Excellent Adventures on Manitoulin ...continued

[rotuts]

how long did you preheat for that Duck?

what would be your revised cooking schedule for it?

should i plunge into the CharB it would be for Duck like That!

[Anna N]

how long did you preheat for that Duck?

what would be your revised cooking schedule for it?

should i plunge into the CharB it would be for Duck like That!

Did not pre-heat for the duck or anything else for that matter.

I did not keep a very good record but I believe I went 2.5 hours with lid on for last 1/2 hour. Next I would try 2 hours with the lid on for the last 1/2 hour. I am still unsure how much the outside air temp is a factor to be considered. One amazing advantage of the BE is that the fat does not burn.

[rotuts]

very interesting about the fat. get more and more interesting.

[Anna N]

Finally, when I persuaded my sluggish body to move, I opted to make Nigel Slater's banana bread with turbinado sugar and chocolate. It's about at the halfway point in the oven.

For lunch I pulled meat from the leftover duck, tossed it in with the curry sauce I made upthread and had a fast and tasty meal.

[Kerry Beal]

For rotut's amusement - we have Wray and Nephew Overproof on 75 grams of JD chips with about 1/4 of a spent vanilla bean and 1 allspice berry. It's had about 1 1/2 minutes in the nuke which brought it up to about 60º C. I put the lid on immediately and it's cooling on the counter. I will do this one or two more times - tasting at that point to see what's what.

For dinner tonight - lovely leftovers. Soubise and chicken curry. Should have wiped the plate before service!

And a negroni that I was so anxious to get to that I forgot a picture.

[rotuts]

Excellent. really Excellent.

once you get your JD Slosh Just Right consider sending me a Dram as an Attachment !

to Gmail !!!

What ?? Al has not invented this Yet?

[Anna N]

Before it goes off to feed the staff in emerg, the finished banana bread:

Edited to fix typo.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Anna N (log)

[Anna N]

Kerry brought home a delightful med student to share our lunch with today. She had given me fair warning so I was able to pull together the makings of a salad:

Romaine lettuce, hard-cooked eggs, tiny grape tomatoes, olives, scallions, antipasti, and a dressing inspired by Dave Hatfield's current blog. We each took a big bowl and built our own salad. Seemed to go over well.

[Dave Hatfield]

I'm glad I inspired somebody. Looks a great salad.

[Kerry Beal]

After the 3rd heating and sealing - it's taken on a lot of nice colour.

Strained off it's wood chips.

After dilution down to about 45% it was a very tasty tipple.

Also tasted the carpano antica imitation today - it still hasn't cleared completely but it's getting there (though I suspect the ride back in the car is going to bugger that a bit). Tasted it next to the real thing.

It's sweeter than real carpano - so the suggestions made upstream about using a dry muscat are duly noted. It will still benefit from a drop of two of the sherry to bring the flavour closer to carpano - that being said it's really nice and should make an excellent - albeit sweet - sweet vermouth.

[rotuts]

""" it was a very tasty tipple """

i dont know much about distilled spirits. what would you think was closest to your tipple available commercially? Order of magnitude.

[Anna N]

So Kerry popped into the local grocery store a few days ago. As always she checked the meat counter. Not only did she find duck breasts, a rarity in this area, but look at the price! I buy this same brand of duck breast down south and I usually pay about nine dollars each. She grabbed all she could find. Some went into the freezer and will go home with us on Sunday. These two we threw into the fridge for a fast and CHEAP meal.

And here they are scored and salted.

Since Kerry is on call tonight and cannot enjoy a cocktail, I cooked up a few shrimp for her to enjoy instead

[rotuts]

Wow congratulations on the D.B.'s

Im very much interested in how you cook them. id like to hear a little more on your philosophy of the salting.

you have convinced me to Move to Experiment with Duck this fall and winter.

PS im sure that anything thats labeled in FR. has to taste a little better. Boxed // Fresh // Duck Br.

Edited October 18, 2013 by rotuts (log)

[Kerry Beal]

A Bitter Elder for Anna whilst I head back to the hospital to see what the police have dragged in!

[rotuts]

Bombay Sapphire

this used to be a FAV of mine when it first came out. I kept the bottle in the freezer and had a shot 'neat'

the Martini folks here differ on its "" Yum"" but way back then it was Fine.

FD : 750 cc lasted a very long time.

glad to see there are still some B.S. students out there.

what do they have now? bombay Ultra Gold?

[rotuts]

Too bad you are leaving soon.

i would have enjoyed 'a la Dave H' say a pic of the 'local grocery store' where you found those D.B.'s

thats just me.

[Kerry Beal]

""" it was a very tasty tipple """

i dont know much about distilled spirits. what would you think was closest to your tipple available commercially? Order of magnitude.

Not sure - I'd have to sit down with all my rums and compare.

[Kerry Beal]

Bombay Sapphire

this used to be a FAV of mine when it first came out. I kept the bottle in the freezer and had a shot 'neat'

the Martini folks here differ on its "" Yum"" but way back then it was Fine.

FD : 750 cc lasted a very long time.

glad to see there are still some B.S. students out there.

what do they have now? bombay Ultra Gold?

Let me explain how I ended up with Bombay Sapphire. I asked one of the nurses who had a place across the border to grab me some duty free Beefeater. Got BS twice!

[rotuts]

well you got it. back in the day, say 20 + years ago it was sure something.

now ?????????????

as ive said it does not have a cork. so .............

i bet, triple blind in the drinks you make and enjoy

no one would taste the difference.

so ..... get that High Priced Bottle, then when your are done with its Contents,

Hire Some One to Look After those Empty Bottles

[Anna N]

I cooked the duck slowly in a heavy Dutch oven (would have much preferred a cast iron skillet but sometimes you just have to settle). I let it cook skin side down to crisp and render as much fat as possible, flipped it to the flesh side for a minute or so then into a pre-heated 375F oven on convection for 13 mins. A bit too long!

In the mean time I sauteed some Belgian endive in olive oil while Kerry made a pan sauce from the fond, the duck juice from when we did the whole duck in the BE and some saba.

[Shelby]

Yummmmm!

I'm trying SO hard not to eat carbs--or a lot of carbs anyway. You guys do a great job at that while making great food. I'm envious.

[heidih]

Do you use saba frequently, and if so in what applications? I have a ton of my flavorful grapes in the freezer to make it for holiday gifting and would like to include some recipes.

Here is my little saba making adventure http://forums.egullet.org/topic/134994-flavorful-but-seedy-grapes/#entry1764315

[Kerry Beal]

Heidi - I tend to use saba most for sauce for duck - though I have used it a fair bit in chocolate fillings when I want to get some additional raisiny flavour. Hence it's addition in my rum and raisin filling.

[heidih]

Thanks Kerry - I can use the raisin description as an assist in thinking about uses.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Any reason you didn't do the duck in your new toy? The pictures in this thread make me smile, by the way.