Pato con nabos, Duck with turnips -- a Pinedo recipe

 It's time for another Pinedo recipe! (If you don't know what that is, search for the recipes with the label "Pinedo").

On page 193, I saw Pato con nabos, or Duck with turnips.

My Translation

Duck with turnips.

         Having put a casserole on the fire with a good piece of butter which, being very hot, the duck cut into pieces will be emptied into it.

         When it begins to take color, add bacon, chopped into small pieces, turnips, and two onions with two cloves, a head of young garlic, a bay leaf, and parsley.

         When everything is well browned, boiling water is poured over it and salt and pepper are added, allowing the stew to boil over a low heat so that it seasons well.

My Redaction

1/4 cup butter

one 4 to 5 pound duck, cut into serving size pieces

1 pound bacon, cut into about 1-inch pieces

4 medium turnips, washed, peeled, and cut into large, bite-sized chunks

1 head garlic, peeled but not broken apart

1 bay leaf

2 onions, one of which is studded with 2 whole cloves

2 tablespoons parsley (dried)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

And cloves

Preheat some water in a kettle.

Heat the butter in a large Dutch oven until very hot.  Add the duck pieces a few at a time to brown.  Turn them to brown both sides.  Once the pieces take on some color, remove them to a plate and add a few more pieces.  Repeat until all the pieces are browned and out of the pan.

When the duck is done, put the bacon and turnips into the pan.  Cook them until the bacon is nearly done.  Don't expect the bacon or turnips to brown much (if at all) as the butter, bacon fat, and juices from the duck produce a lot of liquid.

Remove most of the bacon/turnip mixture from the pan and into a bowl.  Leave a thin layer on the bottom.  Place several pieces of duck on top of it, and nestle the onions, garlic head, and bay leaf into them.  Sprinkle on the parsley.  Put on a layer of bacon/turnips, then another layer of duck.  Repeat until all the duck and bacon/turnip mix is in the pan. This might fill the Dutch oven! 

Pour the hot water over the top until the ingredients are covered.  Sprinkled on the salt and pepper.  Bring the water to a boil, then turn the temperature down so that the water is just barely simmering.

Cook for 1 1/2 hours, or until the turnips are tender, the duck is cooked, and the broth tastes lovely.  Adjust salt and pepper as needed.  

Remove the bay leaf, cloves, and garlic head before serving.  The onion should break up easily for serving.

My Notes

The redaction covers it all.  Here are the pictures.

They took on some color.

This is the right size.

They didn't brown, but the bacon was cooked.

Nestled, all snug in their beds.

Just add water.

Ready to slow simmer.

Cooked.  *SIGH*

The Verdict

The duck was tender.  The turnips were tender.  The bacon was a little chewy, which is how I like it.  

The broth was perfect:  rich but not too rich, flavorful without being strong.  Honestly, it was its delicateness that stood out.  The flavor was well-balanced with the meaty flavor as dominant (but not strong) and supported with the herbs and spices.  One guest taster thought it needed more salt, but the other two tasters thought it was just right.

The turnips could have been potatoes and I would not have noticed much of a difference.  They had absorbed some of the bacon flavor, which was good.

The only negative was the amount of fat floating on top.  It did not spoil the meal at all, but it was fattier than I am used to eating.

The whole dish made an enjoyable meal.  It came across as sophisticated and even classy.  I served it with some of Pinedo's French wafers, fresh grapes from my garden, and a side salad composed of chopped tomatoes, tomatillos, and sweet onions (slivered) dressed with salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar.

Enjoy!

The leftovers were also good.  I noticed the broth became solid when chilled.  I defatted it, and that made the food even better.

Success, in a classy way!

It helped to have a bowl on the table dedicated to holding the bones as people ate their servings.

Ukrainian Borsch with Duck and Dried Smoked Pears

 It was time to try out the dried smoked pears from my previous post.  (Click here to visit the post.)

The recipe was from Olia Hercules' book, Summer Kitchens, on page 132.

