Dish 15: Crispy Skin Duck with Witlof

The dish

I have wanted to make this dish since I first got the book for several reasons. 

Firstly, because it is duck and I have never ever ever prepared anything with duck, although I have eaten it upon occasion and really like it.

 Secondly, because it has witlof. Now, for those of you who aren't Australian, witlof is known in most English-speaking countries as chicory or endive. But guess what? In my little country with its little but complicated language, witlof is known as... witlof. Can you even imagine how thrilled I am to see a word for a vegetable in this cookbook that I don't need to translate? For the record, "wit" means white and "lof" is another word for chicory (it also means praise in a completely different context).

I wandered off there, sorry. Finally, I have been wanting to make it, because it seems like a challenge. For once you can't just read the recipe and follow it from top to bottom. Instead, this dish is made up out of 4 different components, and you need to time them just right in order to serve your diners a warm meal.

The preparation

The four different components of this dish are:

1) Duck breasts

2) Witlof

3) Orange sauce

4) Roasted onions

In total this dish does not take a lot of prepping time at all, but you do need to make sure you time it well.

I started out by preparing my roasting tin (in my case: glass baking dish) with the onions and their seasoning. As they had to be in the oven for approximately 15 minutes, I needed to make sure they had been prepped and ready to hit the oven the moment time called for it.

Next were the duck breasts.  

Follow Andy's instructions when it comes to these. Score them properly and add the salt flakes. I found that since this was my second time ever scoring any kind of meat (the first time was the pork belly), I have yet to find out exactly how to score skin and get a perfect result. I can tell you, however, that I'm getting better at it already.

I cooked the duck in a pan until the skin was indeed golden and pretty crisp, then transferred it to the oven, together with my roasting tin with onions.The duck breasts only needed a short while, whereas the onions were allowed to stay in there for 15 minutes, so I set the timer for the duck.

I then started on the orange sauce. Thanks to a visit to the market I had all necessary spices (and even managed to get the allspice berries that I needed for the lamb curry - next time I'll be prepared!) for it. This sauce takes quite some timing, as you add its ingredients in three batches, each with a different amount of time that you allow it to simmer or infuse.

While the sauce was simmering away, I pulled the duck breasts from the oven and covered them with foil. 

I also put on a pan for the witlof, that my lovely best friend had already cut up for me before. Once again you will need a pan with a lid for this, and once again I had used the wrong pan, but this time I was aware of the leaking water/steam, so I could save it in time. Not that it needed saving this time!

I also added the final ingredient to the orange sauce, which, very surprisingly, were sliced oranges.

Approximately ten minutes later, all of my components were done, and I was ready to plate.

Before I move on the result, I would like to share the following with you. With this dish, the trickiest thing definitely lies in the planning of every component. This took the most time to figure out. In the end I managed a time schedule in my head not unlike any Christmas dinner I plan, when I only have one oven and approximately four dishes that require oven time.

In case you are bad at this, I'll narrow it down for you:

Prepare your onions first, so that the roasting tin is ready to go into the oven. Turn the oven on and let it preheat.

Prep your duck and bake it in your pan.

After the required cooking time for the duck, put both the pan with the duck and roasting tin with the onions in the oven. Set a timer to the duck time as indicated in the cookbook.

Start on your orange sauce, and after adding the second batch of ingredients to the pan, pull out the duck and cover it with foil.

Put a frying pan on and start on the witlof. 

Continue with the sauce while keeping an eye on your onions and witlof.

If you managed to do this, by the time the duck breasts have rested for 10 minutes, all other items should be ready as well. It's not hard, but if you start preparing this dish from the top (= the orange sauce), you might run into trouble. 

The result

What can I say? "Please sir, I want some more!"

This dish. Oh my. This sauce! As my best friend put it, "If I had a spoon, I would eat this as soup." The duck, the witlof, the onion, the orange and the sauce together, this was more than a match made in heaven. This was the perfect combination and one I am definitely going to make this again and again and again. I literally had to stop myself from running my finger through the bowl after finishing, just so I could lap up a little more of that sauce.

