the owl and the olive tree

On Tuesday, I made roast duck with apple glaze for jmpava and bellwethr. The method was cobbled together from several recipes I found in Cook's Illustrated or online (and thank you for all of you who provided links!).

It came out quite nicely: crispy rendered skin, nice moist meat. The breast does wind up well-done rather than medium rare, but that was an acceptable trade off for the excellent skin.

It's not a particularly complicated recipe, but it does require a deep roasting pan that is stove-safe, and a bit of time.

At the end of this, you will have a roast duck's worth of duck meat, plus rendered duck fat, plus a quart or so of duck stock.

( Roast Duck with Apple Glaze )

I remembered that I was going to get pictures about ten minutes after we finished devouring the bird, so no pictures. But it was quite good!

Dinner tonight! This was inspired by the fact that a) I had some nice chicken breasts, b) I hadn't used the sous vide in a while, and c) the spinach really, really needed using before it got sad.

( Poached Chicken with Mushroom and Spinach Orichette )