For this challenge, I chose a dish I’ve never eaten and never attempted before–Zhangcha or tea-smoked duck.  In addition to being part of a cuisine that I’m not comfortable with, I’m cooking with an ingredient that I’ve only used once or twice before–duck.  Duck has beautiful, richly flavorful meat, and it offers up a large amount of one of the best cooking fats available.  You can’t just roast it like a chicken, though.  Almost all the meat in a duck is dark meat (including the breast) because unlike chickens, ducks actually use most of their muscles.  With all the fat and all-over dark meat, it takes a little extra care to cook duck properly.

At some point I made an impulse purchase at the farmers’ market of a local, pasture-raised duck.  I had no specific plans with it (since I don’t cook duck), so it sat in my freezer for… well… longer than it should have.  I pulled it out for this challenge and saw that unlike typical farm-raised birds fed plenty of grains, this bird was relatively lean.  I cut off all the usual pieces, reserving the extra skin and fatty bits for the rendering pot.  The wings and the rest of the bones went to making a simple duck stock.  Since I was just going to use the breasts for this dish, the legs and thighs were rubbed with spices and are, as I type this, on their way to succulent confit deliciousness.

In preparing for the smoking, I rubbed the duck breasts with salt and ground Szechuan peppercorns.  I wanted to let the duck breast’s flavor come through, so I didn’t add some of the additions I saw in other online recipes like garlic, or Shiaoxing wine.  The various recipes I found differed on the initial preparation of the duck, whether it was steamed, dipped in boiling water, or rendered in a hot pan.  Since I was just going for a couple of pieces instead of a whole duck, I opted to score the skin and render off most of the fat.

After letting the fat render out and seeing the skin brown, it already looked delicious, but we must continue to the smoking.  I don’t have a wok, so I lined a pot with heavy-duty foil and mixed lapsang souchong (a campfire-smoky black tea), pu-er (an earthy, aged tea), raw rice, and brown sugar.  This tea mixture went at the bottom, covered by a steamer basket.  The duck went in, skin side up, and I covered the pot.  Over medium-high heat, I let it heat up until I saw wisps of smoke coming out.  The aromas in the kitchen at this point were mouth-watering.  After 10 minutes of cooking, I turned the heat off to let the duck continue to absorb some of the smoky flavor still remaining inside.

I wanted to serve it very simply, so I stir-fried some rice noodles in some of the rendered duck fat with garlic and a sprinkle of Szechuan peppercorns.  A tiny drizzle of sesame oil added a nutty element to the noodles.  Biting into the duck, the flavor was more delicate than I expected, but you could taste the tea, the peppercorns, and a hint of smoky sweetness.  The meat was tender and moist, the skin could have been rendered a bit more, or perhaps would be better if I crisped it up after the smoking.

This is a technique that I’d like to use again.  With the foil in place, cleanup of the smoking equipment is easy.  Perhaps I could tea-smoke some pork cheeks, strips of marinated beef, or maybe chicken thighs?  Trying different types of smoking materials would be interesting too.  I’m still waiting for the confit to be finished–the smell from the oven is amazing.  Even if I don’t buy duck again soon, I have a couple quarts of duck stock and more than 8 ounces of duck fat just waiting to be used in the best home-fries ever.

If you’d like to help me out, voting for this round starts Monday morning (6AM PDT 9/27).  Click my Project Food Blog widget on the right, or, once the voting starts, you can probably click this link to get to the voting page.

Image from Flatlander Fund

I’m really excited about this event, in part because I’m in charge of the food!  In collaboration with the Dine in My Back Yard group (which Dan helped to start), we’ll be preparing a number of delicious Spanish & Latina dishes from fresh, local ingredients.  I hope this is a gateway to more tasty events held not only to raise money for a good cause (in this case, the Flatlander Fund), but to offer great food from the best ingredients.

Here are all the details on the upcoming event.

On Sunday, August 29 from 6-9PM the Corkscrew Wine Emporium will host a fundraising dinner in their new Buvons Wine Bar to support Dan Schreiber’s dream of a community kitchen for Champaign-Urbana. The event will feature a 3-course gourmet dinner with wine pairing. Tickets are $100/person and seating is limited. For reservations, contact Laura at 217-778-1687 or donate@flatlanderfund.org. Dinner payments can be made online here (put “dinner” in the memo line, please) or by mailing a check to Prairie Table/Flatlander Fund, 201 W. Green, Urbana, IL 61801. Click here for more details, the menu, and to read more about the Flatlander Fund.

