Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Experimental Cookery 2015 #17: Crispy Duck

This week's meal comes, once again, from "Chinese Food Made Easy", by Ching He-Huang. It was a meal that I was somewhat looking forward to, but also somewhat apprehensive about - Duck has proved to be one of the meats I just don't seem to be able to get right.

The meal seemed easy enough - the meat needed scored and then marinaded, then fried on one side and then baked for a few minutes while the sauce was made. What could go wrong?

Alas, it turned out the answer was, "plenty". Instead of being nicely browned, the skin turned out to be burned to a cinder by the time it went into the over. The sauce refused to thicken properly. And then when she tried it, LC's immediate reaction was, "are you sure this is cooked?"

Well, it was cooked. But that's about the best that can be said of it. Neither LC nor I really enjoyed the meal, and so once again duck turned out to be a crushing disappointment. A shame, really.

(I think I'm going to have to make sure to try duck next time I get a chance in a restaurant, to see how it comes out. That way, at least I know what I'm aiming for!)

This Week's Mug: I'm currently using a mug marked "Holland". I have in fact been to Holland, on a BB trip many years ago, but this mug was actually purchased in Schiphol airport on my way back from Germany (and yet I don't have a mug from Germany itself - didn't really think that through). Anyway, it's a rather nice mug, but deceptively small, which means my coffee inevitably has too much milk relative to the hot water. Which is certainly interesting.

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