duck and pasta salad

The idea is chicken salad substituting duck and including pasta. Penne pasta specifically. Alas, for I am penne pasta-less. It would have been all so simple, but now I must make my own extruded pasta. These are not proper penne because they are not cut off at an angle, rather the extrusion plate was used as a guide to slash them as they exited without fussing over the angle. You can see how points would assist in directing sauce inside the pasta, but these will not have points and so will not have that advantage. Too bad. 

The close up is showing salt and pepper (but not the mixed Italian herbs) included with the dry pasta dough. The closeup is included for 

ART.

Those additions are non-traditional with pasta. Usually no seasonings are added at all. But I do like to overdo things when possible. 

There were two setbacks. The fist disc chosen was too small. It would produce macaroni and cheese size pasta. This was apparent immediately so the disc was switched out.  

It turned out the mixture was too dry. The aim was for a dry mixture because the penne were to air-dry quickly and because collapsing is undesirable as is sealing shut when the penne is cut from the extruder, and because a machine all gummed up with wet dough is a drag. But the first mixture was too dry and the machine bogged down, making it impossible to extrude smoothly. The mixture was moistened. It was also expanded to nearly double the original amount. The Cuisinart was brought out to do these corrections as the first mixture would do best reduced to uniform crumbliness and to have the additions processed completely and evenly into it with no doughy unmixed clumps. Water was drizzled into the feed tube and checked repeatedly until the desired moisture was attained as if starting with fresh dry flour and semolina. The second mixture was still dry and crumbly, but not quite as dry as the first one. 

The extrusion disc was switched to the large size.

The four holes in the disc on the left are dough intake holes. The central post of that disc fits into the central hole in the second disc. The two discs are held in place with a tiny space between them  by two smaller posts and holes on their edges. When dough is pushed through the four holes (screwed through, actually) it is then forced into a the narrow gap surrounding the central post and then out the hole, but the hole is mostly plugged by the central post, but not entirely, so a tube of pasta is squished out around the post. 

Whoever invented this is obviously a perv. 

The pasta tube is one long continuous tube that is cut into segments, their length determined by the sous-chef (moi) who is standing right there, feeding the grinder screw from the top and behind all of this, and simultaneously nicking off pasta tube segments. It takes some eye-hand coordination, and some measure of care that one doesn't harm oneself with the knife, which must be sharp in order to make clean cuts. Otherwise the knife would seal the pasta tubes as it cut them. The whole thing is such fun. Kind of like a Play-Doh factory, except you get to use a really sharp knife, and you can eat the result. 

So there's that. 

Now it must dry. Well, it doesn't have to dry, I mean, it's not a requirement. The thing is, this pasta is intended for a sturdy salad and I would prefer this pasta to be al dente so that means it must dry first. Luckily, I live in a near desert. 

BUT WAIT!  This pasta must be tested. Wouldn't do to go off drying untested pasta, now would it? 

Nyom nyom nyom nyum nyom *smacks lips* nyum nyum nom nom nyom *licks fingers* nyom, nyom nyom, num num BURP!  Num nyom, *wipes lips with back of hand* nyum nym nom nom nyum. What?  

Nyom nyom nyom nyum nyom, hang on, nyom nyom nyom yom, I'm getting there, nyom nyom yom nyom nyom. Okay, I'm almost done testing, nyom nyom nyom. 

Yes, that'll do. 

Mayonnaise is prepared the usual way, this time with one egg yolk and olive oil, a hefty amount of mustard and a drizzle of rice vinegar. S/P, plus a little sugar. No garlic and no ginger, or any other seasoning, flavored oil, allium, or chile, 

ARTS !

Fennel, tomato, celery, pickle relish, sweet onion

1/2 small tin jalapeño opened earlier. I debated whether or not to include it, then finally decided that I do like chile in pretty much everything. I was disappointed that it cannot even be tasted. Wut up wi'dat? That impels me to put another form of chile in the remainder. 

This is the last of the duck prepared for Christmas. All that remains is the broth, which is delicious, and about 1/2 cup of the rendered fat. 

duck

One of the wings was clipped, the other one wasn't. Carelessness, or what? Trussed to force the breast upward on the other side, once the body is inverted breast-side up. Otherwise the body splays out flatly.  Much like young females gamely pop up their perky firm little breasts by thrusting back their shoulders. What? Look, I have two sisters, ah'ight? I've seen them in action. They taught me, by observation, much of what I know. 

