Tag: duck

Neil Perry’s Roast Duck with Cherries

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

We don’t cook duck enough. None of us do.

Because every time we cook it. And eat it. We tell each other just how much we love it.

And how far too little we cook it.

We then promise to cook it much more.

And then we don’t.

And the cycle repeats.

In this Neil Perry recipe, I have omitted how to roast the duck; Neil’s recipe asks for two whole ducks, though you can just as easily get duck marylands – even duck confit – from good supermarkets.

The trick is to shred the duck, removing any fat and skin.

This recipe – we called ‘Duck and Cherries’ – was course #3 of #6 we served at our Long Lunch/Short Wedding and many guests said it was the standout:

The cherry sauce can be made beforehand and reheated with the duck. Serve with a salad of baby leaves and a garnish of finely chopped parsley and this would be a wonderful starter or main at any dinner party.

No question, it is a quacker cracker.

Ingredients

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp butter
500gm cherries, pitted (fresh or frozen, which we used)
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
Balsamic vinegar
Baby leaves
Continental parsley, finely chopped

Method

  1. Place a pan over a medium heat and add the oil and butter and cook until foaming; add the cherries, sugar and salt and cook for about 15 minutes until soft and fragrant. Remove from the heat and give a really good grind of pepper.
  2. Places heap of the shredded duck meat onto each plate. Spoon over the cherry sauce, drizzle with balsamic vinegar and add another grind of pepper. Garnish with the parsley.
  3. Serve with baby leaves at the side.

Duck Pie with Pomegranate and Walnuts

.Reading time 5 minutes.

Serves: 6

Wow.

On so many levels, this Middle Eastern pie is as amazing as it is unique.

Starting with the most obvious: it’s a duck pie! Duck pies are made of duck which means they are automatically amazing.

They’re also rare so this is a treat. (I’ve only typed up one other duck pie at the time of writing this one up.)

You’re cooking with Pomegranate Molasses, something I am confident you’ve never cooked with. It is also amazing.

You make a custard with the rich, reduced stock that you’ve spent the previous 2 hours infusing with saffron, walnuts and duck.

You’re shredding the moorish meat of 8 duck Marylands. The same cut you use in Duck Confit. Amazing right?!

And you’re cooking the pie in buttered filo.

This technique behind this pie is unique and definitely feels Middle Eastern.

Though the effect is awesome.

It is just beautiful and served as part of a Middle Eastern feast, this is luxury.

Not cheap, not quick, though like any duck dish, spend the time and eat like the Kings that no doubt ate this pie 400 years ago.

Ingredients

50ml olive oil, plus extra if needed
8 duck Marylands (about 2kg)
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 cup roasted walnuts, rubbed in a cloth to remove skins, coarsely chopped
1 tsp ground ginger
A pinch of saffron threads, lightly toasted and crushed
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cumin
1.2 litres chicken stock
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, thinly sliced
1/2 cup coriander leaves, thinly sliced
9 filo pastry sheets
150gm melted clarified butter
30gm pure icing sugar, sifted with 1tsp ground cinnamon

Method

  1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy casserole over a medium heat. Season duck and fry in two batches, skin side down first (6 – 8 minutes), then on the other side until golden (2 – 3 minutes). Drain fat leaving 2 tbsp in the casserole.
  2. Return all the duck to the casserole together with the onion, garlic, walnuts, ginger, saffron, cinnamon and cumin, stir to coat well, then adding the stock and pomegranate molasses. Bring to the boil, cover and then simmer over a low heat for around 1 1/2 hours and when the duck can easily be pulled off the bone.
  3. Strain, reserving the stock and duck mixture separately. Set the duck aside to cool.
  4. Skim off the excess fat from the stock (place paper towels on the surface, then remove and discard).
  5. Coarsely shred the duck meat, discarding the skin and bones. Bring the stock to the boil in a large saucepan and reduce by two-thirds to about 400ml. Transfer half the reduced stock to a bowl and whisk in egg yolks. Return to the saucepan with the remaining reduced stock and stir over a low heat until creamy and nearly set, as you would for an egg custard (5 – 7 minutes).
  6. Stir in the parsley and coriander, season to taste and set aside to cool completely. Fold the duck meat into the cooled mixture, refrigerating if not using immediately.
  7. Lay one filo sheet on a work surface, (covering the remaining filo pastry sheets with a slightly damp tea towel) and brush with melted butter. Repeat with another filo sheet laying it on top of the first to form a cross. Repeat with another 4 sheets, laying them at varying angles to form a circle of filo.
  8. Line a 27cm-diameter deep-sided non-stick frying pan with the filo circle, pushing it into the sides. Add duck filling, spreading evenly and brush surrounding filo with melted butter. Brush remaining 3 filo sheets with butter, fold in half and place on top of filling to cover. Bring pastry sides over filo on top to enclose and brush with butter.
  9. Preheat the oven to 180c. Place the pie in the oven and bake until golden brown (30 – 35 minutes). Remove from the oven and carefully place a large plate upside-down over pie and invert onto the plate.
  10. Wipe the excess butter from the filo and sift icing sugar mixture over the pie. Place a metal skewer on a naked flame until red-hot, holding the skewer with a tea towel. Burn a trellis pattern into the filo. Serve.

