Duck en Croute, Happy Birthday Julia Child

In honor of the recent 100th anniversary of Julia Child's birth (August 15, 1912), here is a little story about the most technically challenging recipe that I think that I have ever made.

My wife and I have formed three wine clubs over the years.  The most successful of which was the first in San Francisco.  That one lasted about nine years before it finally petered out.

We had a great time.  The concept was simple:  Each month a different member or couple would take a turn being the host.  The host would decide what the theme would be for the month.  They could choose from a varietal, a country or any theme really.  It was then up to the rest to arrive at the appointed time with food that would fit the theme and wine as well.  We usually brought one bottle and a dish.

We would sit down and as we had our meal each member would read about their wine and tell about the food they brought as we feasted.  We each had 8 wine glasses that we were to bring as well. 

So picture a large table with say, 8 places set, 64 wine glasses and eight bottles of wine.  We ate, drank and learned about the food that each had prepared and the wines that were served.

Really good times.

The themes sometimes went as far as picnic wines, fortified wines, unusual blends, and country of origin to specific AOCs.

All three had the same set up, it's just that the SF version lasted the longest.

One of my favorite nights was in the last incarnations of the wine club here in Oregon.

My family and I had returned from France some months earlier and had had the experience of staying at an apartment in Paris that is owned by some dear friends who had been members of the group at some point, but who now lived in Africa.

Once we returned from Europe, our friends asked us if we had seen the film Julie and Julia.  When we said no, they told us we must and let it go at that.

When we finally did get around to watching the film, we were shocked at one of the final scenes where Meryl Streep goes to her neighborhood boulangerie to get her final baguettes in Paris and to say goodbye.

The shop in the film had been right outside the apartment in Paris.

I started cooking a great deal of the items from Mastering the Art of French cooking which is a major theme of the film.  I made about ten batches of baguettes and started to get really good at it.

Then my wife had a fantastic idea.  The next wine club meeting would be a Julie and Julia theme: Make a dish from the cookbook and bring a wine that goes with it.

I chose to make the Duck en Croute, possibly the most difficult recipe that I have ever made and the one that gave the main character a near nervous breakdown!

I don't have permission to print the recipe, but it can be found on page 571, at least in our copy.

17 hours of cooking later, it was done.  Not for amateur cooks.  I will probably never make this again, but it was delicious and beautiful, I am very happy that I made it.

My son took most of the photos and my wife took the balance as well as making the dough.  My hands run hot, so a dough of this type is not my forte.

To start, you need to de-bone the duck by making an incision down the back and not break the skin anywhere else.

As you are de-boning the duck, it is important to leave as much of the meat from it still attached to the skin.

This is not as hard as it sounds.  Be careful and go slow.  This is not a recipe for someone in a hurry.

After the rib cage has been separated on the back, cut through the hip and wing joints to remove them from the ribs and body sections.

Carefully cut between the ribs and the breast meat, again leaving the meat with the skin.  The most challenging part of this is to cut the keel bone from the skin without breaking the skin.  Go slow, you'll get there.

Next de-bone the legs by cutting right next to the bone on the thigh and then the drum.  It helps to scrape the bone in the drum to separate the meat from the bone.

Debone the wing in the same fashion except stop after the upper bone and cut the rest off the body.  There isn't much meat on the rest of the wing and not worth the time and hassle.

Once the bones are removed, set the skin/meat aside.

Next we start the sausage for the filling.  We need minced shallots and onions.

Saute them with some butter until just translucent, give them a little bit of cognac, burn off the alcohol and set aside to cool.  

Grind the pork and veal and season as called for in the recipe.  This will make the farce, or force meat with which you will stuff the final product.

Combine the ground meat and the seasonings.  Take a small tester from the batch and cook it.  This will let you know what your final product will taste like.  It would be a shame to go through all this work and have a bland dish!

Once the force meat has been completed, cut away some of the meat from the skin and dice.  This will be the garnish of the filling.

Mix the garnish into the filling, form it into a sort of loaf shape and wrap the skin around it.

Truss the body and sear it in a pan until brown on all sides.  

Refrigerate over night.

Make the dough in the method the recipe explains.

Roll out about two thirds of the dough into a large oval.

Form it around the duck with the breast side up.  It is important to leave the trussing string on the body, it will be removed later.

Roll the rest of the dough into an oval.  This will be smaller than the first, but will also have more than you need.

Cut the oval down to a size that will cover the exposed portion of the duck while overlapping the bottom dough by about 1/2 inch.  

Seal the two halves of the dough with a whipped egg painted around the edge of the bottom half of the dough.  You won’t need much egg to seal the dough pieces but you will need the rest of the egg later so save it in the refrigerator.

Cut a small hole in the top of the dough and make a small funnel from aluminum foil.  This will act as a chimney to allow steam to escape from the duck as it cooks.

Use the left over pieces of dough to decorate the duck.  I tried to make mine just like the drawings in the book, but use your imagination, decorate as you wish.  

Don’t forget to egg wash your masterpiece as this will give it a brilliant, golden finish

The next step is to bake the dish.

Place the duck into a 375F oven and let it roll.  It will bake for about two hours.

When the dish is done, internal temperature of 170F has been reached, remove from the oven and let it rest for 20-30 minutes.

Cut along the seam of the top and bottom dough, remove the duck and cut off the string.

Return the duck to the dough, replace the top and slice for service.  

The "wow factor" on this one is amazing and the dish is delicious!

If you make this one, send me a note and let me know how it went.  

Easy Home-made Ham

When I was a child, my best friend lived next door.  His name was Danny Shapiro.

