Tag: new

Instant Pot Duck à l’Orange

A few weeks ago I purchased some duck at the grocery store, since it was actually cheaper than chicken for a change. (That doesn’t happen very often around here.) I hadn’t cooked duck before, and I’d only eaten it a few times before, mostly in a very thick, sweet orange sauce at a Chinese buffet. I had been warned that it was both gamy and greasy, though, so I though it would be a good idea to cook it in some kind of sauce instead of doing a basic oven roast. I settled on the Easy Duck à l’Orange from the Instant Pot Holiday Cookbook.

The whole process was made more difficult right away because I had a whole bird, not just four duck thigh quarters. I’ve only taken a bird apart a few times before, so it was very awkward and slow going, even after looking up tutorials online. I think it’s just something for which practice makes perfect. But one way or another the duck had to be broken down into smaller pieces, since otherwise it wouldn’t fit in the Instant Pot.

As for the final result, I was quite satisfied with the recipe, which cooked the duck thoroughly and with a lovely sauce. However, I think that when it comes to personal preference, I’m just not a duck gal. It was just too greasy for me. I think I might like it better on a rotisserie or in a dish that calls for no skin, though, since that would make the final dish less fatty.

As a bonus, I roasted the bones in the oven and made bone broth in the slow cooker, which I cooled and skimmed the fat off of before I froze it. I look forward to some duck broth soup in the future.

Golden Berries

A while back, just in time for my annual Halloween party, I was shopping for fruits and veggies from Costco to include on some platters. On a whim, I picked up a box of golden berries, which I honestly thought I’d never seen before. After a little bit of research at home, I discovered that they’re also called “ground cherries” or “husk cherries”, which I’d actually seen at the farmers’ market, and I’d seen the plants at the garden center. Despite the names, they’re not cherries at all; they’re part of the nightshade family, and are more closely related to tomatoes. The berries grow inside of paper husks that strongly resemble Chinese lantern plants. Apparently they’re pretty common to grow (varieties are native throughout the US and Mexico), but aren’t sold commercially here very often, which is why I wasn’t familiar with them.

I discovered that golden berries are a strongly sweet/tart flavour that is really hard to describe, except to say that they are delicious! They have a texture similar to a very meaty tomato, something like a less-juicy Roma. I served them as-is, but later I went back to the store for more and included them sliced in half in salads, and blended into smoothies. When garden planning season rolls around next year, I think I will try to add a few golden berry plants to see how they like my soil. I’ve had good luck with tomatoes and satisfactory harvests of potatoes, but my peppers haven’t fared nearly as well, so who knows how this new nightshade-family plant will fare. I’ve read that they can even be perennials, but sadly that’s for Zone 8 and above; it gets much too cold here in the winter.

What I’d really like to do is make golden berry jam next fall, since I found the fruit’s flavour to be a refreshing change to the usual fare around here. I mean, I could do it with store-bought fruit this year, but at $5.99 for 340g (which might maybe make a single jar), making a batch is a tad out of my budget.

Jerusalem Artichokes

Last night I cooked up the Jerusalem artichoke tubers from my garden to go with dinner. Sadly, my two plants, which ended up topping my fence by quite a bit (and yet for some reason didn’t flower), only produced enough root veggies for me to make a single dinner’s worth. I Googled and found Jamie Oliver’s Jerusalem Artichokes with Garlic in an article titled Top 5 Jerusalem Artichoke Recipes. It looked simple enough that it would let their natural flavour shine through, so I thought I’d give it a go.

I’m happy to say that it was a success! I served the Jerusalem artichokes with barbecued chicken and steamed spinach. The family loved them, and Thing 2 even asked for a second helping of vegetables — how often does that happen?

Personally, I was rather surprised by the intensity of their flavour, since they look and smell quite a bit like a rather bland potato. I found them to be sweet and tangy, and utterly delicious. I think I’d like to make them again, but they’re not something that can be found in grocery stores around here. I will have to grow a whole bunch of them next year, I guess!

I was a little worried that the Jerusalem artichokes might aggravate my digestive tract, since the Internet is filled with dire warnings of how windy they can make you. I honestly don’t think they affected anyone in the family any worse than the average person eating something like beans or cabbage — definitely not enough of a reaction to be a deterrent for an occasional dish. Mind you, I did cook them thoroughly, which apparently can help break down the inulin (which is a starch that is broken down by bacteria in the colon, causing gas). Apparently regular artichokes have about twice as much inulin as Jerusalem artichokes, so if you’ve never had problems with artichokes before, you probably won’t with these either. Inulin can also be found in chicory, leeks, asparagus, sugar beets, onions, and garlic, among others. So if you’ve never had a problem with any of these foods, you probably won’t with Jerusalem artichokes either.

All that being said, if you’re allergic to sunflowers and/or sunflower seeds (which I know some of my friends are), treat Jerusalem artichokes with caution, as they are part of the same family. If you are anaphylactically reactive, I would highly recommend having a professional test before eating Jerusalem artichokes, or simply avoiding them altogether.

Handmade Noodles With Beet Pesto

I cooked up all of my beets and served them cold, chopped up with a bit of Dijon mustard and mayonnaise. But there was all kinds of beet juice left behind, so I thought I’d freeze it for use later. If it’ll stain anything, it should make a good colouring, right?

So I bought some 00 flour for my next pasta attempt, and I added my four eggs, and then a couple of cubes worth of beet juice. The problem was, that added more liquid, which meant I then had to add a bunch more flour in order to make the noodles the proper consistency. In the end, the colour didn’t change all that much. I was hoping for a vibrant beet red, but what I got was a kind of light peachy orange. I think that either I need to omit the eggs and use just beet juice (which will probably affect the flavour of the pasta), or boil the beet juice down an awful lot so that it’s very concentrated and doesn’t add much liquid with the colour.

To keep the pasta from sticking to itself, I made an improvised drying rack by putting wooden spoons or long cooking chopsticks under dishes in the cupboards with the long end sticking out. As silly as it looks, it worked! The noodles didn’t stick to each other at all. I think, though, if I’m going to do this a lot in the future, I’ll have to invest in a proper drying rack.

The pasta ended up being a fantastic shade of pinky red, though, because I used the jar of beet pesto. I also ran the pasta through the absolute thinnest setting this time and the consistency was just right! I’ve already learned so much after just two times working with pasta. I’m really looking forward to learning more!

Taro Jelly

I think I’m still compensating for the lack of food in the house the other day, because I’ve felt the need to whip up more sweets. I don’t generally make desserts unless it’s a special occasion. I think it was that strong craving for Two Bite Brownies that undid me. At any rate, I found some Taro Flavour Jelly Powder in the back of my pantry that I’d forgotten about, so I figured it was time to give it a try.

I’d picked this mix up at T&T some time ago with the intention of making it up for my girls. (Generally, I’m not a big fan of moulded jellies.) I do love taro root, though, especially in Japanese sweets, so I thought I should give it a try too.

I used my vintage Tupperware Jel-Ette Moulds, which make single servings. I wasn’t sure how much the package would yield, since the instructions in English weren’t very detailed. It turns out that you can get five 1/2 cup servings out of one package.

I was a little afraid that it wouldn’t set up right, but I followed the instructions to the letter, and it turned out perfectly! I love the colour and the smell. The flavour was okay, but I think that the texture might have been throwing me off since I’m just not a huge jelly fan. Thing 2 didn’t finish her dinner and hence didn’t get to try, but Thing 1 was excited that she got to taste. She said that it was so different from anything she’s used to that she’s not sure if she likes it or not, but she’s willing to try it again at a later date to figure it out. That’s a very well-considered opinion, if you ask me.