My mother wanted Chinese duck for Christmas dinner. Until now, our family recipe has been Cattherine Turney's blend of soy sauce and honey (Cathy was a distinguished screenwriter--"Mildred Pierce," "Of Human Bondage"--and a great cook). But I Googled Chinese duck recipes anyway. I was referred again and again to Amanda Hesser's Ginger Duck from "Cooking for Mr. Latte: A Food Lover's Courtship, with Recipes." I found the recipe on "The Splendid Table's" website. Decided to make Hesser's duck instead of Cathy's because much was made of the succulence of the meat. The technique was to simmer the ducks with spice, soy sauce, and sugar the day before, chill it, then roast to heat and glaze for serving.
When I picked up the two thawed ducklings from the butcher (we were going to be eight), I happened past the spice aisle. A jar of Chinese Five-Spice beckoned and I grabbed it.
I decided to use this blend in place of just ginger to intensify the Chineseness...star anise is the predominant flavor, other elements were Szechuan pepper, ginger, cloves, and Chinese cinnamon...fennel can also be added, and/or cardamom.
Hesser's simmering technique is fun and easy and it was clear the ducklings would be delicious. Before I put the brace in the ice chest in the patio to chill overnight (the fridge was chockablock), I took a spoonful of the broth and a morsel of the meat to my mother. She closed her eyes, then opened them, exclaiming, "The best I've ever tasted!" I sagged with relief--she has so loved Cathy's recipe all these years.
Last night just before putting the ducks in the oven came my second change in the recipe. As can happen when I'm cooking a complicated meal and there's a lot going on in the kitchen and out, I forgot to recheck the ingredients' list. Dumb. I was supposed to add sherry to the broth.* I couldn't believe it, but I scoured my mother's bar and cupboards, and there was no sherry in the house. But there was tawny port. Huzzah. I think it was what the Chinese (or is it the Japanese?) call a happy accident. The fruity warmth of the port was perfect.
While the ducks were roasting, wafting a heavenly fragrance through the house, my dear mother--99-1/2 years old--sat writing an ode to them.
My only disappointment was that the ducklings' skin did not crispen in the oven. That could be because I roasted them in a Vallauris (French earthenware) gratin dish, not a roasting pan. Metal might have reflected more heat and glazed the skins.
I served the ducks with "The Silver Palate's" divine recipe for pureed sweet potatoes and carrots. (Change I made in THAT was because I--again--didn't check the ingredients, I had no creme fraiche so I softened cream cheese and used that. Another happy accident. At least my reputation was redeemed from the canned Thanksgiving sweets...) I also served brussels sprouts sauteed with pecans, Blue Lake green beans with threads of fresh ginger. Salad was delicate mixed greens with Comice pears, pomegranate seeds, and crumbled blue cheese. For dessert, my grandmother's traditional steamed Carrot Pudding (essentially a plum pudding) and very hard Hard Sauce (courtesy of Jack Daniels).
As I was tucking my mother in bed, she beckoned me to come close and she said, "I want you to get nine ducks next week and make them for me," and then she sweetly fell asleep. It was a very merry Christmas!
*Even though the two ducks simmered in one pot--I used my canning kettle--I doubled broth ingredients, all except salt...customarily I only use half-again as much salt.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Marvelous Vegetable-Soup-in-Balance
Sunday morning, after making bacon for my granddaughters to go with our popovers, I started a pot of soup that I wanted to bring with me on a bit of a retreat…a couple of days out of town so I can work. No cooking. A comforting pot of soup already made.
The soup turned out to be—well, I want to say magnificent, but that’s a bit much, so I will say marvelous. What makes it so good? I figured it out. The vegetables are all happily married…a felicitous balance. Harmonious. There are lots of vegetables, but somehow I managed to add just the right amount of each so no flavor dominates.
Here’s roughly what I did...
First I whimsically poured about ¼ cup of the drippings from the bacon skillet into my big soup pot. Yes, I’m nominally a vegetarian, but not slavish, as you can see. I sauteed half an onion (coarsely chopped), a whole smallish head of celery (ditto) until they were gilded. I find the initial softening of onion and celery in fat makes an enormous difference in the finished flavor of any mixture--raw onion and celery can carry their sharpness to the end.
