Roast Duck with Lavender & Herbs ... and Three Tricks for Leftovers

Sunday Roasts are in my blood. A traditional middle class English background means that I've spent so many Sunday's enjoying a roast joint with the family that that's an inescapable fact, so I guess I'd be bound to continue this tradition. But as much as I enjoy the pleasure of cooking and eating a Sunday roast, it's perhaps the leftovers that I enjoy more than anything. This duck was no exception, and it did such a great job feeding us through the week, I thought I'd make a bit of a special post about leftovers. But first, the main event.

Roast Duck with Lavender & Herbs

Duck is a bit of novelty for me, and once again was I was inspired to cook it by "a woman at Cullompton Farmer's market". I forgot her name last time I bought something from her (Roast Guinea Fowl with Lavender, Mint & Thyme) and now I've gone and done it again! Next time I really must make more effort. She doesn't half deserve the credit as well - not only does she sell great meat, but she makes some of the best pies to be had in Devon I reckon.

Just like that Guinea Fowl, I decided to follow a recipe (well, mostly follow a recipe, I was kind of following several) for the Duck, and from the same "Flavours of the World" book. I've becoming quite fond of Lavender and meat, and this was done with fresh thyme from the garden as well, made into a kind of salty rub that's pressed all over the lightly scored meat before cooking. Wonderful stuff.

The Lavender and Thyme salty mix

Scored and dusted duck ready for the oven

Close up on the dry mix on the bird

The duck itself has been lightly scored to let the fat run, and I'm using a support in my roasting tray as well so that it won't sit in the fat as it's running. This was cooked fast then slow, pretty normal cooking style for me, but longer than I usually do for poultry as I prefer duck either pink or well done, kind of how I like my lamb. It's quite a complex recipe, involving making stocks, reducing them, etc., so I won't go into it all now, but fun to do and not at all challenging, just time consuming.

Duck out of the oven, ready to rest. Lovely crispy skin

Came out pretty tasty, with a wonderful sticky sauce. Lavender's not something to use often in the kitchen perhaps, but now and again it does add a welcome and interesting variation to dishes.

The Roast Duck finished dish, minus vegetables

But then what to do with lots of leftover duck? Duck's often not a huge bird, true, and we had a female this time around which is much smaller than a drake, but you still get a fair bit of meat off it. First things first, it was time for stock.

Duck Stock

The first thing we tend to do with any roast is get the meat off the bones and make a stock. That's one of the great things about always going for meat on the bone, you've not only get a better roast but also bones for stock. I'm not really someone who bothers much with trying to create elaborate stocks, honestly it's usually just bones and water for me cooked for an hour or two, but this time I added the usual suspects of carrot, celery, onion and bay leaf.

Stock being made

To be fair it does add extra depth to a stock to do this, but I had an ulterior motive as well - I'd worked out what to do for my first proper left over dish - duck & noodle soup.

Duck & Noodle Soup

As ever with these things, my leftover cooking is largely driven by what's in the fridge. The meat may be the core of any dish, but it needs other things to make it into a complete meal. This time around it was cabbage & spring onions that needed eating, so I decided to plump for an oriental style soup.

Ingredients for soup ready to go

By taking the remaining breast off the bird and slicing it into delicate thin discs I intended to make a simple spiced soup, with noodles cooked in stock at the bottom, and cabbage, spring onion and slices of duck on the top. Simple as anything to make. I strained some of the stock off and added some Chinese five spice and soy sauce to taste, and then added each ingredient according to how long it would take to cook.

The stock strained and enriched with soy sauce

Cabbage was first for about 10 minutes till it was getting really tender, then in went the spring onions and noodles for 3 minutes, some very finely sliced fresh ginger (done in inch long extra thin match sticks, to add texture and interest) and some very finely chopped red chili, and finely the duck back in for just a minute at the end to warm it through. Lovely stuff.

Duck & Noodle Soup in the office

This is one of my first trick to leftover cooking - you have to ignore the 'rules' of cooking fresh meat if you want to make the most of leftover meat. If I'd put the duck in earlier it would have got tough and dry, but by reversing things and just adding it at the end you get the opposite effect. By using the stock as well you still get full flavours, without needing any long cooking.

We got four large portions out of this, soup always goes a long way I find. Well, unless the Italian gets hold of it, she's a fiend for soup! Still had lots of duck left though, so next up ...

Roast Duck Ragu

The English are pretty keen on Italian food generally, and in a mixed Italian/English house like hours that's even more pronounced. Ragu or sugo is therefore a bit of a staple way of using up leftovers. Just to clarify, the term sugo generally means a slightly more smooth sauce than ragu, which usually has larger pieces of meat and a rougher texture.

And here the second of my tricks with leftovers. When it comes to well cooked meat you can't really mince it up and re-fry it, that just dries it out or makes a mush - not pleasant. The technique I use these days is to flake the meat, creating texture while preserving the moisture within it.

