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Is there any reason why you don't PC first, then dredge and fry? It reminds me of a lot of Indonesian recipes where they're cooking tough pieces of meat - it's first simmered in a spice paste liquid for a few hours, then drained, then fried...

@rotuts, gift link to @Alex's article https://wapo.st/48v5b3b

Yeah they do need to be cleaned well. The ones I buy are either from the grocery store or the Asian Market--the Asian Market ones are always nicely cleaned. I rinse them all in cold water and comb through them to make sure, though. I'll refer again to my hero Hank Shaw--he has a tutorial on cleaning gizzards here . I always soak mine in buttermilk for a while before frying, too. I believe it helps tenderize them a bit. I dump a bunch of flour in a gallon ziplock and add a copious amount of Lawry's salt and black pepper. Like really dump a lot more than you think. Mix that all together well. I don't dump all the gizzards in at once because it becomes a gummy mess. Just dredge a few at a time. I use a cast iron pan. Fill with enough veg. oil so that it can fry but not a ton. I probably do 1 1/2 to 2 inches? Then heat up the oil and fry turning over once to do both sides. You don't have to worry if they're done enough--just get a nice crisp like fried chicken. Once fried, drain on a paper towel--I put paper towels on a big square pan. After frying they can wait a while until you're ready to pressure cook them if you wish. When ready, I fill the instant pot with a cup of water and place the gizzards on a stand--I'll take a picture tomorrow. I might actually use two IP's just so they aren't so packed full. Pressure cook for 40 mins quick release. These won't be crunchy but they will be tender and delicious. KFC back in the day used to make these and they were wonderful.

I have quite a few tablecloths passed down from my Grammy. I'll have to ask my mom but I'm sure some are from my great grandmother. Quite a few are what I'd call vintage 50's patterns. Some beautiful lace ones like @SLB's. I'll have to dig around and see what I have. I like tablecloths, I just rarely use them because I'm messy lol.

Remind me please about the fried and then pressure cooked chicken gizzards. I have a couple quarts of giblets that friends gave me from their farmer's market chickens. The first batch I cooked (stir fried) had a strange taste and I ended up giving most of them to the dog. Since then I've read that the gizzards have to be cleaned first...which I didn't do. So, please describe your procedure again? (And yes to carby not crabby ... but my autocorrect does plenty of strange things!)

My favorite are teal and pintail--mild flavored and tender. Coming in second are mallards. Mallards are a bit stronger tasting and can sometimes be a bit a bit tougher but sometimes not. I don't notice a difference in fat content except mallards are bigger so they have more of course. I'll roast the mallards together in one oven and the teal and pintail in the other. Teal and pintail take 15-20 mins. Mallards 20-25 mins. My oven on the right doesn't get as hot as the other so I have to watch it lol. I've decided to go with stewed tomatoes and cheesy Brussels sprouts. Maybe I'll do some more bread. I'm trying to be less carby because tomorrow and Saturday I'm doing something with potatoes for sides (spell check keeps changing "carby" to "crabby"--I'm trying to be less crabby too 🤣). Tomorrow I'm going to do the fried and then pressure cooked chicken gizzards--I'll also do the duck and goose gizzards I've saved up in the freezer. Probably a salad and French fries to go with. So, tomorrow will be a looooooooooong day of frying. But, once that's done it's easy from then on. We'll talk more about that later though. Just thinking about it is giving me anxiety lol.

I heard from them today also, and got the payment link, and have ordered!

Can you tell a difference between them once plucked, or do they need different treatment? Different fat content, for instance? What about flavor?

Come December, my daily hot beverages go in one of these: These 3 Glühwein mugs from Munich Christmas markets get used for hot cider in the evening, perhaps with a shot of extra warmth!

I love the combo of aged sherry vinegar, finely diced shallot, a little Dijon mustard and tarragon. When I was a kid, my parents used to take me to a french restaurant that did a ridiculous cherry sauce with duck....

Awesome, thanks.👍

I saw this article on CBC a few days ago, talking about how a lot of people get into homesteading (to whatever degree, and by whoever's definition) without really understanding what they're signing up for. It's definitely true that this kind of lifestyle provides endless "learning opportunities." This morning, for example, I learned that if I wipe a smear of quail droppings from my hand to my clothing, it's best not to do so on the part of my winter coat's sleeve where I will unthinkingly wipe my dribbling nose a few minutes later. Overall, looking at articles and videos about homesteading (and I believe I've mentioned, upthread, that I find this a rather grandiose term for 2 acres with a garden and a few critters), I find that the whole question of feces is remarkably understated, on the whole. I spend a whole lot of time cleaning out rabbit pens, shoveling out the bedding and droppings from their enclosure, shoveling the chicken run, rinsing the muck from our fresh eggs, and scraping the cleanout trays from the quail into my wheelbarrow. Some days it does indeed feel like a lot. Not that I'm complaining, you understand, we had chickens, an occasional pig and even a couple of rabbits when I was a kid. I had no illusions. But it does seem conspicuously under-represented in "influencer" videos, given its prevalence when you have livestock, even small livestock. (I haven't touched on litterboxes and puppy pads, because pets are a whole other thing, but those figure into the equation as well.)

