Roast Duck with Sweet Cherry Reduction

I'm always thrilled when a food I love suddenly becomes so trendy that I can find it anywhere! I have had a longtime love affair with duck, and luckily so does Joe, so he understands my desire to eat it early and often. Now duck fat fries and duck breast are on lots of menus, and "duck confit" is something I hear coming out of the mouths of ordinary people. Woo hoo!

Sweet cherries seem a little late this year because the Great Lakes region, unlike the rest of America, is having the coldest, rainiest summer I can ever remember. It's fabulous mosquito weather. If you are having trouble finding (and pitting) sweet cherries, frozen ones are good, too.

Fruit is always good to pair with duck because the meat is rather oily and a little tartness sets it off perfectly. The first time we made this roasted duck recipe, I wished I had made about twice as much sweet cherry sauce to freeze for later. I can think of about ten other things I'd like to pour this sauce over.

Ingredients

1 4 lb. duck
1 tsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce
1 tsp olive oil
1 small shallot, finely diced
1/2 cup Merlot
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup chicken stock
1 cup pitted and halved sweet cherries
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp butter

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Put roasting pan on lower oven rack and fill with 2-3 inches of water. Oil a poultry rack and place in the pan with the bird on top, breast side down. Rub with the remaining oil, then sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Roast duck for 1 hour, basting occasionally.

Turn duck breast-side up and roast until dark brown, about 25 minutes per pound in total. The internal temperature should be at least 140 degrees when finished. Let it set for 15 minutes before carving it.


While the duck is roasting, make the cherry sauce.  Heat the oil in a small pot and then add the shallot. Saute until tender. Add the rest of the sauce ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, about 30 minutes, or until the liquid is reduced by half. Put half of the sauce into a blender or food processor and process until smooth, then stir into the sauce.

Serve the duck with sauce drizzled over it, and pass the remaining sauce.

Serves 4-6.

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Favorite Easter Recipes

I don't know who made this, but would gladly give credit if I did!

Whew! With my new job as a librarian, working with a new art gallery, getting involved in social justice as a ministry, and writing some new fiction, I can hardly believe Easter is in just a few days. I miss the Easters when I was young; waking up to find a huge basket of candy, and wearing a corsage, a pretty new outfit my mom made, and white gloves to church that morning.

Once we had an Easter egg hunt at my Grandpa Williams' house in Royal Oak, Michigan, and he forgot to count the eggs he hid. He found one a couple of months later when he ran over it with the lawnmower. Yuck.

Easter Sunday in Royal Oak. L-R: Grandma, me, older sister Sheryl, and my Mom.

Wellllll...I love any celebration that involves lots of food, don't you? Here are some of our favorite recipes, from a luscious lamb brisket to a lemony Easter basket bread, as well as the best devilled eggs ever.

Lemony Easter Basket Bread: my mom always made this every Easter, and tucked dyed eggs into the folds before baking.

Seder Braised Lamb: Our church group enjoys an authentic Jewish Seder dinner each year, which is a wonderful chance to learn more about the Jewish religion that Jesus lived in. Joe developed this lamb recipe a year ago.

Bacon Jalapeno Deviled Eggs: Devilled eggs taken to the max, from Real Housemoms.

Homemade Reese’s-Style Peanut Butter Eggs: how we love anything chocolate and peanut-buttery. From Natalie of Good Girl Style.

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Duck in Green Pumpkin-Seed Sauce (Pipián Verde con Pato)

This interesting duckling in pumpkin-seed sauce recipe is from central Mexico. It reminds us that pumpkins and other squashes are New World foods, and indigenous people used the pulp and seeds for many different purposes. Nowadays, we mostly think of Jack-O-Lanterns, pumpkin pie, and salted seeds when we think of pumpkins, but the husked seeds are often used in Mexican foods. Another version of the pipián sauce is red, and uses sesame seeds instead of the little hulled pumpkin seeds called pepitas.

Fall is duck-hunting time in Mexico, too. Many species of duck fly to the Southwestern US and into Mexico when the weather gets cold up north. If you're not a hunter, don't have any duck-hunting friends, and you can't find any duckling in the store, any kind of poultry will work well for this recipe. However, the richness of duck breast is especially delicious with the creamy and slightly spicy pumpkin seed sauce.

We turned down the heat in the original recipe from Guanajuato, a state in central Mexico where Angela's ex-mother-in-law lived. Add more serrano peppers if you like.

Ingredients

1 5-lb duck
1 tbsp oil

Pipián sauce

8 medium tomatillos (about the size of a plum)
6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup hulled raw pumpkin seeds, plus 2 tbsp for topping
1/2 cup white sesame seeds
3 tbsp oil
1/2 cup onion
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup cilantro, minced
1 tbsp Mexican oregano, minced
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 serrano peppers, seeded and chopped

Directions

Cut the duck into quarters and pierce the skin all over with a fork. Heat oil in a large saucepan. Fry the quarters, skin side down, until nicely browned (do this in batches if the pieces don't brown easily). Don't turn over the pieces; the fatty skin side will get nice and crispy this way. Once the skin side is browned, drain off the rendered fat and put a lid on the pan. Cook the duck for 40 minutes, or until the meat is tender.

Meanwhile, peel the husks off the tomatillos and scrub off the sticky sap. Cut them into quarters and cover them with 3 cups of chicken broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until soft. Allow to cool.

