Duck Soup

For Christmas, Andrew got me some unusual food items: one was a dry salted duck leg;

 and another was dry salted turkey gizzards.

When I had Peking duck at Lotus Garden recently, I decided to use the remaining duck carcass, along with the above items, as the base for some duck soup.

I put a bunch of water in a pot, added the dry salted duck leg,

the turkey gizzards,

and the cut up duck carcass.

I also added two large chopped up onions, about four or five sticks of celery, cut into pieces, a couple of small sweet peppers, 3 cubes of chicken bouillion, quite a bit of paprika and pepper, and salt. When it had simmered for several hours I ladeled out the duck leg and cut it into pieces,

and pulled the duck meat off the duck carcass. I ate some of the turkey gizzards and they were so tough that I did not cut them up and put them in the soup - they just added flavoring to the broth. The soup was actually quite good. Nice for a cold winter day. I have been thinking of trying something like this each time I get a Peking duck carcass, but Andrew's additional items were my incentive.

California Brown Pelican

The brown pelican is the smallest of the eight species of pelican but still is very large, having a wingspan of 6 to 8 feet. They were put on the endangered species list in 1970 when their numbers dropped to about 10,000. However, the use of DDT, the cause of most of their problems, has been banned and their numbers have come back to an estimated 650,000, to the point where they were removed from the endangered species list in November 2009. The brown pelican below was photographed on the Pismo Beach Pier in Central California. I love the yellow forehead, the red throat and the yellow under the bill.

We were just in San Luis Obispo recently and drove up to San Simeon State Park. There I hiked over to Skull Rock and photographed a number of brown pelicans which were perched on it.

They are very fun to watch fly, but unfortunately, I don't have any photos of them flying.

Dragon Fruit or Red Pitaya

Esmee Tooke, who introduced me to durian, recently brought me some dragon fruit, also known as red pitaya. Her brother and a cousin, who live in Orange County, have the cactus-like trees that grow them in their yards.

I was very surprised to learn that they grow on a cactus, and further, that they are native to Mexico and Central and South America. I have associated the fruit with Asia, where it is cultivated in Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, southern China and some other countries, but is not native.

The outside of the fruit is red and relatively soft. It is also larger than I imagined.

The inside is white, with black seeds, and it is very soft: softer than ripe melon but harder than soft butter. Below, the two halves of one dragon fruit.

The fruit itself is reminiscent of kiwifruit, because of the sesame seed-sized black seeds found in the flesh; also it is much easier to separate the outer rind from the dragon fruit and the dragon fruit flesh is softer.

The flesh is mildly sweet. An article I read suggested it be eaten chilled, for improved flavor. I ate it both chilled and at room temperature and chilled was much better. Chilled, it had a very pleasant and refreshing feel in the mouth. The article also suggested not eating it with strong-tasting food, except to "clean the palate" between dishes.

It was very easy to cut into slices, or just to scoop the flesh out of a half with a spoon.

Alaskan King Crab: Avocado, Mayo & Butter

New Years day, football, food and my father are all lumped together for me. Most New Year's days growing up I sat around the entire day watching bowl games with my father, snacking on food. Always one of the highlights was the Rose Bowl. Invariably it was sunny and 80 degrees in Pasadena and we watched in awe at the game played on green grass with the big red rose emblazoned on the field while outside of our home in Utah snow covered the ground and chill was in the air. We talked many times about one day going to Pasadena and being at the Rose Bowl. Many years later, long after Judy and I were married and had moved to California, Dad and I fulfilled that dream: we attended the 1997 Rosebowl where Ohio State beat Arizona State 20-17. That Arizona State team had Jake Plummer at quarterback and Pat Tillman, later killed in Afghanistan in the Army Rangers. I was disappointed when ASU lost in a close game. Well, Dad is now gone, but I can't shake the tradition. So this New Year's day, with sunny, 75 degree weather outside our Redlands home, I had some Alaskan king crab on hand and watched the Rose Bowl - Ohio State again, this time beating Oregon. I enjoyed the game, many fond memories of Dad, and the crab!

Alaskan king crab may be my very favorite food. I like getting the biggest legs possible - I particularly love the long solid legs. I let it thaw and eat it cold. The salty, juicy meat just melts in your mouth. I find that steaming it dries it out.

I had the crab two ways. First, I cut some up into smaller bits, added some shrimp and mayonnaise, mixed it together, then put that combination on a bed of avocado. Great stuff!

Then I warmed up some butter and ate the rest dipped in warm butter. For part of it, I put mayonnaise in the butter as well, something I've never done before. It was good, but I think I'll stick to plain butter. Something about the cool crab meat combining with the warm butter for a knockout taste. Nothing fancy, just two ingredients, but my oh my, what a flavor combination and sensory homerun.

 

Mousse: Goose, Duck and Chicken

Following the Christmas break I took Andrew home to his place in Santa Monica and we stopped at Whole Foods to see if we could find some interesting mushrooms. While there, we found three different kinds of mousse that intrigued us: chicken, duck and goose. I recently did a post on foie gras, a duck mousse made in France. These mousses appeared to be similar.

The cheapest of the three, was primarily chicken liver, with duck and chicken fat.

