Time to start on those ingredients I love intensely, but haven’t yet been courageous enough to try cooking at home. First up, duck. I’m feeling vindicated in my choice, since the joint winners of Masterchef Professional both chose it as part of their final menu. That’s OK by me too.
I don’t quite know where the enjoyment of duck came from. Potentially from duck with pancakes at a Chinese restaurant. We didn’t go out for meals a lot as a child, so when we did, you had something to remember. Doing those banquet choices meant everyone got to try lots of different things – and that there would be duck.
I love the theatre of it – all the preparing of the slivers of meat, as well as the choosing how to put the combination of duck, salad veg and sauce together. There would inevitably be a few where you put too much into the pancake, and it spurted out as you bit into it, but I don’t remember worrying about it too much.
Duck is rich. There’s no getting away from it. That’s why it’s celebrational, I guess. Why it’s great in small quantities as a starter. Wading through a lot of it would be hard work – and that would be a shame.
I have a friend who would always choose something ‘known’ when having a meal out, to avoid disappointment. I’m probably the other way round – I want to try things I don’t know so well. Particularly if I can have something I’ve never tasted before.
I did once choose duck in a pasta dish for a meal out, and didn’t enjoy it. Not sure why. But thankfully it didn’t stop me trying again another time.
Duck with plainish carbs seems to work well. Duck in wraps has been good. Occasional treats like duck sausage alongside a plainer roast. And enough chefs and food writers have advised on duck fat for roast potatoes to make them really crispy. I have spotted it in supermarkets, though again not tried for some reason.
What is is with my ‘restaurant category’ ingredients? Some of it is to do with my perceptions on how easy they are to prepare. Or perhaps how much they cost to buy as raw ingredients. So if it’s an occasional meal out, where someone else has done the prep and the costing for you: why not?
Duck and orange is a classic. And again, thanks to the likes of TV cooking competitions, so are confit duck legs. Dan did choose cassoulet when we were in France a few years back – we were in a region where it’s a speciality, and the confit duck legs aspect of the dish was good.
I’ve read a few versions of how to do your own duck and pancakes at home, and maybe I will try it some day. Maybe I will equally buy duck breast and try something with that. I love fruit flavours in savoury cooking, and luckily duck lends itself well to that.
In the meantime, it remains a treat. An indulgence. And that’s probably quite a good situation really. It keeps it special. It keeps it memorable. And it sure as anything keeps it on my ingredients list.