We headed out west, about 15 minutes from Fargo, to Casselton, ND.  While speeding along, we saw some plane doing maneuvers over the highway and adjacent fields.  It wasn’t crop-dusting, but flew what appeared to be maybe 10 feet from the ground and then climbed rapidly as it approached the highway.  Megan snapped this picture from the passenger seat.  I have no idea what this plane’s purpose was… maybe just having fun flying around on a beautiful North Dakota day?

We pulled in to historic downtown Casselton, home of the world’s largest can pile.  This thing is a towering 45 feet of old oil cans.  We didn’t get a picture, since it’s set back from the road and we had no idea what it was at the time.  Go to the site and learn all about its almost 80 years of history.

We pulled into some parking spaces outside of what ended up being the location of Maple River’s offices and retail operation.  Inside the small storefront was a single employee (maybe another in the back?) who greeted us warmly.  Along with their wines, they also sell a wide range of local products, including jams, jellies, honey, and all sorts of pickled things (we picked up some spicy pickled quail eggs).  We introduced ourselves and embarked on a tasting of most of the wines they produce.

Maple River specializes in fruit wines.  In fact, they only make one wine with grapes.  I’ve been consistently disappointed (and often disgusted) by fruit wines in the past, so I braced myself for the first taste.  Instead of cloying, sticky-sweet juice, it really was wine.  Yes, almost all of their wines are “sweet,” but by using great, local fruit and natural ingredients like honey, they achieve the complexity and maturity that other fruit wines seem to avoid.

Regarding their fruit, their rule is that 90% of their ingredients have to come from within 90 miles of the winery.  Their honey is locally produced, and they get a wide range of fruits from North Dakota and Minnesota, like mango melons, chokecherries (the North Dakota state fruit), and rhubarb (which I guess is a vegetable).  I asked about their production schedule, since their growing season is shorter than ours.  He said they freeze everything when it comes in, and that way they are able to produce wine all year long.  I don’t recall how many fermentation tanks they have, but it was a much larger operation than I expected.

But back to the wines!  We tasted everything, from the aforementioned chokecherry wine, to elderberry (one of my favorites).  They have some unique selections as well, including pumpkin wine, dandelion wine and lilac wine.  If you could imagine a wine tasting like the aroma of lilacs… amazing.  They do strawberry and raspberry wines that have the rich, deep flavor of the ripest berries.  They have so many more on their site with very well-written descriptions, and they do ship their wines if you are so intrigued.  We brought home a great selection, but this is a winery we’ll keep in the back of our minds for when we want something delicious and unique.

You may remember mention of the Maple River rhubarb vodka in the cat’s meow cocktail in the HoDo Lounge in the previous Fargo post.  Well, a couple doors down from the winery is the Maple River Distillery.  It’s a bit more sparse and the selection is smaller, but then again they just opened the distillery in December, 2009.  We didn’t go through a tasting, but we picked up a bottle of chokecherry brandy and their rhubarb vodka.  They also make some cordials, but we opted to not pick up any.  Sadly they don’t/can’t ship their spirits to individuals outside North Dakota, but you may be able to convince a local liquor store to order some in for you.

If you find some rhubarb vodka, here are some suggestions.

Go the strawberry rhubarb route:

• 2 oz. rhubarb vodka
• .5 oz. strawberry schnapps
• .75 oz. ginger-infused simple syrup
• juice from 1/2 lime

Stir everything together with plenty of ice, or shake and strain into a cocktail glass.

Our attempt at reproducing the cat’s meow had something like

• 2 oz. rhubarb vodka
• 1 oz. ginger-infused simple syrup
• orange juice, to fill

Fill a rocks glass with ice, add vodka and syrup, then top off with orange juice.  Roll the drink, or shake briefly, just enough to mix.