It was the strongest flavor and had quite a livery flavor, like liverwurst, although a little sweeter. It was very good. We had some French bread which we put it on to eat it with.

Next, in terms of expense, was the duck mousse. It had duck liver and duck fat as the primary ingredients.

It did not have a liver flavor at all. It was milder, not sweet and tasted even better, although its taste is harder to describe.

It looked very similar, although the gelatin on the outside was not as dark.

Finally, the most expensive and of course the best, was the mousse with goose and duck liver, and duck and chicken fat.

It was the most mild of the three. It had no liver taste, was slightly sweet and had the texture of smooth butter. It was really marvelous.

Again, it was hard to differentuate between the look of it and the others.

It was really fun to try all three mousses side by side, because there were substantial differences in taste, more so than we had guessed there would be. There was too much time between this and the French foie gras we ate to do a good comparison, but I think the goose mousse beat it for taste. It was really amazing stuff.

Sauerkraut, Olives and Marinated Eggs

As Andrew gets older and develops his food habits I have come to realize that Judy and I were inspired when we named him. We had never heard of Andrew Zimmern, of Bizzare Foods, back then, but there must be a connection. It is said that the name Andrew comes from the Greek name, Andreas, and means "man, warrior." However, I think it really means something like "food adventurer." I drove Andrew back to Westwood following New Years and had an opportunity to taste some of his food creations. He is in the process of making sauerkraut. He started with one red cabbage and a bunch of regular cabbages and he has the shredded cabbage fermenting on the top of his refrigerator in some sort of concoction I don't recall. It is all compacted in the bottom of a bucket, pushed down by a large water jug.

Beneath the water jug is a plate about the size of the bucket.

Underneath the plate is the fermenting cabbage. The red coloring is from the one red cabbage that he used.

He scooped up a bowlful that we ate. It still is not completely finished, but it is very, very good. The cabbage is still pretty crunchy and it is starting to develop the sour taste, but is not there yet. The orange bits are carrots.

The last time I was there I was "treated" to thousand year eggs. This time he had eggs sitting on top of the refrigerator in a canning jar mixed with mustard, sugar, peppers, vinegar and some other ingredients. He had hardboiled the eggs and put them in the mixture. They had been sitting there about a week and a half or so.

The eggs looked pretty ordinary.

He cut one in half and I had half and he had the other. The egg white was pretty rubbery. I could taste the ingredients: a slightly sweet taste, a little vinegary and mustardy. Very fun to try.

Finally, we tasted some olives he's been curing. They are olives from Lexi's tree in Berkeley. They are not quite finished curing and still have a slightly bitter taste, but the one I had was very good. I was a little hesitant when he told me he had to scrape a little mold off the top of the liquid, but he assured me that mold is normal and okay.

I'm learning a lot from my son who raised his own chicken, named Plum (after the sauce he planned to eat it with), in order to eat it (see the Omnivore's Dilemma) and who once hated mushrooms and now adores them. I'm looking forward to the final version of the sauerkraut. Andrew indicated he wants to have a whole lamb for a graduation party, which he participates in killing and preparing. Sounds like another food adventure.

Marmite

While living in England for two years serving an LDS mission I came across Marmite on a number of occasions but never tasted it. All I had heard was that it was disgusting and I never had any desire to buy or try it. My niece, Lisa DeLong, now lives in London and she was visiting the U.S. over the Christmas holiday and brought me a jar. Now that I am in the mode of trying to be more adventurous in my eating I decided I needed to give it a try. Lisa, thank you for indulging my food whimsey.

Marmite was first made in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire (an area in my mission) in 1902. It is made from yeast extract, a by-product of brewing, which they got from the Bass Brewery.

I decided to go to the source of all wisdom, Wikipedia, for a tutorial on Marmite. I learned that it is "a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, powerful flavour, which is extremely salty and savory with umami qualities, somewhat comparable to soy sauce." Umami, from Japanese, means flavor, or "brothy, meaty or savory." Apparently Marmite was used by vegetarians as a meat substitute. It was traditionally eaten as a spread on bread, toast and crackers. Because it is so concentrated, it is usually spread thinly with butter or margarine.

I must admit my prejudices were still with me as I opened the jar, took a whiff, and looked at the dark substance in the bottle. We had some good Great Harvest bread which I put in the toaster and then slathered with butter. Then I spread Marmite over a portion.

If anything, my prejudices were screaming louder at me, "do not eat it!" So much of food is a mind game. As I am learning from one of my new heroes, Andrew Zimmern, of Bizarre Foods, just launch into it and try it two times. I put it on too thick. It was very, very strong and salty. I was originally repulsed, but kept chewing and got it down. Then I took a second bite, it was better. It is what I would imagine eating a liquidy version of beef bouillon would be like. Judy took a bite (she had to salve her palate with chocolate afterwards), then I ate the last little bit and put honey on the rest of the toast (which I preferred). Lisa, I will probably save the rest of the Marmite for your next visit to the U.S. I am fond of the saying that goes, in part, the French are the cooks in heaven and the English are the cooks in hell. I suspect that the person who came up with that saying had just eaten Marmite.