Just Add Duck Fat

Smoked trout and quinoa salad

I was in two minds about blogging this recipe. I mean, for starters, is a salad even a recipe? Even allowing for the blanching of the asparagus and boiling of the quinoa, you’re not actually cooking anything. Salad is more of an act of assembly than anything else. 

I seem to be slipping further and further from the original goals of Justaddduckfat, even if these goals were only iterated in my head. These objectives were (from memory):

1. Never add olive oil if butter would be better, and indeed, to never add butter if rendered duck fat would be better. 
2. When in doubt, it needs more seasoning.
3. Eat every part of the animal. Especially the icky bits.
4. Pork is a vegetable.
5. Cream kicks milk’s sorry ass.

Where quinoa fits into this, I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem to fit in with any of my major tenets (although I did season the crap out of this salad).It just makes me feel good to eat quinoa. My bowels feel saintly. If there is an afterlife for viscera, my bowels are going to heaven.

I also have doubts about the food photography with salads. They usually just look like a big mess. Maybe I shouldn’t have bought the black quinoa, as they make the salad look like it has some kind of pest infestation. I just couldn’t help it. Black quinoa are badass.

Anyway.

I posted this because it was the tastiest damn salad I’ve ever made. Bar none. Seriously good salad. Now, as Homer Simpson reminds us, you don’t make friends with salad. But at least you won’t make enemies with this one.

Ingredients

• 1 smoked trout fillet
• 1 bunch of asparagus
• half a red onion, sliced
• 1 handful of cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
• 1 jar of marinated artichokes
• rocket leaves
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• black quinoa
• stock cube
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Make a salad. Come on - it’s not that hard

1. Alright. I’ll give you a few pointers.
2. Soak the quinoa 30 minutes. This germinates it a bit. Or something. Makes it more vitaminy.
3. Drain. Add more water, and a stock cube, and bring to the boil. Cook 15 minutes, then drain.
4. Add immediately while hot to the rocket leaves in a salad bowl and toss through, to wilt them a bit.
5. Blanch the asparagus and add.
6. Add tomato, artichoke and onion. 
7. Flake the fish into……..flakes.
8. Add salt and pepper. Be generous. They are cheap.
9. Add olive oil and balsamic.
10. Toss. The salad.
11. Enjoy saintly viscera.

Enjoy with a pinot gris.

Pan-fried John Dory, cauliflower and roast garlic puree

The tales woven around the etymology of this tasty but ugly fish are as numerous as Kim Jong Un’s chins. Some say that ‘dory’ comes from the French d’oree, meaning golden. Or that ‘John’ comes from the French for yellow jaune. Others attest the name to a medieval children’s song about a ship’s captain called John Dory. The black spot on its sides are said to be St Peter’s thumbprint, which may explain why in French the fish is called a St Pierre. Which to me leaves as many unanswered questions as to what business the Catholic saints have with interfering with fish. But, I stay well away from matters of orthodoxy and theology. (Was Peter a fishermen, or did he, as many whisper, import seafood extender sticks from China? I’m shaky on the New Testament.)

This was probably the fist fish I learned to love. In a platonic sense, I hasten to add. It is white and flaky with a very neutral, almost sweet taste, without any heavy overt fishiness. It is a good introduction to fussy children and adults who claim to not to like fish. It is best pan-fried or grilled.

This puree has been a long-standing faithful accompaniment to seared scallops, but I added the roast garlic this time, which really lifted it. Could go with any white fish, as well as scallops or shellfish. 

Ingredients

• half a head of garlic
• half a head of cauliflower, chopped
• 200mL full-fat milk
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper
• fish fillets, lightly dusted in flour
• vegetable oil for frying ( I tend to recommend grapeseed or ricebran for their high smoking points)
• asparagus
• frozen peas

Blackened Cajun chicken, mango salsa, chilli lime roast corn

I charred this chicken on purpose, just for all you naysayers and haters who might claim that I just burnt it and then retrospectively claimed it as ‘blackened’. Blackening is a staple of Cajun cuisine, and is quite the art. Too much blackening is what would quite correctly be described as ‘badly burnt’ or even ‘inedible’. But the right amount provides a tasty and crisp crust to the meat. The trick is to either cook it almost all the way through first, then char, or vice versa.

This dish felt oddly Caribbean to me, which is strange as it is winter here in Sydney, and damn cold. (Or as cold as Sydney gets in winter: a Swedish visitor last week described the weather as ‘mild’.) I felt inspired to play Calypso music, drink rum, and run an unsuccessful economy, disproportionately dependent on the tourist dollar.

