Saint Valentine's Day Means Duck!

Duck is an exotic dish that, when prepared well, fills the senses with joy, but when prepared poorly, is a greasy, gamy disappointment. I've never made duck before, so what better day to try it than Valentine's Day?

First, the duck itself. 2 kinds: Muscovy (richer, fattier and a little gamy) and Pekin (milder, a little less fat). I went to the local King Soopers and got a 5.95 pound duck. I looked everywhere on the label and sure enough, it says "Duck," but that and "with Orange Glaze" were the only descriptors. On the back I found "Maple Leaf Farms" so I went to their website. No other description. OK, so I don't know what I'm making, but since King Soopers only carries on kind of duck, it doesn't matter. That's one factor I can't control.

(Note: I wrote Maple Leaf Farms and they were kind enough to answer: They only raise and produce White Pekins.)

THE hallmark of good duck is a crispy skin. And to get a good crisp, the skin has to be perfectly dry. I took the thawed duck out of its packaging at 1:00 pm and removed the giblets, clipped the wings, removed any excess fat and skin and rinsed it thoroughly (inside and out). I then patted it dry and seasoned it. I put it on a wire cooling rack but needed to elevate it to get good airflow all the way around the skin. And inside too, if possible. I don't have a vertical cooking rack for a chicken (or any other poultry, for that matter) so i made one out of chicken wire.

After a couple of hours, the skin was good and dry. Martha Stewart and others recommend scoring the skin and piercing it immediately. One recipe I saw recommended pouring boiling water over it, then piercing it. That seems dumb, because it completely defeats the dry-skin method of delicious crispiness! The Maple Leaf Farms website recommends cooking first for 20 minutes, then piercing or scoring the skin. That actually made good sense.

The cooking is pretty straight forward. Preheat oven and cook. Turn it, drain it, baste it, keep cooking.

But the sauce . . . . What to do for the sauce? I refuse to use prepackaged sauce. It may be delicious and the best thing I've ever tried, but I can NOT bring myself to use it when I'm such a megalomaniac about my own cooking. But Maple Leaf Farms got the theme right: Sweets and sours play well together. And some spices should really enhance the richness of duck. (See what I tried, below.)

Now, what about the appetizer? Sides? Dessert? How about stuffed baby portabella mushrooms, fingerling heirloom potatoes, parsnips and sweet potatoes oven-fried in duck fat, and roasted asparagus with bacon? And maybe baked custard with a little something extra?

All-in-all, it turned out very well. And a very messy kitchen. And a little smoke. Most things turned out well but I can always use more practise. You buy the duck and I'll cook it for you. At your house. In your kitchen.

Stuffed Baby Portabellas

6 Portabella Mushrooms, 3 inch caps
2 tablespoons Bacon Fat
1 tablespoon diced Onions
1 teaspoon diced Garlic
1 tablespoon crushed Gingersnaps
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan Cheese (or other dry white cheese)

Rinse and dry the mushrooms. (There is NO PROBLEM with giving mushrooms a quick rinse. If anyone ever tells you to never rinse mushrooms, have them do the science.) Remove the stems, and dice the stems only. Leave the caps whole.

Melt the fat in a skillet, medium heat. Add onion, garlic, gingersnap powder, and mushroom stems. Saute. Give it some love--it's Valentine's Day.

Spoon the mixture into the caps of the shrooms. Top with the cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes to cool and return the juices.


Cranberry Glaze with Balsamic Vinegar

3/4 cup reserved Cranberry Jelly with Cardamom
1/2 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar (I use 12 year Elsa Balsamic)

A few weeks ago I made a basic cranberry sauce from whole cranberries. Basic recipe, but I added 7 or 8 Cardamom pods. With time the cranberries became so delicious that they disappeared, but I could not bring myself to discard the liquid. This became its last hurrah!

Put all ingredients into a pot on medium heat and stir until sugar is melted. reduce heat and let simmer until the sauce is reduced to 1/3 of original volume.

The sauce will also go great on ice cream!

