my first 'non-recipe'!

my first ‘non-recipe’!

April 26, 2011 § 4 Comments

OK, it’s not my ‘non-recipe’ as such and it’s not the first one I’ve ever read/adapted/cooked to… but it is the first non-recipe I’m sharing on my new blog. So the title stays, right?! Why is it a non recipe? Well I’m a firm believer in adapting things. Recipes are inspiration. They’re there to be tweaked and fiddled with. Well most are. With baking I’m a little less slap-dash, but with cooking this kind of food I’m of the mind that if you don’t like the recipe sounds, you just omit or add to it until it sounds right to you. I hope you’re getting where I’m going with this. I have a tendency to over complicate explanations. Onwards and upwards…

Anyhoo, it was easter sunday the other day. Neither myself nor husband are even vaguely religious, but we do like our food. Any otherwise religious holiday is for us an occasion to whip up something we’d never normally be bothered to slap suggestively, never mind whip. He got to choose what we ate on christmas day, so it was my turn this time and I chose orangey duck. I don’t call it ‘duck á l’orange’ because I have no idea how bastardised this is from the original and I don’t want the Duck Á L’Orange Recipe Preservation Society beating down my door and claiming that duck á l’orange shouldn’t have whole slices of orange, or cornflour or tangerine marmalade in it. This does, so I’m simply calling it orangey duck. For such is my want.

I took two nice plump duck breasts, scored through the skin a few times, seasoned with salt and pepper, and put them into a cold casserole on the hob. Medium heat to start with, then you can turn it down to let the fat slowly render out of the skin. I don’t throw away duck fat incedentally. It’s a nice alternative to goose fat when making over indulgent and decadently fattening roast potatoes. I have no idea when the next occasion will arise that I need to cook such an over indulgent and decadently fattening lot of roast spuds, but at least if the mood takes me I’ll have some duck fat ready and waiting to spread its flavoursome fattyness onto the proceedings.

It will take a good 10 minutes or more for the fat to render and the skin to crisp up. The key thing I think is to leave it the hell alone. No need to go jabbing at it, it’ll be stuck to the bottom and you’ll panic. Don’t. Instead take the time to get the ingredients for the orangey sauce ready.

I used one whole orange sliced up, the zest of another, the juice of two, and to my delight I found some tangerine marmalade lurking forgotten in the back of the fridge so decided to throw that in too. Now, for the veg. Husband does the bestest ever mash so once the spuds are done he’s put in charge of transforming them from humble white starchy thing into creamy silky delicious thing. His secret, if you can call it that seeing as I’m about to tell you, is lots of mashing, milk, butter, freshly ground black pepper, and onion salt. He’s rather camera-shy so you’ll have to make do with a photo of them boiling…

Not the most exciting, is it? I also did peas and broccoli, and they’re not very exciting either so I didn’t bother photographing them. Here’s something a little more exciting though, the roast veg…

Husband adores roast veg and they’re so ridiculously stupidly easy to make - here I used carrots, parsnips, and red onion chopped up, drizzled with a nice olive oil, sprinkled with some freshly ground black pepper, and whatever herb takes yer fancy. If they’re to be the star of the show I prefer rosemary, garlic, thyme and sage for lots of punch. Today though I wanted something a bit more subtle so I just used some dried marjoram. Bung in the oven at 180° until they’re done to your liking and job’s a good ‘un.

Back to the duck…

By now the skin is crisping up nicely so they need a few minutes on the other side to finish, on a low heat. How you like your duck breasts is no business of mine [ooh matron!] so the timing is up to you. I don’t mind a bit of pink whereas husband likes things ‘done’ so I settled for brown all the way through and then took them out and rested them in the bottom of the oven till I was ready finishing everything else.

Time for the sauce… I put the orange slices, zest, marmalade and about 2 or 3 teaspoons of soft brown sugar into a hot pan and sort of caramelised the oranges.

When they look nice and golden I added in the juice and a star anise, and reduced down a bit, then out with the orange slices till later. It was a bit thinner that I thought it should be so I thickened it with a teaspoon of cornflour and some water made into a paste.

Once the cornflour has been properly cooked out the sauce should look a nice thick, unctuous, clear, orangey kind of wonderful. As above.

So once the slicing and arranging and placing and faffing is done that’s it! Orangey duck, served with mash, peas and broccoli and roast veg. I’m not entirely sure the Duck Á L’Orange Recipe Preservation Society would approve…