Red wine and chocolate mousse

Ordered valrhona chocolate mousse at neighborhood eatery. On a hunch I also ordered a cab merlot to go with.

Tastes good! Sort of like having the chocolate with slightly sour cherries.

Note to self. Get something slightly acidic, less tannic and fruity. 

Later note. Apparently wine and chocolate pairing is well known. Oh well I still had the thrill of discovery...

Schizophrenic Dinner

I had a frozen duck carcass leftover from my roast duck lunch last week. I decided to make use of it but I became schizophrenic. The soup had kiam chye (abt 200g), sour plum, tomatoes, duck bones (whole duck) but no duck meat. Instead I put in pork ribs.

I might as well have made bak kut teh. The soup was nice enough but no real duck essence as I might have guessed haha. MW said the taste was fairly balanced though.

The pork ribs were nice - extremely tender, fall off the bone type, but not falling apart. After the soup was basically done, I blanched the ribs, and then put it in the pot. I then put the pot in the oven at 100C, set the timer for 90 minutes and went to Yoga. Came back 2 hours later.

Yu Tiao. Bought from Food Court, then I popped it in the oven toaster. Quite nice when freshened this way.

The original soup pot. After that, I took the ribs out and sieved the soup.

Roast duck

I did a roast duck for CNY lunch for 9 people (plus steam boat). I read up Cantonese Roast Duck, but didn't have the cojones to try it. Instead I roasted duck like I would roast chicken except that I "chinese-sified" it :-).

Taste was good esp with the gravy. But skin not crispy enough - more on that later.

For the glaze, I did it with 4 tblsp honey, 1 apple vinegar and 1 hoisin sauce.

For the stuffing, it was hoisin, spring onions, ginger, shao xin wine, my orange liquer + 5 spice substitute (cinnamon powder, fennel seeds, anise, pepper, coriander powder). I sewed up the duck opening and left the head on to stop up that opening.

The duck was brined 8 hours and then I dried it and put it in the fridge to dry out overnight.

It doesn't work (the "drying" for the skin). When I pulled it from the fridge, I could see moisture collecting on the skin - condensation from the humid air. I think should have tried the Cantonese Duck style of pouring over boiling water and then hang drying (I desisted coz I didn't have the equipment to hang the duck in cool dry place) or perhaps blow torching the skin prior to putting it in the oven.

The  approx 2.3 kg duck was roasted for about 2 hrs 15 mins at 180C, taken out, applied glaze and then roast at 230 C for about 15 mins. (Internet says 30 mins per pound of duck at 180C).

The gravy was made "western style" but using Shao Xin wine. i.e. 3 tablespoons duck fat + drippings from pan + 3 tablespoons flour + salt + a generous dash of wine and chicken stock (1.5 cups). Gravy was a little thick, but really tasty.

One advantage of doing duck yourself is that you can cut all the fat out. Indeed, the amount of meat left after carving was surprisingly little.