The lime salt trick was taught to me the other week by my friend, Jared, to whom I am indebted. The chilli, though, raises it to the next level.

Ingredients

• chicken breasts, skinless
• Duckfat’s Cajun spice rub (see below)
• 1 mango, skinned and diced
• 1 avocado, skinned and diced
• coriander, coarsely chopped
• half a red onion, diced
• juice of 1 lime
• zest of one lime
• dash of paprika
• dash of cayenne pepper
• corn on the cob, husk left on
• sea salt
• butter

Duckfat’s Cajun spice rub (of questionable authenticity)

• 1 tsp smoked sea salt
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Instructions

1. Grind sea salt and lime zest in mortar and pestle until dry. Add a dash of cayenne pepper, and mix well.
2. Pre-heat oven to 180C.
3. Cook corn for 30 minutes in husks.
4. Toss the avocado, mango, onion and coriander together. Dress with lime juice. Add a dash of paprika and cayenne.
5. Melt a small amount of butter in a small pan. Paint the chicken breasts, then dredge in the spice rub. Cook each side for 1 min in a very very hot oiled pan until just blackened.
6. Finish for 5-6 minutes in the oven.
7. Slice and serve on a bed of salsa. 
8. Remove corns from husk, lightly butter and sprinkle with chilli lime salt.

Jasper Hill Georgia’s Paddock nebbiolo 2001

It is a well-known phenomenon to both psychologists and the manufacturers of poker machines, that humans respond well to intermittent reward. And maybe that is one of the reasons why so many people are bitten by the wine bug. For every sublime bottle, there is a stinky ruined faulty one. Each bottle opened represents a gamble.

For me, I had been looking for a good local example of nebbiolo ever since falling in love with the varietal in Italy. Nebbiolo is one of the great red wine grapes, making big, textured, long-lived wines, like the wines of Barolo. Jasper Hill is quite a prestigious winemaker in Victoria, famous for their bold shiraz. So my expectations were high. Unfortunately, this bottle was corked.

A brief explanation of cork taint may be necessary, for so many people get this wrong. A ‘corked’ wine has not been ruined by coming into contact with its own cork. Nor will a wine get ‘corked’ if you leave it too long before drinking it (although it may well oxidise.) Cork taint is due to contact with a nasty aromatic called 2,4,6-trichloroanisole or TCA. It is produced by ubiquitous tiny fungi. It characteristically smells like wet cardboard or musty cellar, but often acts just to deaden the nose of the wine, muting its real flavour. The TCA frequently gets in from contaminated cork, but can enter the wine during any stage of the winemaking and bottling. Anything from 0.7-7% of wines are estimated to be affected, and this has been one of the main factors pushing some winemakers towards alternative closures.

So the nose on this had hints of dark fruit, cocoa and coffee, but a dirty damp muddiness cut through. The palate was muted, but with strong tannins. A shame - I have a feeling this might have been a beauty. Them’s the breaks.

Quinoa crusted barramundi, spiced cauliflower puree

I was a latecomer to quinoa. I am naturally sceptical of anything labelled a superfood. Hell…it’s not like I call my bottle of 12 year Ardbeg a superScotch. But, I have to admit the little blighters are growing on me. They have a pleasant nuttiness, and a nice chewy texture akin to spelt. And as someone who is trying to throw off the shackles of carbohydrates, they make a pretty damn good grain. Low GI, high protein, high iron, blah blah blah. (But hey - this is Just Add Duck Fat, not Just Add Wheatgrass Shots. I’m only in it for the flavour.) Just be aware that after eating them you may feel unnaturally inclined to enrol in a Pilates class.

Barramundi is an iconic Australian eating fish, from an Aboriginal dialect word meaning ‘scaly river fish’. It is a prized sports fish that can reach up to 25kg in size. It is quite a meaty pink fish, with a slight muddiness to its flavour. The closest northern equivalent is probably perch, although the formal name of the species is ‘Asian sea bass’, so sea bass is also probably a good substitute.

The quinoa here forms a nice crust to add to the texture, and is then matched by a strongly spiced puree.