While at Maple River, we were also told about another drink that wasn’t on the HoDo menu.  It was called the Rubix cube (maybe Rhubix cube?).  We haven’t tried to replicate it, but it’s also made with the rhubarb vodka, some ginger ale, and strawberry-rhubarb ice cubes.  It was good, that’s all I remember.

yogurt, miso porridge

Think about the foods you love and think about how they’re made.  If you’ve read Michael Pollan’s  you will already understand the difference between how modern versions of old foods like yogurt are different from what our (great-)grandparents ate.  Modern products labeled as yogurt are often made “yogurt-like” with additives that add texture or mouth-feel and flavored with artificial flavors and too much sugar.  Fat-free yogurt is a poor attempt at latching onto the public’s fear of fat, and doesn’t behave the same as the real thing.  Real yogurt, made from raw milk and natural bacterial cultures is good stuff.  There are even different types of cultures that can be used to make everything from watery to stiff yogurt to a slimy, mucus-y substance like the Nordic specialty, viili.  There’s a video showing what the texture is like… watch it if you dare.

chorizo (front L), salami (front R), sauerkraut (rear R)

The whole premise of this tasting event was to take a trip back a thousand years or so to taste foods made in traditional ways.  There was homemade miso, with some mixed into a porridge.  I really liked how the funky umami flavor of the miso dispersed into the creamy porridge.

There were two sauerkrauts on the table, provided by Dan H. Schreiber.  One was a plain cabbage sauerkraut (which I, regrettably, didn’t try) and another one made with mostly white cabbage but colored deeply with beets.  Sauerkraut is often made with unnecessary additives, rendering it much less healthful than the original fermented formulation of cabbage and salt.  Dan’s is all-natural and tasted fresh and still crunchy.  Sure it was sour from lactic fermentation, but it was a wonderful flavor unlike any sauerkraut I’ve had before.

The meats were, of course, provided by the masterful meat manipulator, Laurence, of This Little Piggy fame.  The chorizo was a solid interpretation of the Spanish cured meat, but the salami was my favorite.  I was told it was a fennel salami, but the peppercorns in it gave little bursts of peppery kick when you met one.  It’s the kind of salami I could munch on all night.

raw milk, scary!

Then there were the dairy products.  This is where the crazy regulators get all antsy in their seats just wishing they could barge in the door and tell us how un-pasteurized milk is dangerous stuff and pour bleach all over everything in sight.  Fortunately this is purchased directly from a farmer who cares about preserving the 1000 year old food that comes out of his cows’ udders.  I was able to advocate for raw milk that night, convincing another attendee that she could drink raw milk just fine, despite her lactose intolerance.  You see, raw milk still has all the stuff that is needed to digest it, including some bacteria and enzymes like lactase (which is what LI folks can’t produce enough of).  I was really happy with the milk, and will definitely be obtaining some in the future.

raw milk cheddar

The other delightfully raw dairy came in the form of a raw milk cheese made by the same aforementioned farmer.  It was a cheddar style, and was by no means a refined, commercial product.  I imagine this is cheese that he makes with extra milk he has for his family to enjoy.  With some age, maybe heavier salting, this could be great cheese.  As it was, it was amazingly light from lack of age, but the flavor of the milk was concentrated.

There are no pictures of it here, but there was a selection of Dan’s chocolate as well as a mint fudge prepared by his business partner, Bill.  If you haven’t heard, Dan is already in the process of finding the right equipment and the right space to start up his own micro- (nano-?) chocolate factory right here in Urbana.  He’s already started making certified (i.e. by the health department, so he can sell it in retail stores) chocolate, drawn up business plans, and by the time I’m writing this who knows what else he’s accomplished?  Keep an eye on his blog to find out all the latest.  Congrats Dan on all that you’ve accomplished so far, and all the success that is sure to come!

This event was “sponsored”, supported, and publicized by the newly resurrected Prairie Table organization.  Prairie Table plans on holding more events like these, tasting excellent locally available products, as well as many other community-building opportunities.  I am already involved with them and hope to be a part of bringing more local food opportunities to the community.  If you’re in the Central Illinois area and are interested in hearing more, go to the website and look around.

EDIT: Of course there are so many things that I’ve nearly forgotten, like home-brewed beer (the stout was tasty).  If anyone in attendance remembers something I didn’t, please let me know!

Today, though, I’d urge you to watch a short video on Mike’s “Rules for Better Dining”.  One that I agree with quite strongly is the last one:

Mike G’s Healthy Eating Advice.

“If you’re going to eat something bad for you, make sure it’s really good”

Mike G’s Rules for Better Dining from Michael Gebert on Vimeo.

Oh yeah, and in the wake of my lunch yesterday with Dan “the Chocolate Man” Schreiber, I’ll be finishing out my chocolate series that I’ve been neglecting for far too long.  I’ll have posts on tempering & molding, churros con chocolate, and another artisan chocolate maker I was lucky enough to sample.