Heat 1 tbsp of oil in another pan, and toast the sesame seeds until they are golden brown. Pour the seeds into a blender. Heat the rest of the oil and toast the pumpkin seeds until slightly browned and fragrant. Set aside 2 tbsp for the topping, and place the rest in the blender.

Add the garlic, black pepper, cilantro, oregano, and serrano peppers to the blender. Pour in the tomatillos and the broth used to cook the tomatillos. Blend until smooth.

Heat the last 1 tbsp of oil in a saucepan. Pour in the sauce and warm it on low heat for about five minutes, stirring frequently. Don't let the heat get too high or the sauce will lose its green color. Little by little, add the rest of the broth, stirring frequently. The sauce should become the consistency of thick cream. If you heat it too much and it gets curdly, return the sauce to the blender and blend it until smooth again.

Salt it to your taste, then add the duck pieces, skin side up. Heat for 10 minutes.

Serve by spooning a cup of sauce onto a plate, then placing a duck quarter on top of the sauce, then topping it with a splash of sauce and a sprinkle of pumpkin seeds. This is good with rice; we especially recommend wild rice, grown where the ducks like to nest. You might want to try our Mushroom and Pine Nut Wild Rice Pilaf.

Serves 4-6.

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Peking Duck

Angela: "This recipe has one of the most interesting preparation steps we have ever tried - wait till you see the work-in-progress photos! The key to really good Peking Duck is a crispy, sweet skin, and though the steps are a little odd, it's not hard to do. Actually, the most difficult part was getting the rice wrappers to warm without getting stuck together or breaking. I think we will try a different brand next time."

Joe: "We combined recipes from four different Asian cookbooks to create this one. The taste is unbelievably good. It was the perfect meal to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary on September fifth, and we paired it with a bottle of mellow Malbec."

Ingredients

• 1 4 1/2 to 5 lb duck
• 6 cups boiling water 
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 cup hot water
• 2 tablespoons orange peel
• 2 tablespoons red vinegar

• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced

• 10 scallions or green onion stalks, julienned
• 1/2 large cucumber, julienned
• 2/3 cup hoisin sauce 
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil 
• Chinese pancakes

Directions
Cut off duck wings at second joint, remove excess fat and any innards, rinse and dry well. Place the duck in a large bowl or pan and pour the boiling water over the bird. Let set for five minutes, then drain, reserving the boiling liquid.

Mix together honey, vinegar, water, and orange peel in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Remove orange peel and combine with salt, sugar, garlic, onion, and five-spice powder. Add the boiling liquid to the reserved liquid from step 1.

Using kitchen twine, loop under each of the wings so that it holds up the duck for hanging. Tie up the duck in a drafty place, or hang in front of a fan. Place a bowl underneath the bird. (Note: we hung ours from a plant hanger in the living room, but any hook or doorknob will do. Be sure to make your bird pet-proof, if you have pets that love poultry as much as our cats do.)

Pour the liquid over the bird and let it drain into the bowl for about five minutes. Repeat five times. Discard the liquid and let the bird dry for at least 1, preferably 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Take down duck and remove twine. Fill the cavity with the spice mixture. Tie or sew shut, if desired.

Put roasting pan on lower oven rack and fill with 2-3 inches of water. Oil a poultry rack and place in the pan with the bird on top, breast side down. Roast duck for 1 hour, basting occasionally.

Turn duck side up and roast until dark brown, about 25 minutes per pound in total. 

Carve duck into thin slices. Mix hoisin with sesame oil and 1 tablespoon hot water. Heat pancakes or steam them. Serve by spreading hoisin sauce on the pancakes, and laying the cucumber, onions, and duck slices on top, then rolling up the pancake.

Serves 6-8.

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Duck with Sausage and Herb Stuffing (Anatra en Porchetta)

Save this recipe for a day when you're not watching your weight, or after you've been shoveling Chicago snow all day and you need rich, fulfilling refueling. A day after the Chicago SnowPocalyse of 2011 is perfect for making this, especially if someone else is doing the shoveling while you're cooking.

If your chain grocery store doesn't often provide duck, and you don't know any hunters, try an Asian or Latino store, where the meat selection is usually much wider and cheaper than in mainstream American stores.

Note: this is a recipe that we originally received from friends in Tuscany. Ordinarily this recipe would be used for roasted pork, which is often sold off street carts in panini sandwiches, or offered in local butcher markets. Using duck instead of pork is an interesting innovation, but feel free to use the basic recipe with a pork shoulder or an entire pig, if you have the facilities to cook it.

Ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic, minced

3 fresh sage leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
½ teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
1 fresh Italian sausage, skin removed
1 5-pound duck
3 bay leaves
6 thick strips pancetta or bacon
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup dry red wine
Salt and pepper

Preheat an oven to 450 degrees.

Crumble the sausage into a bowl and mix in the garlic and herbs. Rinse the duck and pat dry. Insert 1 bay leaf and the sausage mixture into the duck. Sew up the cavity with kitchen string and tie down the wings and legs close to the body so they do not brown too quickly. Cover the breast with the pancetta or bacon and place the remaining bay leaves on top of the bacon. Place the duck breast-side up in a roasting pan. Stir together the wine, oil, salt and pepper, and pour it over the bird.

Roast for 1 ½ to 2 hours, basting occasionally, until the pancetta or bacon are crisp and a thermometer inserted into the breast registers 175 degrees. Transfer the duck to a board and let sit for 10 minutes. Remove and discard the string and bay leaves. Remove the stuffing and carve the duck. Serve over a wide pasta such as fettucine, if desired.

Serves 4-6

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