Greetings and a recipe!

[Cal Price]

Greetings one and all whichever midwinter festival you subscribe to.
Here's what I'll cook on "the day"

Duck Poached in Tea         160mins

Serves 4   

Ingredients

1 x 2.4kg/5lb Duck

1 Onion, chopped

1 Lemon

4 tbsp Earl Grey Tea

3 tbsp Honey

Vegetable oil

2 Garlic Cloves, finely chopped

Salt and Black Pepper

1 Large Apple, peeled, cored and chopped

2 teasp Red Wine Vinegar





Instructions



1. Preheat oven to 200C, 400F, Gas mark 6. Wash the duck, then sprinkle its body cavity with l teaspoon salt and put in the onion. Pierce holes in the lemon with a skewer and use it as a stopper to keep the onion in. Place the duck, breast down, in an oval casserole dish.

2. Put the tea in a measuring jug and pour in 1 pint of boiling water. Stir and leave for 3 minutes. Strain tea into casserole dish. Then pour another pint of boiling water on to used tea leaves; leave again for a few minutes, then strain over the duck.

3. Dissolved the honey in a glass of hot water then add to the casserole. The duck should be almost covered with liquid. Cover and cook for 1 hour.

4. Carefully lift the duck from the juices and place it, breast side up, on a rack over a roasting tin. Set aside. Drain the juices through a fine sieve into a bowl and leave to cool until the fat can be skimmed off. Pour the remaining liquid into a large saucepan. Reheat the oven to 240C, 475F, Gas mark 9.

5. Rub the duck with the oil, crushed garlic and about 1 teaspoon of salt. Roast at the top of the oven for 40 minutes, basting once or twice.

6. Meanwhile, boil the reserved juices rapidly until the liquid is very much reduced and looking dark and syrupy - this may take anywhere between 15 and 25 minutes. Remove from the heat and season with salt and black pepper.

7. Stir the chopped apples into the juices. Return pan to the heat and boil a further 2-3 minutes. Remove the from the heat and stir in the vinegar. Pour into a sauceboat and serve with the duck.

Bon appetite! One day I'll cook without apples and/or honey but it may be some time yet.

[natedawg120]

that sounds great  , too bad i can't get my wife to eat dark meat ...

[yamahonkawazuki]

cal ive eaten this before, . my grandmother UK born, would make this on a regular basis. at first i despised it, but had grown to like it among other things. but damn that woman has expensive tastes. every time i go through her recipe books, she does not use good enough, she uses " best she can get" and it runs me " out the wazoo" but worth it.

[Cal Price]

Oh Yama, I know what you mean about those old recipes, you open the page to "Take a Haunch of Vennison" or "First whip four pints of clotted cornish cream" If they don't leave you broke the Cholesterol will kill you.

I did a fillet of Ostrich meat a couple of weeks back, bloody (literally) delicious, no cholesterol, expensive but worth every penny and not a grain of waste.

[yamahonkawazuki]

damn right not a bit of waste at that cost, its ALL GOIN DOWN