venison pate with sourdough baguette and olives
mashed potato and hazelnut pesto with black pig prosciutto, asparagus and broad beans
duck, forest mushroom and chinese greens risotto
2002 Peacetree Cabernet Sauvignon in a Bulgarian crystal decanter
tart fine aux pommes
local cheeses with oatcakes and fennel crackers
laphroaig quarter cask with ice
Further notes:
Duck, being fatty, doesn’t really lend itself well to poaching but I thought I’d try and squeeze out a bit more stock for the risotto regardless. White wine, duck stock, peppercorns and thyme. Duck legs removed and then fried in leftover lard until crisp and then shredded. Using the soaking liquid for the mushrooms also provides additional stock.
Gabrielle Ferron’s risotto packet recommends a no-stir 15 minute technique and I have to agree to the point where I’m convinced that the whole stirring thing is an artifact of Italian patriachy.
Just the shiny green inner pods of the broadbeans. Blanched and then reheated in olive oil with some of the prosciutto. I ended up paying $10 a kilo for them because I was chatting with the farmer and he forgot to give me my change and I was too polite to ask.
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Tags: broadbeans, dinner, duck, farm machinery, risotto
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An not even one picture?
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Ahmm no. It’s a pretty lazy post isn’t it. Any suggestions for an alternative photo?
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how about a picture of a D2 bulldozer?
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sure!
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Better :)
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Avec plaisir!
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I’ve done pretty good risotto in the rice cooker by just chucking in say a few softened chopped onions and bacon or whatever a bit of stock and shitloads of water.
Certainly Ms FXH couldn’t tell the difference from lovingly stirred 30 minute stovetop slop anyway.
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Surely a fatty duck would be easy to poach, as it would be a piece of piss to keep it in your sights as it attempts to waddle away.
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Yeah lets just stop the whole stir the risotto thing right here FXH. 30 minutes you’ll never get back. It’s over – don’t care about coating.
That’s true Ted. I’d imagine there’d also be a certain amount of schoolyard delight in saying ‘take that fatty!’ while doing so.
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I come to speak in praise of black pigs.
I think a nice pig picture would have worked too.
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kurobuta no shashin ICHI-MAI!
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Here, here. There were always pompous declarations in the foodie press that if you didn’t stand over and stir the rice dish it wasn’t authentic risotto but something else: paella, mayhap, or pilaf. Then years ago I dropped into Enoteco Sileno, an Italian food importer in melbourne where John Portelli handed me a packet of Ferron rice and pointed out the no-stir technique. Well, I thought: Enoteco Sileno and Ferron, you can’t get more authentic than that.
No stir with basmati rice will give you pilaf. No stir with short-grain rice (including arborio but also calasparra) cooked in a wide pan rather than a saucepan will give you paella. No stir with Ferron in a saucepan gives perfectly acceptable – nay, exquisite – risotto.
And Ted, the fatty-duck-poach gag was a good one
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Absolutely, other anthony. Completely anti-social too, no way to spend the company of friends. Put the loving in the prep and keep it nice and breezy on the table.Could be time spent making a decent stock, for example.
gastroenterwritenment
manthatcooks is an irregularly updated and occasionally informative foodsite for people who have, or would like to have, moved on from say … toast.
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