A tale of two ducks (preamble)

Never was a man so betrayed. "Set aside the necks, hearts and gizzards," says the recipe, "but discard the livers."

Recipe, I discard you. I shall find my own way into ducks curried with oranges. And munch on my favourite chef's perk the while. "Discard", forsooth...!

A tale of two ducks: amble

These ducks are largely my task for the day. They arrived last night on our doorstep, and have sat quietly together overnight. This morning I have shopped on their behalf, for onions and pasilla & New Mexican chillies; then I committed butchery of a new sort to me, removing legs and wings and half the backs but leaving the breasts on the ribcage. Now I'm browning all the bits in succession, in my lovely 6qt cast-iron pot; soon I will be browning onions in the gorgeous gorgeous duck fat, before we move on to braising-in-spices. It's complicated, but when you find yourself gifted two ducks, a day's labour is the least response.

In other news, I wish purveyors of oven-ready ducks would stop sticking useless pop-up thermometers into the breast thereof. My first act is to remove and discard, and I'd rather just not have to do it. If they feel obliged to supply the things, couldn't they just include 'em in the cavity with the (also eminently discardable) orange-sauce packet?

(Also, necks and livers alone do not constitute "giblets". Where are my gizzards, where my hearts? Can I sue, can I...?)

A tale of two ducks: ambling forth

I do love how a heap of chopped onions will instantly deglaze a pan, even after forty minutes of hot hard frying. (I struggle sometimes to remember that onions and carrots and so forth are juicy vegetables; in the same way that I struggle to understand how olives and avocados and the like will yield up oil rather than juice. I have no notion how vegetables make oil.)

Anyway: I have sizzled the onions in the duck fat until they were very dark indeed, then added spices in number and heaps of garlic and ginger, and bathed all in orange juice and stock. (Orange trees are like coin purses, I find: there's always more in there than you think. I was seriously anxious that I might have to go to the store and buy orange juice, but no. The last of last season's ripe crop on the tree yielded plenty - and I say "the last" with an element of doubt in my mind, that rummaging might well find a fruit or two more.)

Now the duck bits are back in the liquor, and it's all seething gently in a slow oven and will stay that way for a while. Time to think about lunch, I guess...

A tale of two ducks: amble? what amble?

Note to self: remembering to set the timer is all very well; hearing the timer go off is all very well*; turning it off is a fine thing in and of itself.

It would however also help if you remembered also to turn off the gas beneath the pot, with all that that implies.

*gazes at overboiled rice, more in sorrow than in anger*

*shrugs*

*decides it'll have to do*

I have cooked the legs of the duck to rags, with all the bits beside; I have degreased and strained the sauce, and decided it to be delicious; I still need to reduce it to the consistency of pouring cream, shred the leg-meat and roast the breasts. Right now, though, I need to decide on vegetables, and act on those decisions. We have more guests than I expected, and I am coming nicely to the panic.


*actually inescapable: it is a very loud rooster-crow, right here on my belt