Of course it quacks

Adventures with duck, this next week will be.
Been planning on this, since back from Paree!
Should be lots of fun, of this I forsee.
So sit back enjoy, and follow with me.


Duck deconstructed. Sometimes I wonder why I keep tackling the culinarily convoluted. Curiosity I guess. It all started with an urge to recreate the duck confit I had in Paris. That fleeting thought has snowballed into a test on how far I can stretch two ducks, using every last eensy part- including the quack quack. Shades of Iron Chef perhaps, coupled with a bit of my obsessive compulsiveness. I probably should be spending my time looking for a real job, but playing in the kitchen is more fun. Besides, I still deserve a little more time for denial.


Roasting the carcass and trimmings to render out the duck fat needed for confit. Cracklin' cracklin' sounds. Melodic. Confit recipe calls for four cups of duck fat, roasting yielded only a cup and a half. Phooey! These must have been some emaciated ducks. The poor skinny ducks. I guess that's the thing with the Chinese grocery store- cheap, but there's always something questionable with the product. Drippings on the roasting pan get deglazed with wine, for a yet to be determined purpose. Remember- every little quack quack will be used. Cracklin' cracklin sounds interrupted by loud thundering roars and car alarms. I forgot the Rose Bowl game is going on. Stupid jet bombers overhead. All one asks is to render duck fat in peace.


I find nothing rhymes, with duck a l'orange
Therefore that is why, I made up- "morange"

With butchering and fat rendering... Along with an inadequately lit raid of a thorny orange tree... Ouch! AND ensuing zesting and juicing... Aie-ya! 10pm already. So hungry. By the time I made it to the orange sectioning step, I harumphed- let out a disappointed sigh- and opened up a can of mandarin oranges instead. We'll make do with canned citrus sections. We already have fresh squeezed juice, and zest from plucked just in time oranges. Plenty enough effort, I'm starving. The sauce will be a beautiful glistening ruby red color because I harvested from the blood orange tree. They call them blood oranges because if you're picking them in the dark, the thorns poke you and draw blood. Tonight, we have duck a l'orange. Accompanied by an entire neighborhoodful of barking dogs and ambulance sirens due to the commotion at the Rose Bowl. Iron Chef was on the television when I finally sat down to eat. Tonight's Iron Chef secret ingredient coincidentally... duck.