Andy, I take my hat off to you. Delicious.

And dear reader, if by now you still have not bought this cookbook, you are nuts. Get it here!

Next time

Next time it is Easter. This means that I am meeting my loveliest friends for an extravagant brunch. I will be providing Scones (p. 77), with cream and probably some lemon curd. Because why not? If we're having mimosas at 11 in the morning, we are having scones.

I might also attempt Ben's White Chocolate Mojito Cheesecake with Rhubarb (p. 202), but I can't make any promises.

But still, I really do hope to see you at our next elemental meal... :)

Dish 14: Smoked Salmon & Avocado Mousse Crostini

The dish

You might aware that I didn't have a lot of time, so instead of going for a bigger meal, I opted for the Smoked Salmon & Avocado Mousse Crostini (p. 100). Although they looked liked little appetisers, I figured I could make them just so they would fill a grown woman's stomach in terms of dinner.

I must say, I was weary of the amount of smoked salmon I needed, but if there is something I have already learned throughout this process, it is to trust Andy when it comes to flavour.

The preparation

This dish is perfect as a canapé, and it is actually what it ends up looking like... if you follow the recipe closely. If you do it right, you'll end up with small discs of baguette with a dollop of avocado mousse, some smoked salmon, and fresh dill.

Yeah, no such thing.

I did follow Andy's recipe for the bigger part.

I got my baguette...

I got my smoked salmon, and I got my avocado mixture going. This, dear people, involves blending with a stick blender. I can recommend not using a bowl, for you will undoubtedly splatter green muck onto yourself, and unless you are a parent of a teething baby, this is pretty much unacceptable.

Naturally this dish contains one of Andy's favourite citrus fruits, but most of it purely relies on the flavours that the ingredients offer. You don't use a lot of extra spices, you just combine amazing ingredients.

The result

It isn't brain surgery, but boy, is this delicious! As said before, I was afraid of the amount of smoked salmon you needed to use, but who knew that avocado and smoked salmon went together so well? Instead of getting an overdose of salmon, like I feared, the avocado almost neutralised its strong flavoured counterpart and made it into this delightful mix. 

It was like seeing your extrovert best friend hook up with a really quiet partner, and being absolutely astonished when it works. A match made in heaven. Don't forget to add the dill for this show stopper!

Next time

As this was such an easy one, next time I will attempt a proper real dish again: Crispy Skin Duck with Witlof (p. 172). 

Stay tuned and see you at our next elemental meal! (Is it getting lame yet? A little, huh?)

Delay in update - kitty's things first

Good evening, all ye who read this. :)

After my holiday weekend, I haven't had time yet to prepare a new dish from Andy's cookbook, and hence I'm immediately letting you and myself down by not having put up a new post yet by yesterday evening.

I was planning on preparing it tonight, but I just came back from the vet.

My cat has had a case of pretty bad breath and I fear that this bad breath in combination with her growing refusal to properly chew, means there's something wrong with her teeth. I have to say, taking my cat to the vet was a whole new experience altogether. My cat is lovely, let's start with that. And I don't know who that creature was in the vet's exam room, because that hellish vixen was definitely not my cute kitty. 

I don't know if any of you have a pet that changes 100% whenever they are at the vet's, but it's one of the weirdest things. She was purring and I got to cuddle her again the moment the vet had left the room, but when they returned, once again the ears went down and she went berserk. 

Anyway, I'm back now, with an appointment to drop her off next week, where she'll have a full examination whilst anesthetised. Roxy, why can't you just be an easy cat? 

~~~

Long story short, I'm in no mood to prepare a proper dish right now, so instead I'm going to warm up some leftover soup.

Thursday I'll try out the next dish, though! I am looking forward to that, and I hope I won't be as tired then as I am now. 

See you then! =)