ISBN 978-1-68188-570-4

Borsch with duck and smoked pears

1/2 cup beet kvas or 1/4 cup good-quality red wine vinegar

2 small beets, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks

1 medium onion, finely diced

1 medium carrot, scrubbed and cut into thin matchsticks or coarsely grated

7 oz canned diced tomatoes

10 oz potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch dice

1/4 cabbage (anything from green to Savoy), sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

Sour cream to serve

Stock

2 duck carcasses or 6 duck legs

1 onion, roughly chopped

2 celery ribs, roughly chopped

2 carrots, scrubbed and roughly chopped

Handful of parsley stalks

2 bay leaves

A few sprigs of thyme

4 - 6 dried smoked pears or Agen prunes

Pour the beet kvas or vinegar over the beets and set aside.

Next make the stock.  Put all the stock ingredients except the smoked pears or prunes into a large stockpot and cover with 2 1/2 - 3 quarts of water.  Bring to a boil, skimming off any froth as it appears and, if you are using duck legs, season lightly with salt - this way the meat will be properly seasoned.  Add the smoked pears or prunes and simmer for 1 - 1 1/2 hours over low heat - if using duck legs, the meat should be falling off the bones.

When the stock has been simmering for about an hour, use a ladle to skim some of the fat from the stock and put it into a frying pan over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook until soft and taking on some color, then add the carrot and cook until the vegetables start caramelizing - keep skimming and adding fat if the pan seems dry.  Now add the beets together with the liquid they have been pickling in, and cook for 2 minutes, then add the tomatoes and cook over high heat for another 3 minutes.  Take off the heat.

Strain the duck stock into another saucepan, returning the smoked pears or prunes to the stock.  Discard (or compost) the vegetables - and the duck carcasses, if that's what you used.  If you used duck legs, take the meat off the bones and put it in with the stock as well.

Now add the contents of the frying pan to the stock and bring to a boil.  Add the potatoes and simmer for 5 minutes.  Stir in the crushed garlic at the very end, when you are ready to switch off the heat.  

Ladle into soup bowls and serve with a spoonful of sour cream.

My Notes

I used 6 duck legs.  I keep homemade pickled beets in my kitchen often, so I used those instead of pickling fresh beets.  I had to guess what quantity two small beets would be.

I also chose to use 8 ounces of fresh tomatoes instead of the canned.  I used 1/4 of a purple cabbage I had handy, and put in 6 dried pears.

My interpretation of "lightly salting" the duck legs was to use 1/4 teaspoon sprinkled over the meat before the water was added.

It is just so wonderful to make my own stock, starting with all those fresh ingredients and cooking them into a rich, complex liquid. 

Pre-water

At the beginning of the cooking process

At the end of the cooking process

Taking stock

It took a total of 2 hours of slow cooking to get the meat to fall off the bones.  I took the instructions to cook over low heat seriously, which was probably too low!  I bumped up the heat to medium low and that is what got me over the line by two hours.  The difference was simmering versus barely simmering.

After the one hour of simmering mark passed, I skimmed fat from the pan and started cooking the soup vegetables.

Caramelizing onions and carrots.

Now with beets

Next up, the tomatoes

All cooked and ready for the soup pot!

Once the stock was ready to be strained, the duck legs sat draining over a bowl for a little while so they could cool to a comfortable-to-handle temperature.  Then I deboned them and was pleased with the amount of meat they produced.

I estimate 1 1/2 to 2 cups of meat.

The borsch was assembled with the stock, meat, pears, and vegetables from the frying pan.  Then I added the potatoes and cabbage as directed.

Everything went on hold until the entire meal was ready to be served, so the garlic waited until just before serving.  

The Verdict

I served the borsch with homemade French bread and pinot noir.  Sour cream was available to those who wanted it, which was everyone.  Dessert was a peach and sour cherry cobbler with French vanilla ice cream on top.

The pear is the brown item to the right of the sour cream.

I had an extra guest taster, NK, as well as my usual guest taster.

First, I have to say that I probably underestimated the quantity of beets.  I think I should have doubled the amount I put in.  The beet slivers had lost all their color, as expected, but the broth was not as red as the picture in the cookbook had it.  

