Gosling with Sour Cherry Sauce (I used duck) -- Transylvanian Cookbook!

I know, I've been away from the Transylvanian Prince's cookbook for a while.  I needed to try some other books and it felt good to do that.  But I had this particular recipe on my "to do" list for a while, so it was just a matter of time to get the ingredients.

The Prince of Transylvania’s court cookbook 

From the 16th century 

THE SCIENCE OF COOKING

You can find a copy of it here:
 http://www.fibergeek.com/leathernotebook/files/2018/05/Transylvanian-Cookbook-v3.pdf

The recipes I have tried are here:  Prince of Transylvania's court cookbook


The recipe is #170,

Gosling with Sour Cherry Sauce

Have enough sour cherry for the gosling, pour some wine onto it; once washed, cook white bread insides and honey with the food as well; once cooked, pass it through a strainer, then add some salt and honey, and a bit of almonds, then cook them together. I’ve told you how to serve it. 

My Redaction

I figured it would be hard to get a gosling, so I settled for a duck from an Asian market.  But the sour cherries were the real challenge:  Everything I read said, "If you can't get sour cherries, use sweet ones and add lemon juice to make it sour."

I really didn't want to do that.  I wanted to try the Official Sour Cherries.  So the duck remained in my freezer until I found a new European market one day.  The place was small but it had two freezers with interesting ice creams and... bags of cherries.  I asked the owner if the cherries were sweet or sour.  She looked dejected and said, "These are European cherries, so they are sour."

Her expression brightened when I said, "Hooray!  Sour cherries!" and I bought two bags.

Now I was ready.  Everything I needed to make the recipe was acquired!

1 duck, cleaned and with the head and feet removed
2 ounces fresh bread crumbs, crust removed
about 2 tablespoons honey for the duck and another 1 tablespoon for the sauce
1 to 1 1/2 cups red wine
300 grams sour cherries (mine were pitted already)
salt to taste
1/2 cup raw almonds, chopped

The honey was en route.

DUCK!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Put the duck in a big, oven-safe pan with a lid.  Add the cherries, bread crumbs, honey, and red wine.  Stir to mix as best as you can around the duck.

Cover and bake for 1 hour.  Uncover and bake another 15 minutes, or whatever it takes to get the internal temperature to 170 degrees.

Mmmmm.  Smells good!

Remove the duck from the pan and then strain the liquid in the pan into another saucepan.

It produced nearly two cups of liquid

Taste the liquid and add honey and salt to taste.  I aimed for a light sweet-and-sour balance, that leaned towards the sour side.  Add the almonds.

Bring the sauce to a boil, stirring constantly, and let boil/hard simmer for a few minutes.  The sauce got noticeably thicker, just not thick.

I sliced some of the breast meat before spooning the sauce on top and serving.  I dug deep into the sauce to make sure I got almond bits for the top.

Well, I should have arranged the parts a little more artistically.

The Verdict

I served it with a side dish of green beans and some fresh bread.  Because my cherries were pitted, I put some of them from the strainer onto the top of the duck.

Reactions were mixed.  The guest taster thought the meat was tender and succulent and the sauce was wonderfully flavorful.  I thought the meat was tough and had an off-flavor, but the sauce was wonderful.  So we agreed on the sauce!

It was thick enough to stick a bit on the meat's surface.  I put the extra sauce in a bowl on the table because we both wanted more sauce with the meat.

We thought the sauce was just right for tartness, with enough sweetness to keep our mouths from puckering.  The almonds added a crunchy texture, which was welcomed, and their flavor went well with the cherries.  The juices from the duck brought a savory deepness that kept it from becoming a dessert sauce.  It was also rich from the fat.

During the meal, the fat collected on top of the sauce, which I didn't like much.  I think next time I would try to remove much of the fat from the juices before making the sauce.  That would also make it easier to get sauce on the bread which I dipped into the sauce.

There was a lot of sauce left over, which I plan on using with other cooked meats.

I spent some time considering if the sauce would be improved with the addition of spices.  I think not, in that the cherry flavor was really emphasized in this simple sauce, and that a spice like cinnamon or cloves would shift the emphasis away.  Perhaps pepper, to bring some bitter into the sweet-sour combination.  I think I would add spices only if I wanted a change from the "usual."  (Unlikely!)

I also asked around about the off-flavor of the duck meat.  To me, it was strong enough to be off-putting.  I did not like the meat and the scent it had.  It might have been a gland that wasn't removed well when the duck was cleaned.  I really don't know.  So if I wanted this sauce again, I think I would use a chicken or a fatty piece of pork.

Carob Molasses: Gulepp tal-harrub DONE RIGHT

Wow, did I make a big mistake.  It was just my good fortune and a bit of old training that kept me out of harm's way.

I previously wrote a post on Carob Molasses and found it was awful.  Extremely bitter.  I tasted a little and threw the rest away.  Then I contacted Dr. Albala, the author of the book with the recipe I tried, in order to figure out what was wrong.

Our discussion lead me to realize that I MISIDENTIFIED THE TREE.  Yes, what I thought was carob was not.  All my life that tree had been identified to me as carob.  I even looked through the internet to double-check.  But I was wrong.

The tree was actually Cassia leptophylla, the Gold Medallion Tree.  Parts are toxic!  I recalled that there is an evolutionary reason we taste bitter things, and that is to tell us when something is not good for us.  I am so glad I responded correctly to that, because it probably saved me a trip to the hospital.

It goes to show that eating plants can be hazardous, so always be careful!  I should have checked more thoroughly on the tree's identity before I tasted it.

Lesson learned.

Dr. Albala sent me some real carob pods.  This is what they look like, in comparison to what I had harvested.

One carob pod, about 4 inches long

Many carob pods

Gold Medallion Tree pods.  Toxic!

The carob pods are small and curved, whereas the other pods are long and straight.

I followed his instructions to make the syrup:

To make the syrup, just break up the pods, boil them for several hours in water and then strain.  Cook this down until thick, adding a little sugar to taste if you want.

Broken and ready for water

With water

Once the water was boiling, I turned the heat down to low to make it just simmer.  I had to add more water early on because I had barely covered them at the start.  They smelled slightly sweet while they were simmering.  I did cover the pan to cut down on evaporation.

After more than two hours of simmering, I strained them, then simmered to reduce it.

Strained

Reduced in the pan, for comparison.

The final quantity.

The Verdict

I tasted a pod after it was cooked and cooled.  It was soft and sweet and tasty!  I chewed it a little and got the almost-chocolate flavor.  I liked it.

I tasted the syrup after it cooled.  Well, it never got thick but I decided that it had reduced enough -- 1/4 cup!  I didn't want it to burn or evaporate all away.  But I will call it a syrup anyway.

It was still watery, not as concentrated as I think it should be.  But it was sweet with a deeper flavor that was something like chocolate and something like coffee.  I liked it!  Not bitter at all.  

Success!

The internet tells me that the syrup is used to flavor drinks, make a cough syrup, and to coat sore throats.  Some people make a liqueur out of it.  It is sometimes flavored with orange.

Thank you, Dr. Ken Albala, for your time, your help, and for sending me the right pods.  It was kind of you!