I went off to Singapore last week to stay with Pirate Pete while Nearly Jaundiced Juice was in Africa. We had a great week, wedding planning, stuffing our faces, trips to the hospital, watching a piano player suspended in mid-air...the usual.
As I'm such a dedicated cooker, I decided this was the perfect chance to cook something different, and for Peta to be a reviewer. Peta suggested that I cook duck (even though she doesn't actually like it) and for some reason I got it into my head that I would make Duck San Choy Bow. I had to google a million recipes, but I settled on one that I found on the Ready Steady Cook website.
We set off to the world biggest most insanely crowded super market to get all the ingredients. For some reason everything there comes in bulk so we had to buy a bag of onions, a bag of garlic and a bag of ginger which was overwhelming, and the coriander was called Chinese Parsley which is just plain weird.
We thought we'd be able to buy a duck breast but couldn’t find one anywhere, so ended up having to buy a whole duck, problem was, a whole duck means a duck with legs and feet and a head, beak, eyes, everything! It was full on.
I got everything chopped up and ready and got out the cleaver ready to chop up Augustus (every good duck needs a name). Peta had to give me some directions on how to actually cut it to get the breast off, but I think I did a pretty good job. At first we were kind of freaked out by it, thought the feet and head were weird, but pretty soon we were obsessed with Augie. I was making him high five his own feet and Peta was making him be all west side gangsta - it was hilarious. I also amused myself by making jokes about him fisting himself because apparently that's how ducks are packaged - one foot up the 'clacker'... lucky I find myself funny!
The cooking went really well, I didn't know how to cook duck so I just stuck to the suggested times and assumed it would all be ok. It was delicious and Peta and I were loving life! I was surprised at how good it tasted when it was so simple (decapitation not included). Very much a success. I'll make this one again for sure.
Tips: Cutting up a duck is not a vegetarian friendly activity. Luckily the Gammies don't come in a vegetarian variety.
Music: Florence and the Machine and, Skunk Anansie.
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