What’s for Dinner?

4-course Contemporary Western Dinner

The Menu

Gingered Tuna Tartare

Poached Bio Egg, Served with Chicken Oyster and Wild Mushroom Cream

48-hour Cooked Wagyu Short Rib, with Beetroot and Teriyaki Pearls

Dessert – Strawberry and Raspberry Cake with Pistachio Ice Cream

Classic French Roasted Duck with Orange Sauce

Ingredients

4½ 1b duck
2 oranges
1/2 cup caster sugar
6 tbsp white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
1/2 cup Grand Marnieror orange liqueur
salt and freshly ground black pepper
watercress and orange slices,to garnish

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 300°F.
2. Trim off all the excess fat and skin from the duck and prick the skin all over with a fork. Season the duck inside and out with salt and pepper and tie the legs with string.
3. Place the duck on a rack in a large roasting tin. Cover tightly with foil and cook in the oven for 1 hours.
4. With a vegetable peeler, removed the rind in wide strips from the oranges, then stack two or three rips at a time and slice into very thin julienne strips. Squeeze the juice from the oranges.
5. Place the sugar and vinegar in a small heavy saucepan and stir to dissolve the sugar. Boil over a high heat, without stirring, until the mixture is a rich caramel colour, remove the pan from the heat and, standing well back, carefully add the orange juice, pouring it down the side of the pan. Swirl the pan to blend, then bring back to the boil and add the orange rind and liqueur. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.
6. Remove the duck from the oven and pour off all the fat from the tin. Raise the oven temperature to 400°F.
7. Roast the duck, uncovered, for 25-30 minutes, basting three or four times with the caramel mixture, until the duck is golden brown and the juices run clear when the thigh is pierced with a knife.
8. Pour the juices from the cavity into the casserole and transfer the duck to a carving board. Cover loosely with foil and leave to stand for 10-15 minutes.
9. Pour the roasting juices into the pan with the rest of the caramel mixture, skim off the fat and simmer gently. Serve the duck, with the sauce, garnished with watercress and orange slices.

Makes 5 to 6 servings.

Source: Classic French Cuisine Made Easy

In Pictures: Decorative Sushi

Kazari Maki Sushi

Sunday Funnies

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A reporter hears about an old Indian chief with a phenomenal memory.

He decides to interview the chief so he tracks him down and knocks on the chief’s door.

The chief opens the door and the reporter says, “How.”

The chief replies, “How.”

The reporter says, “I hear that you have a prodigious memory.”

“This is true,” says the chief. “Well, what did you have for breakfast 25 years ago today?”, the reporter asked.

Without hesitation, the chief replied, “Eggs.” The reporter was polite but didn’t think there was much of a story there, and so he went on his way.

Twenty-five years later, the reporter was retired and traveling the country and happened to be in the chief’s neck of the woods.

He says to himself, “I think I’ll see if that old Indian chief is still around.”

He finds the chief’s house and knocks on the door and sure enough the old chief answers the door.

The reporter said, “How.” The chief replied, “Scrambled.”

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An explosion in a cheese shop leaves de-Brie everywhere.

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Average gumbo is only medi-okra.

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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, for they are sticking to their diets.

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Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.

Many Americans Don’t Handle Poultry Safely When Cooking

Many Americans do not follow recommended safety practices when handling and cooking poultry, a new study finds.

Fewer than two-thirds of consumers have a food thermometer, and less than 10 percent of those who have the devices use them to check if poultry is cooked to a safe temperature, the researchers reported.

“The USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] recommends consumers use a food thermometer to check for doneness of meat and poultry,” study author Katherine Kosa, a food and nutrition policy researcher at RTI International, said in a news release from the nonprofit organization based in Durham, N.C.

“Pathogens, such as salmonella and Campylobacter, may be present on raw poultry. Using a food thermometer is the only reliable way to ensure food is cooked to a safe internal temperature to destroy any harmful bacteria that may be present,” Kosa noted. “USDA recommends that consumers cook all poultry to a safe minimum internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Among people with a food thermometer, use of the device was higher (57 percent to 73 percent) when they were cooking whole chickens and turkeys, according to the study published in the January issue of the Journal of Food Protection.

Kosa and her colleagues also found that nearly 70 percent of consumers rinse or wash raw poultry before cooking it. This is potentially unsafe because contaminated water may splash and spread bacteria to other foods and kitchen surfaces.

Only 18 percent of Americans correctly store raw poultry in the fridge, and only 11 percent who thaw raw poultry in cold water do it correctly, the researchers said.

The findings will be used to develop materials to educate consumers about food safety, Kosa said.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services