After high school I spent a
glorious gap year nannying in Germany. I gained a new family, a new language
and lot of weight. Those Germans really know how to eat. The patriarch of my
German family happened to be a dedicated foodie and an excellent cook. He taught
me a bunch of recipes and techniques as well as introducing me to some fabulous
food but my absolute favourite was his Christmas duck. We ate it most of the
year around, though not through the stiflingly hot summer, when having the oven
on for four hours would have been miserable.
I scored some duck a little while
back and froze in manageable parcels. I did not label these parcels, so each
defrosting has meant discovering exactly what bits of duck I have to work with.
This recipe should be for duck breasts but in this defrosting I discovered I
had the body.
I tweaked this recipe only a tiny
bit to work with my pantry. The Germans ate this duck with a particular kind of
pasta which was shaped to pick up every drop of sauce. I have spirals. C’est la
vie.
Martin’s German Duck
Duck body
250ml Pinot Noir (I used pinot
gris, so added 2 Tbsp pinot noir jelly)
500ml vegetable stock
Peppercorns
Onion- quartered
Crushed garlic cloves- I used 6
small ones
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp nut oil
Cream
Put all the ingredients, except
stock , in a large oven pan. Put the breasts with skin side up in the oven
dish. Pour the stock over the top until the breasts are half covered.
Bake 4 hours at 80 degrees on
fan, basting the duck with the liquid every 20 minutes.
Pour the liquid through a sieve
into a pot and thicken it with flour paste (100g flour to 200ml of water
approx).
Whisk the sauce and add cream,
and salt and pepper if desired.
(To make a healthier sauce, make
the dish a day in advance then put liquid into the fridge. When cool you can
skim off the fat).
Grill the duck with skin side up
in 200 degree oven until crispy.
Enjoy with pasta and a Lake
Chalice Pinot Noir. When finished, I realised just how beige this dish
is, so added some spinach and capsicum. Healthy.
Piep
piep piep, wir habe uns alle lieb, guten Appetit!