Ingredients

• barramundi fillets
• 1/2 cup black quinoa, soaked in water for 1 hour then drained
• 1 stock cube
• half head cauliflower, chopped into florets
• 1 cardamon pod, bruised
• 1 clove garlic, roughly crushed
• 2 cups milk
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds, crushed
• 1 egg white
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C
2. Add the garlic and cardamon to the milk and bring to a gentle simmer for 5 min. Discard the garlic and cardamon.
3. Add the cauliflower and remaining spices. Simmer with lid on.
4. Add the quinoa to 1 cup of water, and add the stock cube. Bring to the boil, then turn to medium. Cook for 10 min, then drain well.
5. Turn the fish skin side down onto baking paper in a baking tray. Paint with egg white. Season. Add spoonfuls of quinoa, and use a spatula to spread flat across the surface.
6. Bake for 20 minutes, until fish is fork flaking soft.
7. Once soft, puree cauliflower until smooth. Taste, and adjust seasoning. Serve fish on bed of puree.

Enjoy with a verdelho.

Shaw & Smith M3 Vineyard chardonnay 2009

I guess that I would like to subtitle this: In Defence of Chardonnay. Few grapes have taken as much of a beating amongst the wine drinking public as chardonnay. In many ways this a reaction to the many cheap, slutty, over-oaked, flabby vinous miscarriages that flooded the wine markets in the 1980s. And as a result, there are many wine drinkers that have turned their backs on this varietal as a whole.

I think this is a tremendous shame, since chardonnay is probably second only to riesling as the greatest white grape in the world. It is, in reality, quite a neutral grape, shaped by the vagaries of winemaker and terroir into the finished wine. Compare if you will, the steely dry chardonnays of Chablis, with the big rich chardonnays of Australia and the Napa, and again to the complex smoky wines of Burgundy. 

The oak treatment, of course, makes a difference, adding coconut, caramel and vanilla notes. Malolactic fermentation (MLF) is another option too, converting biting citrus and green apple acidity into a characteristic oily butteriness.

And it is to these big wines that I pay tribute. Loaded with fruit, tinged with acid. Richly oaky. Grumpily butter tinged. No nonsense wines. Whites for red drinkers. Wines you can chew. If you don’t like the style, it’s the pity, but all the more for us, I guess.

This Adelaide Hills example is big, but the MLF and oak is restrained, playing second fiddle to the fruit. It has the acid cojones and depth of flavour to take to some medium term cellaring, and will develop caramel and toast notes over the next 6-8 years, I’d wager.

Classic Aussie chardonnay nose of nectarine, cashew and lemon. Big palate. Tart crisp acidity, with oak a retiring background presence. Layer upon layer of fruit with only the slightest of MLF butteriness. Well-structured and tight.

Enjoy with a rich cheesy carbonara.

Edible sand

Molecular gastronomy is a dirty word these days. And it is perhaps unsurprising; there is potential for rampant wankery with these techniques. What the hell are ‘Lychee bubbles with sage air on oysters’? I am not making that last one up. I have the recipe in front of me.

But maybe every new cooking method looks pretentious. I’ll wager that the first chef to cook a souffle drew both praise and scorn. Hell, I reckon that the first caveman to cook his meat over a fire had some classicist cavemen looking down their noses at him for not eating it raw.

This was my first attempt at edible savoury sand, and it was only a partial success. The technique uses tapioca maltodextrin, a purified dried polysaccharide (ie - sugar) made from cassava root. It is much less sweet than sugar, and can absorb a great deal of oil. This is where its molecular application comes in: you can apply any type of flavoured fat and it will coat small particles of the dextrin, carrying those flavours in powder form, which then rapidly dissolve in the mouth.

The limitations, as I discovered, are firstly that it will also absorb any water, making for a sticky, glutinous and very non-sandlike mass. Also, being less sweet than sugar doesn’t mean it is not sweet at all, and its starchiness also carries into the end flavour.

The aim was to make Hot English mustard flavoured edible sand, but I was only partly successful. I firstly struggled with the texture, since I think the water content of the mustard was too high. The recipe below was an ad libbed attempt to rescue the sand by baking the water out of the mix, which worked OK in the end. I also found that the amount of maltodextrin needed diluted the punchy bite of the mustard, and the starch came to the fore. The result had a faint mustardy sweetness to it, but the dominant flavour was the starch. It tasted like powderised oven-roasted potatoes, which was actually quite interesting and pleasant.

I think this would work on its own as an accompaniment to beef served on the side. Think of it as an interesting take on a side of potatoes. It certainly looks cool. But I do want to work on the recipe and see if I can get the mustard taste stronger. Watch this space.

You can easily buy maltodextrin cheaply online. Bodybuilders use it. Dumbasses. 