Next I peeled a couple of handfuls of baby potatoes, cut them in half, added them so they could golden up as well. Normally I leave the peel on potatoes for soup, but something made me peel them, and now I believe that lack of potato peel—which is bitterish—contributed to the soup's delicacy.
More restraint: at this point I normally would have added garlic to the sauteing, but now I feel that LACK OF GARLIC in this soup is another reason it’s so delicate.
Next I added a dozen baby Brussels sprouts, tossed them around for a bit so they could soak up the lusty bacon flavor.
With the seasoning vegetables softened, I added a cupful or so of prepared crinkle-cut carrots (I know, I know, but I had lots to do besides make soup on Sunday).
Meanwhile, on the side, I started cooking a cup of dried Great Northern beans—fast soaked them (directions on the package), then cooked them in the pressure cooker. They emerged not quite done, so I simmered them uncovered in the pressure cooker pot with a handful of mixed dried mushrooms. No need to soak the mushrooms, they had ample time to hydrate as they simmered with the beans.
To the vegetable pot I added a big fat leek, sliced (about 1/8-inch thick), and a small bulb of fennel also sliced crosswise (a little thicker slices for the fennel). For liquid, I poured in a can (16 ounces) each of low-sodium chicken broth and beef broth--I find the flavor of these two together delicious. Stirred in half a big can of diced tomatoes—in my opinion, vegetable soup without tomatoes ain’t vegetable soup. Usually I would have used the whole can, but something restrained me, and am I glad. When the fennel had softened, I added half a sweet green pepper, coarsely chopped.
When the beans and mushrooms were tender, in they went with their broth together with the final vegetable, a 2-cup package (naughty girl, Sylvia, using prepared vegetables, but I was grateful for the gift of time) of fresh small English peas. I've never bought these before, but they turned out to be an incomparable addition--their texture is a lovely pop in the mouth, something one never gets from frozen peas.
Onion, celery, fennel, leek, potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts, white beans, green pepper, tomatoes, mushrooms, peas with not too much broth. That’s another of this soup's virtues. The base is not thick like minestrone but the vegetables don’t float in a sea of broth either. Enough to cover. No herb (more restraint!), just sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Oh, yes, and a tad bacon fat (other days, of course, I would use olive oil). For garnish, I sprinkle on shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Where did this new wave of restraint come from? Beats me. But it has taught me an invaluable lesson (I will not say Less is more...will not).
Brrrrr, it’s soup weather. One big batch provides meals for days--the above makes 4 main dish servings--growing tastier with each day. Make some!
Use a light hand, eh? And don't forget crusty bread for sopping up the bottom of the bowl.
The soup turned out to be—well, I want to say magnificent, but that’s a bit much, so I will say marvelous. What makes it so good? I figured it out. The vegetables are all happily married…a felicitous balance. Harmonious. There are lots of vegetables, but somehow I managed to add just the right amount of each so no flavor dominates.
Here’s roughly what I did...
First I whimsically poured about ¼ cup of the drippings from the bacon skillet into my big soup pot. Yes, I’m nominally a vegetarian, but not slavish, as you can see. I sauteed half an onion (coarsely chopped), a whole smallish head of celery (ditto) until they were gilded. I find the initial softening of onion and celery in fat makes an enormous difference in the finished flavor of any mixture--raw onion and celery can carry their sharpness to the end.
Next I peeled a couple of handfuls of baby potatoes, cut them in half, added them so they could golden up as well. Normally I leave the peel on potatoes for soup, but something made me peel them, and now I believe that lack of potato peel—which is bitterish—contributed to the soup's delicacy.
More restraint: at this point I normally would have added garlic to the sauteing, but now I feel that LACK OF GARLIC in this soup is another reason it’s so delicate.
Next I added a dozen baby Brussels sprouts, tossed them around for a bit so they could soak up the lusty bacon flavor.
With the seasoning vegetables softened, I added a cupful or so of prepared crinkle-cut carrots (I know, I know, but I had lots to do besides make soup on Sunday).
Meanwhile, on the side, I started cooking a cup of dried Great Northern beans—fast soaked them (directions on the package), then cooked them in the pressure cooker. They emerged not quite done, so I simmered them uncovered in the pressure cooker pot with a handful of mixed dried mushrooms. No need to soak the mushrooms, they had ample time to hydrate as they simmered with the beans.