The flaked duck meat

You still need to cook a ragu long and slow, as tinned tomatoes need time for their flavour to develop, but by flaking in this way and cooking slowly in a liquid environment the meat will enrich the dish and not get tough or dry.

I always do my ragu's the same way, the usual sofrito of onion, carrot and celery is cooked till golden and tender, then in with the meat, deglaze with wine if you like, and in with the tomatoes and herbs.

That leads me to my third trick with using leftovers, adding something from the original dish so that you always get a different result, that way your food never gets too samey. For this one, for example, I chopped up the leftover skin really finely and added that to the sauce with all it's flavours of lavender and thyme. Once that's blended with the rest you don't really pick up the individual notes of flavour anymore, but it does add a subtle distinctness which makes all my ragus or sugos different, no matter what they're based on. Whether it's a lamb cooked with lemon balm, or chicken cooked with basil, I think your main roast always ends up adding something special to a leftover dish, which you'd otherwise be hard pressed to create. Sometimes it may be that the meat itself is simply infused with interesting and different flavours, other times there may be something leftover you can add, but either way it keeps you from getting bored with your food.

Ready for deglazing, white wine this time (usually what Italians use)

Now with the tomatoes added, ready for long slow cooking

One note on ragus and sugos - don't skimp on the tomatoes, or the herbs for that matter. I used six tins of tomatoes I think, plus a large bundle of marjoram, thyme, bay and rosemary. Your sauce will be very wet to start with, but the long, slow cooking will slowly reduce it down, concentrating the flavours. I think I must have done this one for about two hours at least, maybe three. Served it with a good thick pasta, and that made supper for the two of us and then lunch the next day as well. Then it was off to the freezer with the rest of the ragus for other days.

Ragus ready for the freezer

These old cheese pots are fabulous for this - they just about contain two portions per pot, and not skimpy ones either. Let me put it this way, I'm not exactly losing weight eating portions of this size! "DS" stands for Duck Sugo here. Our freezer is usually full of BS, RS, VS, LS - you get the drift I'm sure :-) The labels are for ever getting rubbed off, and we end up playing the mystery sugo game - still, it's all good.

So that's my leftover odyssey. I hope it might inspire others to make more of their Sunday roasts. Duck is an expensive meat compared to others, this one cost about £15, for example, but if you consider that I managed to make twenty four meal portions from it, suddenly it doesn't seem so expensive at all. All the other main ingredients, i.e. pasta, noodles, carrot, onions, etc, are very cheap - and the lavender and herbs free - so it's relatively simple to turn out pretty good quality food like this for less than £1 per meal. Personally I'm amazed people think they're getting a good deal from places like McDonalds, I find it a bit galling to see people chucking tens of pounds at those places, and then claiming they don't have any cash. Still, different folks, different strokes I guess.

All comments welcome, as ever!

'Spring' Pasta with Fresh Garden Herbs

Just finished cooking my classic 'French Style' Roast Chicken - which I'll write about another time - and as I was sorting out some pictures I came across a lunch I made the other day which I thought I'd share. It's so wonderfully simply and tasty, it seems selfish to keep it to myself!

It's actually based on a recipe from Antonio Carluccio, but what's nice about it is that it's not really a recipe at all, more a guide. It's the kind of thing you can usually throw together at the last minute from pretty much what you have in the garden, so can be invaluable for these sort of quick lunches or light suppers. The core of it is the making of a sort of lightweight pesto to dress pasta. Here's the recipe for two people.

• First get some water on the boil for pasta as normal. Remember water for pasta should be generously salted - most of the salt stays in the water, so it's not all going into you.
• Gather a good handful or two of whatever fresh herbs are growing well, and for that matter whatever you fancy. For this one I had a few leaves of sage, a few of mint, about 10 leaves or so of basil, some parsley and a few sprigs of thyme. In the past I've also used majoram, rosemary, lemon balm, black peppermint, oregano, wild garlic, literally anything will work. Personally I think mint works especially well.
• Next add a few nuts, between 10-20 - usually these would be pinenuts, but for this one I used toasted hazelnuts that I'd kept in a jar left over from winter. Doesn't really matter what, you can pretty much choose whatever you like again.
• Put all these together and roughly chop them, leaving some large pieces of nut and herb here and there (but making sure you're not going to choke anyone!).
• Now get the pasta in the water and cook as normal, usually I'll go for something long like linguine or spaghetti.
• In a separate pan, large enough to add the pasta in later, melt a large knob of butter and a good glug of olive oil. Finally chop a garlic clove (or crush it for a more intense flavour) and add it to the oil on a low heat to infuse.
• Grate a generous handful or two of paremsan, and add it to the herbs, ready to go in with the garlic. Keep a little aside to finish.
• Once the pasta has about a minute or so to go, stir the chopped herbs, nuts and parmesan into the oil, butter and garlic and leave it on the heat to warm through.
• Finally drain the pasta, and toss it into the herby buttery mix - make sure you leave a fair bit of liquid in the pasta, as it will emulsify with the mixture and create a light sauce.