Ingredients

• 1 Tsp hot English mustard
• 1 Tsp grapeseed or ricebran oil
• 2-3 Tsp tapioca maltodextrin

Instructions

1. Mix the mustard and oil well.
2. Stir the mustard mix into the maltodextrin powder with a fork. Mix well. The mixture will clump like wet sand. 
3. Put the clumps on an oven tray and bake at 150C for 15-20 minutes. The clumps will swell up and dry out as the steam escapes.
4. Once hard and dried out, whizz in a blender until a fine powder forms.
5. Run the powder and remaining clumps through a sieve, pressing with a wooden spoon to break up the larger bits. The resulting powder will have the texture of sand.

Knife porn

The most used tools in my kitchen.

Pavlova

There exists a great deal of cross-Tasman rivalry between Australia and New Zealand to claim ownership  of  this cake. The issue may never be comprehensively settled. All we know for sure is that this delicious meringue-based cake was named after Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova. I can think of worse paths to immortality. I’m not sure if anyone alive can remember her dancing, but millions know of her name in cake form. This is why I am pushing to have a sauce named after me. There will be a post on my famous Sauce Bergaise to come. Watch this space, people.

This cake is essentially a large meringue, tempered with cornflour, to stop is crusting up all the way to the middle. It is then topped with whipped cream and (traditionally) fruit, although shaved chocolate and other goodies also work.

It is relatively easy and requires few ingredients. The main technical hurdle is the chef’s ability to whisk up a stiff meringue. The following hints help ensure a perfect meringue every time:

• whisk in a very clean metal bowl, preferably copper
• make sure not a speck of yolk remains in your whites
• you don’t have to use room temperature eggs; they will take longer to whip up, but the cold yolks are less likely to break into your whites
• add a pinch of acidity at the beginning - cram of tartare, lemon juice or white vinegar
• only add the sugar once soft peaks are beginning to form

Ingredients

• 8 eggs, whites carefully separated
• 250g caster sugar
• pinch of cream of tartare
• 2 Tsp cornflour
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• cream and fruit to decorate

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C. Prepare a baking pan lined with lightly greased baking papaer.
2. Begin whipping the egg whites with an electric whisk, with a pinch of tartrate (white vinegar or lemon juice will also suffice)
3. Whip for 3-4 minutes until soft peaks are forming.
4. Add the sugar a little at a time, still whisking, until firm glossy peaks that hold their shape form. Be careful: if you whisk too long past this phase the egg foam can collapse.
5. Add the cornflour and vanilla, and gently fold in.
6. Pour out onto the baking tray, shaping with spatula, and flattening the top.
7. Place in oven, immediately turn the temp down to 150C and bake for 30 minutes.
8. Turn the temperature down to 120C and bake another 45 minutes.
9. Turn off oven and open the door a crack. Allow to cool in the oven for a few hours.
10. Remove, slather on whipped cream, and decorate with your choice of garnishes. 

Enjoy with moscato.

Lobster mornay

The largest lobster ever recorded was captured in Nova Scotia, and weighed over 20kg. I’m unclear whether or not it was then eaten. It would have made a whopper of a lobster mornay. Interestingly, despite being one of the most delicious of aquatic crustaceans, in the 19th Century in both Australia and the US they were regarded as a pest species, and were only eaten by the very poor.

Lobsters have blue blood. Fact. They also do not appear to undergo senescence, meaning that they do not weaken or become less fertile with increasing age. Some scientists believe that this is due to the presence in their cells’ nuclei of an enzyme called telomerase, that repairs the ends of DNA strands. In fact, some scientists have postulated that lobsters could effectively live forever, if not struck down by disease, violence or a pot of boiling water. Not going to stop me eating the delicious little immortals.

This very traditional recipe uses Mornay sauce, which is a relatively modern French sauce (dating probably to the early 19th Century) consisting of a bechamel sauce to which cheese (traditionally gruyere) is added. It is a delicious (and rich) accompaniment to lobster meat, and the shell is a pretty neat way to present the whole thing.

Allow one lobster for every two people. It is fairly filling.

Ingredients

• one lobster, cooked, tail meat extracted and coarsely chopped, and shell halves reserved
• 25g butter
• 20g plain flour
• 200mL milk
• 40g grated gruyere (or cheddar)
• dash of cayenne pepper
• black pepper

Instructions

1. Make a blond roux: melt the butter over a low-medium heat. Add the flour, whisk constantly until it just starts to turn golden and gives off a nutty aroma. Don’t leave it alone for too long, or it may burn.
2. Add the milk and continue to whisk until it thickens. Add most of the cheese, reserving a small amount.
3. Whisk until melted. Add the peppers, and the crab meat. Stir until well mixed.
4. Pour half of the mixture into each shell, and top with a sprinkling of the remaining cheese.
5. Place under a hot grill until lightly browned on top.

Serve warm, with white bourgogne.