Quack Quack!

This just in: Duck fat makes anything and everything completely amazing! Or, to be more precise: amaaaaazing!

Eggplant and her Sweet Pea gave me their tried and true mushroom and leek risotto recipe almost a year ago and I have since made it about 20 times, often with slight variations.  A couple of nights ago I made it again to nothing less than the utter the triumph I have come to expect when following this recipe.  This time, I used duck fat along with the olive oil, and stock saved from the duck I roasted for my Urban Family Christmas in late December last year.  

Just smelling the stock took me back to that night – my first home roasted duck and a fantastically fun evening. Tasting the finished risotto led to eyes rolling back in head, swiftly followed by second servings.  The risotto is always delish but using homemade duck stock over carton chicken stock raises it to another level entirely.

Fennel Finally Writes A Post!

I actually wrote this post out a few hours ago only to have it disappear just as I tried to publish it.  Unfortunately, this version probably pales in comparison to my breath-stealing, knee-weakening, astoundingly amazing first draft so the world will never know what genius has been lost. Never mind.

I'm here to talk about fish, and my exciting double-meal-same-ingredient cooking experience. Cookies-and-Cream* and I decided to cook "a whole fish" (ie with the eyes and tail etc still attached) the other day.  While we were standing at the counter at our local fishmonger, we got chatting to a fellow customer who told us her favourite fish to cook was the rainbow trout we were in the process of purchasing. We asked for some tips on what to do with it and she told us not to go overboard with added flavours, and to "listen to the fish".

Back at home, the fish didn't seem in the mood for talking so we covered it in fresh parsley and dill, wrapped it in foil and popped it into the oven.  Meanwhile, I boiled some potatoes and covered them with butter and dill, and made the simplest, sexiest salad known to humankind: tomatoes, basil and bocconcini cheese.  The trout was delicious: a strongly flavoured creamy yet fresh flesh, kind of like the nautical equivalent of Swiss Brown mushrooms.

The next day I made a stock using the odds and sods of the fish, lots of fresh basil, parsley and dill, and all the slightly sad and wan looking vegetables left over from the week.  This happened to be: French shallot, fennel, and purple and orange carrots.  I just love making stock from scratch as it makes me feel like the craftiest, frugal-iest Earth Mother on the block.  Having never made fish stock before I was really pleased with how it turned out.  I now have 5 cups of lovely, purply, slightly sweet stock in the freezer waiting to be used at some point in the future.