Bear Cuisine

Roast Duck with Tomato-Caper Sauce

Roast Duck with Tomato-Caper Sauce 

For this dinner I used a Muscovy duck which is leaner than a Pekin duck. While there isn't as much fat on these birds, there is still enough to make for a tasty meal and cook the oven-roasted potatoes to a delicious golden-brown. I adapted a recipe which David Rosengarten printed in one of his 2005 newsletters.

Roasted Muscovy Duck

• one 4-5 pound Muscovy hen
  
• Duck Fat
  
• salt and pepper
  

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

Smear the duck with duck fat and generously salt and pepper, inside and out. Place on a rack in a roasting pan, breast side up. Place in the oven.

After one hour increase the heat to 325 degrees, turn the duck breast side down and roast for another  hour. Remove the duck from the oven. Raise the oven temperature to 500 degrees.

When the temperature is reached, place the duck, breast side up, in the oven and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven. Let the duck rest 15 to 20 minutes. Carve and serve.

TOMATO-CAPER SAUCE

• 3 to 4 shallots, minced
• 1 tablespoon duck fat or oil
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 small jar caper (approximately 4 fluid ounces)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• chicken broth

1. Place the shallots in a saucepan with the duck fat. Cook over medium heat until the shallots start to soften and become transparent. Sprinkle with flour and stir.

2. Add the jar of capers and their liquid to the pan.

3. Stir in the tomato paste with a little water and enough broth (about 2 cups) to make it the consistency you like. You should have ample sauce to pass around two or three times as seconds are served. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes at a simmer and serve with the chicken.

Christmas Dinner 2009

Our Christmas Dinner actually took place on December 26, St Stephen's Day.  That didn't affect how good it tasted or how much we enjoyed it. There are, after all, twelve days of Christmas. Kay's choice this year was duck and ,unlike last year's pheasant, more than worth whatever trouble it took to cook it.

So, here's our menu for this year's dinner.

BUTTERNUT SHRIMP BISQUE(click here for recipe)

ROAST DUCK WITH CAPER SAUCE, DUCK FAT OVEN-ROASTED POTATOES AND BRAISED ENDIVE (for duck and sauce recipe click here) (for braised endive recipe click here)

ARUGULA , APPLE, AND FENNEL SALAD (for salad recipe click here)

Everything tasted absolutely wonderful. If I were to do this dinner again, the only change I would make would be choosing a brighter vegetable. The endive tasted good with the duck and the potatoes, but there wasn't enough color and texture contrast. 

Favorite Cookbooks of 2009

 CANAL HOUSE COOKING

I have written about Canal House Cooking before ( click here for my first review) and I am just as enthusiastic now as I was in August. It is a brilliant idea to do a book as a subscription. The authors can focus on each season and include new favorites as they discover or remember them. Their work says fresh and so does ours. This is hands-down my choice for CookBook of the Year.

 CLAY POT COOKERY

CLAY POT COOKERY combines two of my favorite things on this earth-cooking and pottery. I've been collecting pottery ever since I started working. I've been known to eat a lot of peanut butter in order to get a pot that I just couldn't live without. Then the next month I would be cooking something utterly delicious in it. Delayed gratification made the food taste that much better. Wolfert maintains that food cooked in clay tastes better--more alive. I've also collected Paula Wolfert's books from the time when both she and I were much younger. So, you can see why this book was a must for me. She has recipes from many different cuisines in this book and she recommends the pot to match the food. I've marked several recipes to try. From past experience with her cookbooks, I know that anything in here will be fabulous.

 MY NEW ORLEANS.THE COOKBOOK

John Besh has wonderful restaurants in New Orleans and I'm delighted that he has finally published a cookbook. If you've been reading this blog for a while you know how much I love New Orleans and its food. My New Orleans is filled with stories of the people, places and food which make this city such a popular culinary destination. Even if you never cook a single recipe from this book you will enjoy reading it. Besh's stories have renewed my hunger for the wonderful Cajun and Creole food of New Orleans and, undoubtedly, I will be cooking some of his food. 

It's usually hard to pick my favorite books of the year, but these three were standouts and the choice was relatively easy. You won't go wrong if you add any one of these to your collection.