Next, everyone added salt to their bowls, including me.  This tells me that I probably should have used 1 teaspoon of salt when making the stock.  But it really wasn't a problem -- I typically like to undersalt my dishes so everyone can make it salty to their own taste.  (I like less salt than my usual guest taster.)

I made sure everyone got at least one dried pear in their bowl.  We were all very interested in knowing what it would be like.

The flavor of the borsch was excellent.  There was plenty of duck meat and it was cooked just right -- I know how easy it is to overcook meat once it was at the "falling off the bones" state, so I was happy that I didn't cross that line.  The meat was tender and flavorful.  

The vegetables added so much interest to the dish.  Some were tender and others were tender-crisp, making for a variety of textures to experience while eating.  NK noted that having so many of the vegetables cut into small pieces was good because it helped to unify the soup, which big pieces do not always allow. 

The amount of garlic was pronounced as "just right."  I love garlic, so I would be tempted to put in much more than was listed in the recipe.  However, we all agreed that it added a nice backdrop flavor without being dominant, and that was best.

As for the pears, they were a lovely addition!  The dried pears before cooking was hard as rocks.  The cooked dried pears were tender and moist.  We all would use a spoon to cut off a small piece to include with a mouthful of soup.  The pears added a little burst of sweet and pear flavor to the meat and vegetable flavors.  I didn't taste the smoked flavor but that was probably because I didn't do as good of a job smoking them as I could have.  Practice makes perfect, so I will consider doing it again.

I enjoyed the pears so much that I was sad there were only six to go around.  The next day I made a chicken soup, so I cooked more pears in it and then added them to the leftover borsch just to have more.  I think I would add more pears initially if I make the borsch again.

This was definitely a success.  What a lovely soup!  

I had some leftovers, so when I heated those up, I added a generous spoonful of pickled beets, including some of the pickling juice.

More beets!

Then I reheated it.  The result was an even better (beeter?) borsch:  the beet flavor was more obvious and the pickling juice added a bright acid tang to the broth.  It was lovely!  I should have put the container of pickled beets on the table the first time, to give everyone a chance to up the beet flavor of their serving.  Now I know!

Ms. Hercules states on page 120 that "For every Ukrainian, borsch triggers deep memories and feelings of kinship.  A delectable meal in itself, a bowl of borsch represents family and sustenance, and connects us to home, wherever we find ourselves."

NK brought these.  Thinking of you, Ukraine.

Sugar Smoking, revisited and revised -- From a Guest Cook!

My friend, CT, told me of his love of grilling, so I had him look at a post I made in 2016: 

Sugar Smoking--A Technique from Hong Kong/Kowloon.

He found it interesting and decided to give it a try.  What follows is his description of his process.  Note that he used a gas grill instead of charcoal.

I decided to do something a little different and use duck breasts and quail.  I mostly followed the recipe, but I did use a little more garlic for the marinade (4 cloves instead of 1 - I like garlic). It wasn’t overpowering at all, at least for me.  

I altered the time for boil since the quail are so small, and had them on reduced heat for about 45 minutes, and the duck breasts for an hour.  That may have been too long, but it seemed to work well. I was concerned the quail would get dried out, but they stayed pretty moist - same with the duck breast.  

The duck had a texture and flavor were similar to pork shoulder (I think that's a good comparison, but not sure since it’s been a long time since I’ve had any kind of pork besides bacon - we don’t eat much pork).  

I think I used way too much brown sugar, so I got more than enough smoke:

The gas grill was a little tricky, but I decided to have the gas on one zone only to keep the heat around 375, about medium high, with the sugar pack right above the burner.  I put the meat right above the sugar to ensure maximum contact with the smoke:

A nice smoke:

A nice mahogany color:

 The Verdict

It went really well with a fennel salad and wild rice (cooked in the duck broth):

Thanks again for the recipe, this one's a keeper.

And thank you, CT, for trying my blog recipe and reporting on the results.  I'm impressed with your adaptation and your success -- I just wish I could have tasted it.  : )   

I'm glad you found a way to make this work with a gas grill.  I need to give that a try.  As much as I love cooking over charcoal, gas is easier to work with for small quantities of food.

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.