To the vegetable pot I added a big fat leek, sliced (about 1/8-inch thick), and a small bulb of fennel also sliced crosswise (a little thicker slices for the fennel). For liquid, I poured in a can (16 ounces) each of low-sodium chicken broth and beef broth--I find the flavor of these two together delicious. Stirred in half a big can of diced tomatoes—in my opinion, vegetable soup without tomatoes ain’t vegetable soup. Usually I would have used the whole can, but something restrained me, and am I glad. When the fennel had softened, I added half a sweet green pepper, coarsely chopped.
When the beans and mushrooms were tender, in they went with their broth together with the final vegetable, a 2-cup package (naughty girl, Sylvia, using prepared vegetables, but I was grateful for the gift of time) of fresh small English peas. I've never bought these before, but they turned out to be an incomparable addition--their texture is a lovely pop in the mouth, something one never gets from frozen peas.
Onion, celery, fennel, leek, potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts, white beans, green pepper, tomatoes, mushrooms, peas with not too much broth. That’s another of this soup's virtues. The base is not thick like minestrone but the vegetables don’t float in a sea of broth either. Enough to cover. No herb (more restraint!), just sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Oh, yes, and a tad bacon fat (other days, of course, I would use olive oil). For garnish, I sprinkle on shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Where did this new wave of restraint come from? Beats me. But it has taught me an invaluable lesson (I will not say Less is more...will not).
Brrrrr, it’s soup weather. One big batch provides meals for days--the above makes 4 main dish servings--growing tastier with each day. Make some!
Use a light hand, eh? And don't forget crusty bread for sopping up the bottom of the bowl.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Candied Spiced Walnuts--Super Last-Minute Christmas Gift!
Last month I mentioned a big gathering I was cooking for, wrote about the truffle-flavored pâté I made. (One small crock was left over so I covered it with a quarter-inch of melted butter and it’s at the back of the fridge, the country way of preserving potted meats…we’ll dip into it on New Year’s Eve, can’t wait.) Also for the party, tempted by a photograph of spiced walnuts next to the recipe in a commercial rag—the nuts had the matte look of cinnamon-colored streusel, sugar crystals gleaming—I prepared a 10-cup batch. In all my years of making sweets I’d never candied walnuts and wasn’t sure what to expect—the recipe was so EASY it didn’t feel like making candy. When the walnuts came out of the oven and I took a bite, I was thrilled. They were so crunchy, toasty, spicy, walnutty, and not too sweet.
Yesterday, I made another batch for Christmas presents. Quickly made (not much more than an hour), I couldn’t recommend these more highly…a lovely luxe present for little time, money, and effort.
NB: you can divide or multiply the proportions as you wish.
1½ cups granulated sugar
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1½ teaspoons ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 egg whites
3 tablespoons water
10 cups best quality walnut halves (for economy’s sake, broken pieces can be mixed in)
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with baking parchment or foil.
Shake the sugar and spices together in a paper bag until blended.
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the egg whites and water together until frothy. Add the walnuts and toss with a fork or your fingers until pieces are thoroughly coated.
In relays, place nuts in the bag and shake until pieces are thoroughly sugared.
Spread the nuts in a single layer on the baking sheets and bake until the coating is dry and set, about 1 hour, stirring gently every 10 minutes.
Cool thoroughly on the sheets, stirring gently as needed to break up stuck pieces. Store in an airtight tin in a cool place (not the refrigerator). Makes 10 cups. They’ll keep until eaten.
Yesterday, I made another batch for Christmas presents. Quickly made (not much more than an hour), I couldn’t recommend these more highly…a lovely luxe present for little time, money, and effort.
NB: you can divide or multiply the proportions as you wish.
1½ cups granulated sugar
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1½ teaspoons ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 egg whites
3 tablespoons water
10 cups best quality walnut halves (for economy’s sake, broken pieces can be mixed in)
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with baking parchment or foil.
Shake the sugar and spices together in a paper bag until blended.
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the egg whites and water together until frothy. Add the walnuts and toss with a fork or your fingers until pieces are thoroughly coated.
In relays, place nuts in the bag and shake until pieces are thoroughly sugared.
Spread the nuts in a single layer on the baking sheets and bake until the coating is dry and set, about 1 hour, stirring gently every 10 minutes.
Cool thoroughly on the sheets, stirring gently as needed to break up stuck pieces. Store in an airtight tin in a cool place (not the refrigerator). Makes 10 cups. They’ll keep until eaten.
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