Enjoy - with a nice glass of red, some toasted bread, and good company in the sunshine :-)

Home Made Passata: How to make a cheap, delicious and versatile tomato sauce

We use a lot of passata at home, in various sugos, for pizzas, topping meatballs and meatloaf, that sort of thing. We do often buy it but it's also a doddle to make your own, and you can make a huge amount and then just freeze it in small pots for whenever you need it. We have a big stack of little pots that used to hold mushy peas from the fish and chip van, for example, although I guess that just shows we eat far too much fish and chips :-)

I always use Napolina whole peeled plum tomatoes, creature of habit perhaps, but they are a good product and are often half price at all the major supermarkets so buying a load when they're cheap means you're saving money and enjoying great home made food.

I'm trying some new with this sort of thing, and videoing bits here and there as I think it gives a better idea of timing, textures, quantities, etc. than a written account. I've split the passata one up into three as it does take a good couple of hours or so to cook down into the finished product.

As you can probably tell, the director needs some practice, as does the cameraman!

The rabbit sauce was left over from a spit roast rabbit dish the Sunday before, more of that whenever I get around to blogging about it ...

Spit-roast shoulder of lamb, stuffed with soft cheese and tomato

Been meaning to try another spit-roast lamb, but this time decided to go for shoulder as the leg ended up a little dry. I tend to prefer shoulder anyhow - personally I think it has a better flavour.

I bought one already rolled, but undid it and coated the inside with first a layer of soft herby cheese from Cornwall and then some tomato sauce - basically just a tin of tomatoes I'd cooked down to a thick paste and then flavoured with Oregano. Why this combination? Well, the cheese we'd bought we didn't reckon was too great by itself, but I thought it would work out great in a finished dish.


Lamb rolled out with soft cheese ...



... and now with the herby tomato sauce added as well


The whole thing was rolled back up again and then into the oven on the spit - hot for 20 minutes to get it going and then low for another hour and half or so as I like my lamb well done. Popped a tray underneath so catch the juices for gravy.


Ready to go into the oven


And the result? Well it did get a little overdone on the outside - almost charcoal in some places! - but that was to be expected given the cheesy mixture going everywhere.


A little dark perhaps!


Good flavour overall either way, and it wasn't actually burnt, just dark. B liked it better than me to be honest - personally I thought you lost too much of the lamb itself with all the other strong flavours, but I wouldn't kick it out of bed, so to speak.


The finished dish - and in the sun for once!


The runner beans are our own (with a little help from a colleague - a mole problem, don't ask) and the potatoes were from my Dad. They were leftovers cold in the fridge which I threw in the oven once the meat had come out. Turned into mini roasties with half the hassle, so that's worth noting all by itself.

And the lamb leftovers? Well they're down stairs at the moment - lamb has been minced up and fried off to give it some sweet caramelisation, some more tinned tomato and cheese has gone in, as well as some red onion, garlic, white wine and rosemary and it's about to be dinner with some pasta (and probably lunch tomorrow as well). Actually it's about to be dinner for several nights in a row - I swear I've made enough for about 10 people at least!

Chicken time again

Bit of a favourite, chicken, and this recipe too. I tend to go for Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's herb roast chicken recipe, although as ever I put it together in my own particular way.

This time around it was parsely, sage, rosemary and thyme (isn't that a song?) all chopped up finely and mashed together with a good lump of butter, some black pepper and a garlic clove. Smear that lot all over the chicken (local free range, of course - mine come from Ottery St Mary, just down the road) and then I stuck half a lemon, a bay leaf and some seasoning inside.

That goes into my preheated (fan) oven at 180°C, and this time around I put it in the rack within the roasting pan, which is the first time I've tried it. I tend to do my chicken's for 15 mins per pound plus 15 mins these days, although even that is a bit much I reckon - partly because my new oven (a Smeg) is a bit powerful.

And with it, well good old dauphinois potatoes again. Say what you like but I think they're fab, especially with this dish. And cabbage with bacon for a veg (fry bacon first till crispy, then in goes shredded cabbage and maybe a splash of water, and let it steam till juicy). Loads of gravy made from chicken stock and scrapings from the pan of course. Oh, and a nice Chilean Chardonnay.

So what was the verdict? Pretty tasty on the whole. Still think my dauphinois could have a just a tiny bit more salt, and the gravy (whilst delicious) was a bit of the thick side - not exactly classy! Probably won't use the roasting rack again, as I don't think it added anything, and made it very tricky to baste the bird during cooking. Plus I didn't get as many crusty bits on the bottom of the roasting pan to add flavour.

A picture of the leftovers, from the Monday after - still bloody good!