Christine Manfield’s Five-spice Duck and Shiitake Mushroom Pie

.Reading time 10 minutes.

Serves: 8

Preamble: We are typing up this recipe as part of a tribute to our awesome friends Leesh and Josh who are getting married – at last – this weekend. Being awesome means they are awesome on the food front: cooking, eating, discussing and pairing wines with.

Here is to many meals in the future guys. We are proud to be your friends.

Enjoy the copper and cooking this pie one rainy Saturday. Keep the champagne near.

Love

Nat and Rob

—

Christine Manfield is unquestionably one of Australia’s most talented chefs that you’ve never heard of… unless you’re a foodie.

Her Paramount restaurant was arguably Australia’s best restaurant for many years and the breadth of her capabilities is stunning. One downside is the complexity of much of her work where a sauce is reduced and added to another sauce which is then reduced and worked into another sauce.

Tuesday night cooking it is not.

Conversely, every recipe I have cooked from her beautiful Indian cookbook Tasting India has been so unique, so wonderful that the decision to invest the time is simply one about what sphere of eating you want for that night.

Her food is not incrementally good. It is revolutionary good.

From Indian to this recipe is a jump, though you’ll understand my point about the range of her abilities. It is one of the finest bits of food I have cooked.

Indeed, this pie is one of her signatures and she says of it:

“This was a constant on my Paramount menus from the very beginning to the restaurant’s final night, selling out on a nightly basis,” says Christine Manfield. “People still stop me and request it. It pays homage to the French Pithiviers, a hand-moulded dome, while its filling is a nod to Chinese flavours. Where the humble meat pie holds special significance for many Australians, this version elevates it to a refined status. Don’t be daunted by the process – the workload can be spread across a couple of days and the result is a triumph, so please persevere.” Manfield suggests making the pastry and balls of duck-mushroom filling the day before, and then rolling out the pastry rounds and assembling the pies on the day of baking.”

All I can say is that after a day in the kitchen, this pie will blow your socks off. You’ll have bonded, you’ll have opened a wine at 5 and you’ll be so pleased with yourself and so you should be.

Do it.

Ingredients

4 Duck Marylands (250gm-300gm each), trimmed of excess fat
½ tsp ground Sichuan pepper
½ tsp Chinese five-spice
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsp finely chopped ginger
1 long red chilli, finely chopped
2 spring onions, thinly sliced
2star anise, broken into pieces
1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 litres brown chicken stock

Mushroom mixture
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsp finely chopped ginger
250 gm shiitake mushrooms, thickly sliced
250 gm chestnut mushrooms, trimmed (see note)
1 tbsp five-spice salt (see note)
3 spring onions, thinly sliced
¼ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Crème Fraîche Pastry
2 ⅓ cups) plain flour
250 gm chilled unsalted butter, diced
250 gm crème fraîche
Eggwash, for brushing

Ginger Glaze
1 onion, thinly sliced
1small red chilli, thinly sliced
1 tbsp finely chopped ginger, plus 1 tbsp extra, cut into julienne
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 star anise
100 ml Stone’s Original Green Ginger Wine
25 ml Shaoxing wine

Method

  1. Prick duck skin with a skewer. Combine Sichuan pepper, five-spice and 2 tsp sea salt in a bowl, then rub into duck.
  2. Heat 2 tbsp oil in deep frying pan large enough to hold duck in a single layer over medium-high heat and fry duck, skin-side down, until browned (2-3 minutes), turn and cook other side for 2 minutes. Set duck aside, tip fat out of pan, add remaining oil and onion and sauté until onion is softened and translucent (4-5 minutes).
  3. Add garlic, ginger, chilli and spring onion and fry until softened and just starting to colour (6-8 minutes). Add whole spices and fry for another minute or so until fragrant. Add stock, bring to the boil, add duck in single layer so it’s covered by stock, reduce heat to low and simmer until duck is tender (50 minutes to 1 hour).
  4. Remove duck from stock (reserve stock), then, when cool enough to handle, remove meat from bones (discard skin, bones and sinew). Finely chop and set aside.
  5. Strain stock through a fine sieve, cool, then refrigerate until fat sets on the surface (2-3 hours). Skim off fat, discard and refrigerate stock until required.
  6. For mushroom mixture, heat oil in a frying pan and sauté onion, garlic and ginger until fragrant (3-4 minutes). Stir in mushrooms and toss to coat, then sauté until softened (8-10 minutes). Season with five-spice salt and 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper, stir to combine and remove from heat.
  7. Stir in the spring onion and parsley, cool slightly, then add to duck meat and mix well with your hands. Roll into 8 balls roughly the size of a tennis ball, place on a tray, cover and refrigerate until cooled and firm (2-3 hours).
  8. For the crème fraîche pastry, process flour, butter and 1 tsp sea salt in a food processor until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs – don’t overwork. Add crème fraîche and pulse until just incorporated. Tip out onto a bench, form into a disc about 3cm thick, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate to rest for 2 hours.
  9. Cut pastry into 4 even pieces. Keep remaining pieces refrigerated as you work with each; roll out each and cut out two 11cm-diameter rounds for the 8 lids, place on a lightly floured tray and refrigerate. Re-roll pastry and cut out eight 7cm-diameter rounds for the pie bases, place on a lightly floured tray and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
  10. Working with a pastry base and lid at a time and keeping remaining pastry rounds chilled, lay a small pastry round (base) on a lightly floured surface, brush edges with eggwash and place a ball of duck mixture in the centre. Place a larger pastry round (lid) over the top, gently mould pastry over duck mixture with your hands, press edges with a fork to seal, then trim edges with a paring knife. Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper and refrigerate while you assemble the remaining pies. Brush pastry with eggwash and score seven arcs from centre of lid down the dome with a paring knife, then refrigerate for 1 hour to rest.
  11. Meanwhile, for ginger glaze, fry onion, chilli and chopped ginger in oil over medium-high heat until soft and translucent (2-3 minutes). Add spices and fry until fragrant (1 minute). Deglaze pan with ginger wine and Shaoxing wine, and boil until reduced by half (3-4 minutes).
  12. Add 300ml reserved duck stock and bring to the boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer until reduced by half (40-45 minutes). Strain through a fine sieve and season with salt to taste. Just before serving, bring to a simmer, adding julienned ginger at the last minute.
  13. Preheat oven to 200C. Bake pies until golden brown (18-20 minutes). Serve with ginger glaze.

