were just too lazy to come up with a better name for their new dish (which doesn’t bode well for the recipe). In this case it’s more the later than the former, but this one is tasty, I promise!

What the hell is a broast you ask? Well it’s a rather un-witty name I came up with for half braising / half roasting something. As it turns out, it’s also a trademarked technique of pressure frying chicken, but I’m too tired to think of a better name, so until someone posts a comment with a better name, this dish is forever blighted with its rather unoriginal trademark infringing name.

So how did it come to be? I had 4 duck legs sitting in the freezer waiting to be turned into confit, but I just wasn’t in the mood to do a real confit, so I started thinking of other ways I could cook this. One of my favourite Japanese dishes is Buta Kakuni (braised pork belly); it’s a great way to prepare fatty cuts of meat and duck legs squarly fit in that category.

One of the best parts of duck though is having crisp skin, and several hours of braising aren’t exactly conducive to that end. Braising then broiling won’t work because the skin would absorb too much moisture, and I could always braise and deep fry it, but I really didn’t feel like using up a quart of oil for 4 legs. So how could I make the the meat moist and fall-off-the-bone tender while having crisp golden brown skin? Broasting!

Broasting starts off with a quick browning under the broiler, then with just enough liquid to braise the meat half of the duck, it goes in the oven allowing the skin half to slowly roast, unimpeded by liquid. It finishes up with a few quick minutes under the broiler to make sure that the skin is nice and crisp.

It worked! The meat was tender and moist, with a thin layer of creamy melt-in-your-mouth fat, topped with a crisp layer of skin. It’s similar in flavour to its more porky cousin, but but the roasting intensifies the flavours of the dashi and soy sauce creating a slightly sweet glaze on top.
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