Thursday, December 17, 2009

Roast duckling

I may have put this recipe on the BLOG earlier, but since 'tis the season for different meats (non-chicken, pork, or ground beef) I am posting it again.

Our favorite duck is l'orange -- that's with an orange crust. And I'll address that as an add-on.

I have to state at the beginning any left over duck, put into a large pot and covered with water and boiled until the meat falls off the bones, makes the BEST, BEST, BEST soup in the world.

Back to roast duck.

Items needed:

1 duck (thawed). You will probably get it from the butcher frozen. Allow two days in the fridge to thaw completely.
salt - sea salt preferred
pepper - coarse ground preferred
garlic powder or garlic salt

Liberally coat the duckling with salt, pepper, and garlic powder/salt. Put on rack in a pan in the oven preheated to 350 degrees. Cook for two hours. Duck tends to be very greasy. I slit the skin before I put it in the oven, and cook it breast down, that way the fat drips into the pan and doesn't soak into the duck.

Remove from oven and let rest for 15 minutes before cutting up. The pan drippings are mostly fat, but you can skim off the fat and find a nice juice if you wish to make an unthickened gravy.

For duck l'orange, after one hour I liberally spread all sides of the duck with orange marmalade. This also flavors any pan drippings. It's very good. I've also used cranberry sauce (the canned kind) and I've used a cranberry wine reduction to pour over the duck after it's sliced.

Serve with au gratin potatoes and peas with pearl onions. Yummmmmm.

ttfn

Standing Rib Roast

It's the season (for me) for a good rib roast (beef). I received this wonderful recipe from a friend and it is delicious, always perfect, and oh, yes, so very easy.

My tremendous shopper went to Kroger's for me today and got me a four-rib roast which I plan to cook on the night after Christmas especially for my grandson, Dan, who loves steak and roast beef.

What you need:

Standing rib roast (you choose how many ribs -- I usually get four to six)
Salt
Pepper
Garlic salt

Preheat your over to 450 degrees. Yes, 450 degrees.

Liberally salt, pepper and garlicize your roast. Trim off excess fat. Do not braze.

Put the roast on a rack in a pan and put the pan in the oven. After 15 minutes turn the oven down to 350 degrees. Turn the oven off after 1 hour. Leave the roast in the oven for another 15 minutes (with it turned off).

This will give you a rare rib roast and quite a bit of pan drippings to make au jus.

If you prefer a more well done roast, add 15 minutes at 350 degrees for each degree of doneness you want (med rare 1-15; med 1-30; med well 1-45; well done forget it, it's overcooked and spoiled).

Frankly a rare (not mooing, but rare) roast is the best because there are always parts that can be used for those who don't like rare meat, but in my family most of us enjoy the meat rare. And rare rib roast au jus is the best for Christmas!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

I've hit a rut

I haven't been able to come up with anything new for weeks. Poor Alan (my husband). Tonight we had peanut pork and mac and cheese with a salad. The peanut pork didn't turn out as I had hoped, the mac and cheese wasn't as good as my mother's, and the salad was just a honeymoon salad (lettuce alone -- get it?).

I recently went on a cruise and enjoyed a lot of dishes that I wanted to duplicate. Fortunately, I was able to pick up the ship's cookbook which had a lot of the recipes I enjoyed reproduced therein. After Christmas I shall try something out of that book.

I also received an e-mail from Borden's Sweetened Condensed Milk and they have some wonderful seasonal recipes on their website http://www.eaglebrand.com.

After I've tried a couple of these, I'll let you know how they turned out. Especially of interest to me is their fruit cake and their fruit cake cookies. I used to make those cookies every Christmas, but when we moved, I lost my recipe book. The recipe on the Eagle Brands' website is a little different from my old recipe. I know, because I never used sweetened condensed milk in my recipe.

Just wanted to write something so you all knew I was still alive and cooking.

ttfn