Not shown: bacon cut into pieces and rendered for its fat, which come to think of it seems kind of odd considering the duck is releasing its own delicious and useful fat by the cup while this is going on. The bacon is held separately and the fat used to cook the cleaned collard greens which were trimmed of their central rib individually.  A small amount of water was added to the pot, approximately 1/2 cup, and the lid placed on the pot, which happened to be a pressure cooker. Not necessary, but it does work admirably to soften the resistant greens. The cooker is cooled and opened, and used again for the Brussels sprouts, also otherwise somewhat recalcitrant. 

The thing about pressure cookers is that it allows water to get much hotter than its limitation at sea level, which is even more severe at altitude. Putting water to pressure with heat is like boiling water at 17,000 ft. below sea level, over three miles. Isn't that fun? 

So it only takes a minute to put on some serious damage. 

The seeds are beaten out of the pomegranate. That's fun too. See all the splatter marks on the bowl. The pomegranate half is held over the bowl and it is struck on its backside repeatedly with a wooden spoon until all the seeds come flying out with not a small amount of force. 

Charles Dickens put me in the mood for goose. I never cooked a goose before. The frozen geese at the market are presently priced at $60.00 a pop. Right next to them are ducks priced at $16.00. The geese are larger than the ducks, yes, but they are not 4 X larger. Frankly, I do not understand the difference between them. Maybe the difference is significant and  sufficient to justify the cost. I do not know. I thought it best for now to practice with a duck. 

<anecdote alert>

Canadian geese used to land by the thousands at a small lake directly behind my parents home at the foothills of the Colorado Rockies, God's own country. They call them foothills here, piedmonts everywhere else, the same thing different language.

My brother had my German Shepherd with him on a hike out there beyond the lake. The dog, always up for a good run, was perhaps one of the most interactive companion K-9s a boy could ever ask, if not always the most reliably obedient. The dog raced ahead of my brother and sent up an entire flock of Canadian Geese by the hundreds all at once. Some are slower to flight than others. Pilots will tell you getting airborne at altitude is different than at sea level because the air is less dense, and you do need air flowing over and under the wing to get up. It is especially difficult on hot days during periods of low pressure. Birds, of course, experience something similar to airplanes. They can flap their asses off and get nowhere if the air is insufficiently dense to lift themselves off the ground. In the least it is more difficult. You see where this is going. 

The dog leapt into the air spectacularly and pulled down a goose by the foot and triumphantly killed it. My brother nearly pissed himself and they sped home, terrified the dog had done something regretfully illegal for which there would be consequence but unabashedly proud of the dog's remarkable athletic eclat. The dog, always happy no matter what, could not comprehend why we wouldn't keep the prize, and thinking back on it, neither do I.  

</anecdote alert>

duck

Teal.

They're small.

Ha ha ha. Just kidding. They're small, but not that small. Aren't they cute?

I asked you a question! Aren't they cute?

Two friends, who for security reasons must remain nameless but whose initials are Bill Matlock and Randy Beineke ... oops.  Goddamnit  ... gave me a veritable meat locker full of wild game. 

My impulse is to smoke the duck, but alas, I am smokerless. My second impulse is to roast them elevated above a grille, but alas, I am barbequeless. Therefore, I baked them for 35 minutes on high. Thawed, the duck has a strong game aroma that fills the entire kitchen with an intimidating scent of wild game. I wondered how I might complement that without conflicting or destroying it. I meditated on this, opening my mind and allowing thoughts to free-associate without pushing them, to fly around my head in and out, bouncing around my cranium, which for me is surprisingly easy to do.  

Ooooooouuummmm. Ooooooouuummmm. Ooooooouuummmm. ding.

Honey.

Honey and habanero flakes.

No salt, no pepper, no wine, no herbs de provence, no italian spices, no proprietary blends, no curry, no sauce, no marinade,  just honey for sweetness, and habanero flakes for POW, careful not to overdo it with either, especially the pow.  

The lettuce and the vegetables were lightly sprinkled with rice vinegar then drizzled with duck fat. See? oil + vinegar.

Was it good?

Yes. Very. They are so good I must give them a name.  I will call them Canard au miel et habanero chile, then again maybe I'll settle for Teal and honey. They were this VVV good.



I sucked those tiny bones like an artist at bone-sucking. But now, I am sad. I had to brush my teeth and floss to get the duck bits out that were stuck in there from scraping this carcass so voraciously like an untamed animal and now the wonderful flavor of duck has been displaced by the less wonderful taste of Crest™. 

:-(

I noticed in the mirror the whole bottom of my face was smudged with grease. I'm a dog.