This is the same website that I found the method for just using the scrapings from the bottom of the jar for the next batch of dough.

Wonderful, thanks Ann, I'll give it a shot. I wasn't aware of the site, so thanks for that too!

She says thank you 😊 She's 6. I can't believe she's already 6. We got her in Jan of 2020 right before the pandemic. LOL yeah.....same. She got in the duck pond and it's now a dirty pink. I love balsamic vinegar with duck.

Paul, it wasn't something I was familiar with until 2 years ago. I've made it a couple of times since. I adjust the recipe slightly depending on whether I have a starter ready to use. You can find the link to where I found it here: https://www.culinaryexploration.eu/blog/British-Bloomer-Recipe

Confit duck legs work well in a salad.

I gave Red Dog a pink collar when she was 1-yo because everyone called her "he". Within a week the collar was mud brown. She's just not a pink collar kinda gal. Hope the pink collar works better on Scoutie. One of my favorite things I ever ate was a duck salad at a long-defunct local restaurant. Wish I had paid more attention to how they made it, but I think it was a warm salad with a balsamic vinegar dressing and some mushy but flavorful cheese. 🤷🏼‍♂️

This sounds perfect! Scout is such a good-looking girl, how old is she now? I love her pink collar, very chic. 🙂

Beautiful Ann. Never heard of this bread before - any info on it?

Early morning bake. Crusty English Bloomer Bread. Started the dough yesterday around 5:00 PM using a small "sourdough mini starter" with the addition of 3g of yeast. 900g of flour added to the 132g mini starter at 60%hydration. Dough was blowing the top off of the container at 3:00 AM this morning.

That looks delicious Patti! I also have saved the salad recipe. I don't have the cranberries or I'd make it tonight to go with duck....I do have fresh cranberries but I don't think I'd like that as well......... edited to say I don't think I have enough slaw mix either. But I WILL be making this soon.

@Smithy, as I was typing this, I got an email from Goûter saying shipping to my address would be $55 for one Pannetone, $65 for two and asking if I wanted a payment link.

Our hunter friend requested ducks so I've been hoarding these in the freezer. And I think that was the smart thing to do because this cold weather seems to have sent them further south. A few weeks ago Ronnie and Scout were getting tons of them though. (I got Scoutie a new collar. It's pink much to Ronnie's dismay but she and I love it 😁) So I have 3 teal, 2 mallards and a pintail to roast tonight. I may also do some guts....... Side dishes are always a challenge it seems like. My two steam boys will be in use for the ducks and I really don't want to unload all the pans stored in my normal sized oven so that leaves the stove top as the only option. I might do stewed tomatoes. Maybe I could do scalloped potatoes and then while the ducks are resting I could throw them in the steam boy to brown on the top? The guys got up about 4:30 this morning and are out at the shooting house. It's really cold but the wind has layed down so they might see something.

I've never taken much interest in my medlar tree... The French name for the fruit is cul de chien (dog's arse), hopefully for their appearance rather than flavour... My reticence was mainly down to the 'bletting' process being a bit Ye Olde England, and processing the flesh looked like too much effort. But this year I decided to harvest them and give it a go... I gathered about 6 kg (13 lbs) in total and, after a lot of hard work, ended up with 3 kg of pulp... I can see how this was a welcome treat for our medieval ancestors at the beginning of winter, but I was underwhelmed. I didn't mind eating the odd one out of hand (seed disposal is a little, errrrr, inelegant), especially when they had a bit of tang, but a big bowl of pulp was nothing to write home about. I had some quince poaching syrup leftover from a few weeks back, so sweetened a portion with that, along with some spices (cinnamon, clove)... It was fine. Once the novelty wore off I froze most of it, maybe to be used as a side-blob for a tart or slice of cake in the future. Whilst looking around for things to do with the rest of the pulp, a medlar tart popped up in my feed (with lots more info about medlars if you're curious). I didn't end up making that one, but decided that a tart would definitely make a dent in my medlar mountain. Given that the medlar mush was a bit like pumpkin purée, I went in that direction, ultimately settling on a sweet potato pie by Claire Saffitz (YouTube) as the template, but mostly winging it in terms of sweeteners (a mix of dark brown sugar, cassonade, golden syrup, black treacle). Despite all of that and the spices, the filling was still lacking, so I threw in some Grand Marnier and lemon juice/zest hoping they would give it a lift. I'm not usually this experimental, tending to stick to a recipe, but mediocre medlar calls for desperate measures. I cooked it gently for a relatively soft set, and bruléed a slice to distract from the unrelenting brownness of it all. It was... fine. Think of it as a 'Meh'-dlar Tart. I will not be submitting it for inclusion in the next edition of Larousse Gastronomique. Going back to the tart I skipped over earlier, there was a link to a recipe for ma'amoul cookies that made use of the medlar flesh... Medlar and walnut on the left; date a orange flower on the right. You will be shocked - shocked! - to learn that I didn't think much to the medlar version, but I did like the dates. I've made ma'amoul a couple of times before, quite a while ago, but forgotten that I was a fan.