I think about Danny frequently although I have not seen him since we were 13 and I attended his Bar Mitzvah.  That was about 34 years ago.

Danny and I did everything together which in retrospect didn't mean much since I moved away when I was seven. We played in the sandbox, played with my family's dog, played "cowboys and Indians" etc.  It was a great time.

Danny was also often at my house when lunch time came about, I don't remember this, but my mother tells me that she would ask "What would you like for lunch today Danny?"  To which he would invariably reply "Mrs Hart, have you got any ham?"  As Danny's family was Jewish, and my mother being a good neighbor would dutifully respond, "I'm sorry Danny, but we don't have any ham today, what else would you like for lunch?"

I don't know where Danny had been exposed to ham, but he must have dearly loved it.

I confess that I don't blame him.

I have been making ham for my family for four or five years now, and had the luck to get a whole hog leg the other day at a really wonderful price!  So I decided that now was the time to make some ham.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a particular affinity for all things that come from what I call the "heavenly hog"!  Oh, I do love what can be made with this very versatile animal.

Since I have never butchered a hog's leg before, this seemed like a wonderful opportunity for me to learn and teach at the same time. 

Let's begin.

For this to turn out well you will need:

A good boning knife

A large container (a sanitized plastic bucket or stock pot) that will hold the brine and the meat.

A baster that has an attachable needle for injecting the brine into the pieces of pork.

A couple of days of patience.

I have a 23 pound leg with which to start.

The first step is to make your brine.  Yes this comes before the butchering process of the leg.  This way, your soon to be hams will start brining now rather than several hours later once the brine has cooled.

Here is my recipe:

5 Qts Water

3 C Kosher Salt

3 C Granulated Sugar

1 C Brown Sugar

5-10 Peppercorns

Once you have combined all of the ingredients, bring them to a boil, turn off the heat and let them come to room temperature.  All of the granules of salt and sugar should have  been incorporated into solution at this time.  I usually do this the day before so that I don't have to wait for it to cool.

The first task for me today after the brine is made is to remove the skin.  

The goal here is to remove the skin while leaving all of the fat on the leg.  The fat will be trimmed down later once we can get a better look at the meat we have to make our ham.

I don't plan on making one ham from this leg, but several.  Better for the rate that my family will consume them, and for ease in brining and storage.

The next step that I need to take care of is the removal of the leg bones.  It is important to remove these from the ham is to make sure that you don't experience "bone rot", the single most expensive mishap that can occur when making ham.

If you leave the bone in, you are opening yourself up to the potential of losing all of your work!  This is one of the biggest reasons that ham is expensive.  I have been told that the losses due to bone rot are very substantial in the ham trade, maybe 20% of all hams world wide is discarded due to bone rot.

The way I look at it is this:  If the experts have trouble with it, I as an amateur am going to do everything I can to avoid it.  So the bone goes.  And my dog is very happy.

I start on the "inside" of the leg and cut upwards from the bottom following the bone closely.  Go as slowly as you are comfortable here, I did as I am not familiar with the leg bones of a hogs leg.

Well, now I am.

Once the leg is de-skinned and de-boned, place it so that the "inside" of the leg is on top and start looking for the natural muscle separations.  That is the places where the muscles differentiate themselves from those next to them.

Also at this time I remove any excess fat that I do not want to be included in the final product.  When I am done, the leg will look like this:

They present themselves quite clearly, what you are looking for are breaks in the muscle where when pulled slightly apart, the muscle seems to separate easily with a small amount of connective tissue.

The pieces that I am talking about will have varying sizes and shapes, the idea is to get the ham into sizes that are approximately similar.  I was not necessarily able to get consistent sizes, but it will not affect my hams.

I ended up with two larger hams, a medium one and two small guys.  This will not present much of a problem with the brining, but when I cook them and smoke them, it is important to track them separately.

Once the leg has been broken down, truss the pieces and drop them into the brine. Here is a video showing how to truss a piece of meat.  This method will work for most cuts of meat, but not for poultry, that is a different process (more on that another day).  

While the soon to be hams are in the brine, inject them with some of the brine into the interior of the meat.  This is why a baster with a needle attachment is so helpful.  It is important to make sure you do this as evenly as you can as this will affect your final product.

I let the pieces rest in the brine for 5-6 days.  I also go back in to  re-inject hams with the brine again about three days in.  More to cover my bases than for any other reason.  This is especially important with the larger pieces.

Now I deviated from my past ham making process.  

I poached the hams in their brining liquid on the stove until they have an internal temperature of 140F and then pulled them in order to smoke them.  I also have several shapes and sizes of hams working so I checked each of them several times with a good digital thermometer.

A note about thermometers.  I feel it is good idea to get a digital thermometer.  A good one can be had for about $20 and will last years while giving you accurate readings.

Once they have reached the correct internal temperature, pull them from the brine and let them cool.

The last part is to smoke the hams.  This part is really unnecessary if you are happy with the hams after the poaching is complete.  I love smoked meats so this is part of the payoff for me.

I ran out of time the day I poached the ham so I individually wrapped them and refrigerated them for smoking the next day.

The next morning I fired up my new smoker and placed the hams (5) on the shelves and cold smoked them with mesquite for about 4-5 hours.  I was looking for color and flavor from the smoker since the meat was already cooked. 

If you want to skip the smoking process, or don't have a smoker, you can stop after the poaching as these hams are ready to eat.  I just really like the flavor of smoked meats, so I smoke all of my hams.

The final product was wonderful!  For dinner that night we had homemade ham with a white bean and braised greens soup and my wife's gluten free corn bread.  

A perfect homemade meal.