First of all, I have never cooked a duck before. Secondly, I have never even eaten duck before. After today, such is no longer the case. I always avoided duck as the usual comment when someone brings up duck is, "Oh, duck is so fatty," and that always sounded very unappealing. I have to say, there were copious amount of fat being skimmed off and discarded from beginning to end in the recipe. I tried to get out as much as possible, and in the end, while I left the skin on when serving, I decided it wasn't going any further than my plate as it looked fairly fatty...and the duck was delicious without it. Absolutely delicious. Duck is not easy to locate in Indiana outside of holiday seasons, so we were lucky that this fell over Christmas/New Year's so that I could get a duck easily. The veal bones for the veal stock were another matter...you have to do a fair amount of searching to come up with veal bones. I located them early on and put them in the freezer so that I could make the stock on a day when I was home and able to babysit it...then back in the freezer it went. Veal stock is amazing...I thought it would taste a lot like beef stock, but it does not...it is smooth and mellow and sort of buttery tasting...hard to describe, but very very good. The recipe for the duck is easy...requires a lot of basting and removing of fat, etc., in ten-minute increments during the 70-80 minutes cooking time, but not bad as it is just popping it in and out of the oven while you do other things. The "turned" (French method of cutting/paring...actually codified according to size in France, etc., can you even stand it?) turnips were a riot...I have not done turned turnips before and they are really hard to do. I am sure in French cooking school one must spend literally months learning how to properly do this...one afternoon isn't going to do it. That said, I did try...and with any new skill you want to acquire, practice makes perfect...I will work on the practicing and perfecting part because these are actually lovely to look at and fun to cook. I made both turnips and carrots as I wasn't certain if the guys would eat the turnips cooked this way or not. Turns out, they loved them. I went to all this work of making this wonderful sauce, following all the steps, etc., and then promptly forgot to drizzle it over my piece of duck breast for the photo...oops...same with sprinkling the parsley over the veggies...oops...my only defense is that I am not exactly operating at peak performance level over here yet. I drizzled the sauce after the photos, and wow...that sauce is very very good. The whole dish is worth doing again...a big success around here. Michelle made great use of her leftovers, and we are going to follow her recipe for making those little Chinese duck in plum sauce pancake things, click on her site if you would like the recipe also. Sounds like a perfect lunch during the Hawk/Wolverine game Sunday, conveniently scheduled over the noon hours. If you would like to see how the other Whisk Wednesday members fared in this class, click The recipe prepared for this week is from Class 20 Rotir et Poêler – Roasting and Frying Class 20, Part 1: Canard aux Navets (Roast Duck with Glazed Turnips). It can be found in the cookbook Le Cordon Bleu At Home on pages 257-258.
Poulet en Cocotte Grand-Mère (Braised Chicken Casserole with Bacon, Mushrooms, Potatoes, and Onions) on pages 296-297.