Jamie Oliver’s Arrosto Misto with Gravy

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Serves: 8

This is a really cool roast, bringing together two meats – lamb and duck – and roasting them side by side.

Cool right?

Better still, the gravy that is produced as part of the process is rich and flavoursome and it really is a pillar unto itself in the meal.

The last time I served this up, I served it with pan-fried parmesan polenta and pan sautéed asparagus with balsamic.

Next time, I’d try a cabbage gratin to cut through the richness of the roast; perhaps some buttered beans.

Whatever you serve this with, people will know it is going to be special and that means they’ll bring better wines to dinner.

Cool right?

Right.

Ingredients

4 celery stalks, roughly chopped
4 carrots, roughly chopped
2 red onions, roughly chopped
A head of garlic broken into cloves
A few bay leaves
A small bunch of fresh rosemary separate into sprigs
1.5kg shoulder of lamb
Olive oil
Bottle of red wine (750ml)
1 large (2kg) free-range or organic duck
1 thumb sized piece of ginger
2 tbs of flour

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 170c.
  2. Divide the chopped vegetables, garlic cloves and bay leaves between two roasting pans. Scatter half the rosemary over the vegetables in one pan, retaining the other half of the rosemary for stuffing in the duck.
  3. Season the lamb shoulder and duck and drizzle with olive oil.
  4. Slice the ginger and stuff inside the duck with the remaining rosemary.
  5. Place the lamb on top of the vegetables in the roasting pan with the rosemary, and the duck on top of the vegetables in the roasting pan without the rosemary. Pour a third of the wine over the lamb, a third of the wine over the duck, retaining a third for the gravy.
  6. Place the lamb in the oven for two hours, checking periodically to see if it is drying out. If so, add a little water; this is important as the vegetables in the lamb roasting dish will make the gravy and so must be moist.
  7. After two hours of cooking, add the duck to the oven and cook for a further two hours. After four hours, the meat should be falling off the bone of the lamb and the duck will be golden and cooked.
  8. Remove the meat from the oven and set aside covered in foil. Add the remaining wine and flour to the sauce and vegetables in the lamb’s roasting pan, and place the roasting pan directly over a medium heat, stirring to combine into gravy. Try to mash up the vegetables. Do not use the duck’s roasting dish for the gravy as it will be too fatty.
  9. Shred the meats and combine on a platter. Serve the gravy in a bowl.

Gok Wan’s Leftover Roast Duck Noodles

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 2

This is a cracker of a dish.

From go to hero, it is the fastest way to whip up a great tasting Asian dinner using your left-over meat; duck, chicken or in my case, three small leftover pork scotch fillets. Shred your meat, get your noodles ready and five minutes of wok time later…

Kid friendly too!

This is not the original recipe as I have altered some of the ingredients up. You could tone it down a notch though I really like the fun, fresh taste.

Ingredients

1 tbsp groundnut oil
200gm leftover duck meat, shredded (or pork, chicken, lamb etc)
1 cucumber, deseeded and cut into batons
4 spring onions, finely sliced into 4cm lengths
3 – 4 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
150gm dried fine egg noodles, cooked and drained according to instructions (I used Wokka Thin Egg Noodles (Shelf Read).

Method

  1. Heat the oil in a wok over a high heat. When the oil is smoking, add the duck meat and stir-fry for 2 – 3 minutes, until the meat is beginning to turn golden and a little crisp.
  2. Add the cucumber and spring onions and continue to stir-fry for 2 mins, then add the Hoisin sauce and a splash of water, Mix well.
  3. Add the cooked noodles, with the soy sauce if using and toss everything together. Serve immediately.