Oyster Po-Boy

I adore oysters and whenever we have them it is a celebration. The Christmas season isn't truly complete for us until we have had some of these fabulous bivalves. This year we opted for a movie on Christmas Day--It's Complicated, a light-hearted bit of froth which we quite enjoyed. When we returned home, we treated ourselves to this New Orleans' classic and dreamt of the next time we would be eating oysters in the Big Easy.

OYSTER PO-BOY

(6 servings)

1. vegetable oil for frying
   
2. 1 large egg, beaten
   
3. 1 cup milk
   
4. 1 cup water
   
5. 2 tablespoons Creole mustard
   
6. 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
   
7. 3 cups corn flour
   
8. 2 tablespoons granulated garlic
   
9. Salt
   
10. Cracked Black pepper
    
11. 3 loaves French bread, cut in half
    
12. 3 dozen freshly shucked and drained oysters 
    
13. 6 tablespoons tartar sauce
    
14. 6 tablespoons ketchup
    
15. 2 cups shredded lettuce
    

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. heat the oil to 350 degrees F in a large heavy pot.

In a shallow bowl, whisk together the beaten egg, milk, water and mustards. In a mixing bowl, combine the corn flour, garlic, and the salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Slice the o-boy bread lengthwise and place on a large cookie sheet, crust-down. Put the bread in the oven and turn off the heat to allow it to become crispy and warm while you fry the seafood.

Dip the oysters in the egg batter and then the corn flour mixture. Fry in 2 or 3 batches, 3 minutes per batch until the oysters float on the surface of the oil. Drain and keep warm until all the seafood has been fried.

Remove the bread from the oven and top one side of each loaf with tartar sauce and the second side with ketchup. Place oysters and lettuce on bread and put together for the sandwich. Slice in half and serve hot.

(adapted from Cooking Up A Storm)

Fish Chowder

We had some beautiful Halibut fillets in the freezer  and fish stock. I thought it was high time that we cooked them. The perennial questions is, of course, how should they be cooked. Wintery weather seems to me to demand stews and soups. So this fish would end up in Fish Chowder. I turned to Jasper White's Fifty Chowders  for inspiration and was not disappointed. His recipe calls for cod or pollack, but halibut makes a very fine substitute.

 FISH CHOWDER

(serves 8 as a main course)

1. 4 ounces meaty salt pork, rind removed, cut into 1/2 inch dice
   
2. 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
   
3. 2 medium onions (14 ounces) cut into 3/4-inch dice
   
4. 6 to 8 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves removed and chopped (1 tablespoon)
   
5. 2 dried bay leaves
   
6. 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
   
7. 3 cups fish stock or chicken stock
   
8. 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick
   
9. Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
   
10. 3 cups whole milk
    
11. 3 pounds skinless halibut fillets, pinbones removed
    

Heat a four-to-six-quart heavy pot over low heat and add the diced salt pork. Once it has rendered a few tablespoons of fat, increase the heat to medium and cook until the pork is crisp and golden brown. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cracklings to a small ovenproof dish, leaving the fat in the pot, and reserve until later.

Add the butter, onions, savory or thyme, and bay leaves to the pot and saute, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, for about 8 minutes, until the onions are softened but not browned. Add the flour and cook 1 minute more, stirring constantly. Add 1 cup of the stock and cook, stirring constantly, until the stock has thickened (it will be fairly thick). Add 1 more cup of stock and allow it to come back to a simmer again, stirring all the while. Add the last cup of stock and when the stock is once again simmering slowly, ad the potatoes. If the stock doesn't cover the potatoes, add just enough water to cover them.

Slowly simmer the potatoes, partially covered, for about 15 minutes, until tender; stir often to prevent sticking. Season the mixture assertively with salt and pepper (you want to almost overseason the chowder at this point, to avoid having to stir it much once the fish is added). Add the milk. When the milk is hot but not boiling, add the fillets and cook on low heat for 5 minutes, then remove from the heat and allow the chowder to sit for 10 minutes. (The fish will finish cooking during this time.)

Let the chowder sit for up to an hour at room temperature, allowing the flavors to blend.

When ready to serve, reheat the chowder over low heat, don't let it boil. Warm the cracklings in a low oven (200 degrees F) for a few minutes.

Use slotted spoon to mound he chunks of fish, the onions and potatoes in the center of large soup plates and ladle the creamy broth around. Scatter the cracklings over the individual servings and finish each with a sprinkling of chopped parsley and minced chives.