Potato, Parsnips, Sweet Potatoes

6 each of Yukon, Red and Purple fingerling Potatoes
1 medium Ruby Sweet Potato, peeled
1 medium Parsnip, peeled
reserved Duck Fat

Chop all root veggies to about 1 inch diameter and 2-3 inches long. Put onto a microwave safe plate and microwave on high for 3-5 minutes. Place into a baking dish and season with salt and pepper. Ladle duck fat over everything. Put into 375 degree oven for 15 minutes. Stir and return to oven for another 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper, to taste.

Asparagus with Bacon

1 bunch of Asparagus
3 strips of Bacon, cooked until chewy, chopped

Remove the woody ends from the asparagus. Put the good parts on a lined baking sheet. Cover with bacon bits. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 15-20 minutes. Lightly season with salt and/or pepper.


Oven-roasted Duck

1 5-6 pound Duck

Kosher Salt

8 sprigs of Thyme

6 Allspice Berries, 10 Black Pepper Corns, 6 Whole Cloves, crushed

Remove the duck from its packaging, and take out the giblets and whatever other nonsense the producers stick inside the bird. Keep the neck and giblets, throw the rest away. (Unless you want to keep it. Free country, do what you want.) Clip the wing tips off. Remove any excess fat and skin, e.g., the tail, the fat around the belly, etc. Rinse the bird thoroughly under cold water and pat it dry with paper towels. (For health reasons, use paper towels. Something reusable can spread germs, so screw you environment. I need to be sustained, too.) Season inside and out with salt and spices. Let it dry completely for a couple of hours. (I actually took a hair drier to the crevasses of the skin that was still tacky to the touch.)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Stuff the thyme into the cavity, and tie the legs. Put the bird on a baking rack, breast-side up. Cook for 20 minutes. Remove the bird and using a sharp knife or very sharp fork, pierce the skin everywhere. Don't go all the way into the meat, but do get into the nooks and crannies around the thighs and legs. Turn it over and get the back, too. Put the bird back into the oven for 45 minutes, breast down. Then, using more paper towels, tilt the bird, draining the juices into the baking pan. Flip the duck breast-side up and cook for 30 - 45 minutes more, or until the thigh temperature reads 160 degrees.

Cover the back with your glazing of choice (Cranberry and Balsamic was AMAZING!) and cook for another 5 minutes. (Watch that it doesn't burn. Lots of sugar can over-caramelize in a hurry.)

Let stand, covered, for 10 minutes.

Slice and serve!

And just for my Sister-in-Law:

Baked Custard

8 Strawberries
1/2 cup Sugar
3 tablespoons Water

1 cup Milk
1 cup Half and Half
1 cup Sugar
4 Eggs, beaten
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Boiling Water

In a small saucepan, combine the strawberries, sugar and water. Heat until the sugar is melted and bubbly. Crush the berries--I use a potato masher. Keep cooking at a low temperature until thick. Set aside and let cool.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a larger sauce pan, combine the milk, half and half, salt and sugar. Heat to a boil continuing to whisk the entire time. Temper the eggs. (That means to slowly add small amounts of the boiling milk to the eggs while whisking it together. Add a little more. You want to slowly bring the temperature of the eggs up, as a liquid until it nearly matches the milk. If done too quickly, your eggs are going to scramble.) Add the egg mixture to the milk mixture and whisk a little more. Remove from heat and add the vanilla. (You can also add other flavorings at this point. Citrus zest, chopped herbs, etc.)

Put a tablespoon or two of the strawberry mixture at the bottom of your custard cups. (Small, round-bottom coffee cups or ramekins also work well.) Ladle custard mixture in on top. In a deep baking dish, lay a kitchen towel, flat. Put the cups on top of the towel. Transfer the baking dish to the oven and gently pour the water into the baking dish, being careful not to splash into the custard. The water should come 1/2 way up the cups.

Bake for 35 minutes or until the custard has a loose jello consistency. Remove from the water bath and chill.

Serve in the cup.