Thursday, March 7, 2013

Peking Duck in Sports Bras and Drop-Crotch Pants

Introduction
With the recent onslaught of prelims, projects, and problem sets (oh my!), I've resorted to dressing and eating in extreme comfort.  Not quite comfortable enough to, say, wear leggings as pants, but comfortable enough that instead of wearing a real bra, I've

The Food
Matt said he wanted to roast a duck when I suggested we roast an animal several weeks ago.  So he was super duper ecstatic when I proposed this recipe for Peking duck.  Though, we are not as adept duck-roasters as that lovely human being, we decided to give it a whirl.  So, we started by removing the innards from our slightly frozen duck.
Matt running the duck under some lukewarm water.
Heart, lungs and spinal column to be used for a broth later.
After that thirty-minute struggle was over, we had to pull feathers out and score the skin to maximize fat-drippy-ness.
Scoring with what I thought was a super sharp knife (nope)
Flipping the bird.
There's a part in the instructions that says to tie the legs together with a piece of birch string or something.  Do I have fancy things?  No.  Do I even have spare string?  Nope.  So we decided to cut a slit in the skin-fat and pull the legs through it.
Not creepy at all.  Nope.
So then we roasted it for 4 hours, flipping the bird every hour.  At hour three, we made a glaze of soy sauce, molasses, agave nectar, and sriracha.  I don't even know what's an acceptable substitute for honey, but agave nectar supposedly tastes just as good and has almost the same consistency.  Due to an allergy, I have no idea what honey tastes like.
The glaze
The bird!  With the glaze.
We ate the bird with tortillas and saved the fat for later.  It was beautifully executed meal with Magic: The Gathering and much laughter that followed.  I had not seen Matt for a whole week since he had silly fraternity initiation things to do.  But I had him back, so that was nice.
Corn tortillas are gluten-freely and magically delicious.
My half of the bird.  So good!
3/4 of a cup of duck fat.  Not too shabby.
The Fashion
Duck is a luxury food and luxury sometime equates with comfort.  Comfort to me is a good pair of pants (or no pants if those are the best pants I can find) and a sports bra.
Sweater (Esprit), pants (ASOS, fun fact: I got them that evening), tank top (American Eagle), sports bra (Lululemon athletica), necklace (bought in China), and hat (knit by my friend's mom)

Not to get too personal, but this semester has really taken a toll on me emotionally and personally.  I really wish I could find more time to do fun cooking things and spring break will hopefully open up the doors to some personal development.


Keep it yummy,
Jo