A Pal’s Potted Duck

Its Easter weekend and, if I have managed to work out the technical jiggery-pokery of my blog tools’ scheduler, you should by now be seeing this brand new post. At the same time, I should be sunning myself in the south of France whilst eating my own body weight in seafood. A tough life huh?

As a newbie to the blog-o-world, I wasn’t sure of the correct protocol when a blogger goes away on holiday. Would it be ok for me to just abandon my readers? Will Google forget who I am? Or should I put my site into some kind of bloggy kennel, to be looked after by uncaring young madames until my return?

I recently mentioned my dilemma over a few pints at the Market Porter with my good friend Luke. When he offered to put a post together for me, to cover my little detour to the Med, well, let’s just say I’ve never been one to turn down a free (boozy) lunch.

So thanks to Luke for his cook-through of Gordon’s Potted Duck. It will be interesting to compare his efforts to my own when I get around to tackling the recipe myself. Hope you enjoy!

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Potted Duck
First of all, many thanks to Jon for asking me to guest blog a recipe for his excellent site. I ordered the book shortly after Jon told me of his project, and was keen to get stuck in; the recipes look simple and tasty, and importantly go well with good ale.

It was in this vein that I chose the dish with which to cook-through; something that I wouldn’t usually even think to cook at home, but something that I would choose in a pub: a dish that would go well with a pint.

Potted meat has a long history due to its preservative quality, as the meat itself is covered with a layer of fat at the end of the cooking process to seal it; however health consciousness today steers us away from saturated animal fats. Health concerns, combined with a bad image of tinned, mechanically recovered meat, have given potted foods a bad name, but Ramsay (and others) have shown that by using quality ingredients and methods you can rediscover this lost delight.

So to the cook-through. I started with the ingredients – ~600g duck legs, some thyme from the garden, garlic, seasoning and goose fat. The recipe states duck fat, but I had some goose fat left over from Christmas, and I figured that as they have bills, both swim, fly and quack, that I’d be OK.

I popped the duck legs into a cosy ovenproof dish and added the thyme, chopped garlic and salt and pepper.

I covered the duck legs with the melted the goose fat and then popped them into a pre-heated oven at 140 degrees Celsius for 2.5 hours.

In the meantime I toasted the pistachio nuts by putting them in a dry pan over a medium heat for about 10 minutes, shaking regularly. As you can see they take on a dark green/brown colour when done.

Before:

After:

I then chopped these roughly and set them aside.

When the duck came out of the oven it looked like this:

I then took the duck from the fat, strained the fat and set this aside. The recipe states that once the duck has cooled a bit you can chop or tear the duck apart; I decided to use two forks to separate the meat from the bone, in deference to my Chinese brethren who so expertly work it down at the Great Wall. This gives you little shreds of meat, (and some tasty bones for you to gnaw on). The pistachios were then added and mixed in:

Add some salt and pepper here. Then press tightly into 5-6 ramekins; try to pack as tightly as you can as you will then pour some fat over the top, which will make it into any space you have left.

Now you’re done; all you have to do is cool in the fridge. I did this overnight, and enjoyed sampling it in the garden with some cornichons a nice pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord.

The potted duck tasted good; the pistachios provide a nice counterbalance to the meat texture. I would suggest that perhaps some plum chutney or homemade piccalilli would go well with this too. If I was to cook it again, I think I might grate a little orange rind onto the duck before it goes in to cook, or perhaps include a little ale in the cooking process as suggested here.

Thanks again to Jon for inviting my contribution. Happy to do it anytime!