Lucky Ducky

Duck with Chestnuts

After making pot roast for Christmas, was it any surprise that when I looked through my lovely new Mrs Handy, that I was immediately drawn to this Duck Pot Roast recipe?

I had a special occasion coming up, too. Some friends and I take turns hosting dinner. We each bring a dish, but it's not quite pot luck since we assign the dishes to be made in advance. Anyway, it was my turn to play host. What better to bring to a “pot luck”, I reasoned, than a pot roast? And I'd been dying to try my hand at cooking a whole duck.

I'm delighted to say that it went rather well. The duck was moist, juicy and the chestnuts were soft and tasty.  I'm pleased to say that the chestnuts were  my addition to the recipe.  They do add to the labour of making the dish though.  Whilst partially shelled, removing the rest of the shell and the outer skin of what must have been around 30 chestnuts took me about an hour. So feel free to drop the chestnuts if you wish.

Ingredients
1 whole duck (mine was approx 2.7kg and cost me $22)
2 tablespoons roasted coriander, finely pounded
1 teaspoon black peppercorns, finely pounded
1 dessertspoon sugar
Salt (to taste)
2-4 tablespoons thick soy sauce

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 shallots
2 teacups water
1 stick cinnamon
3-4 cloves

(Could add star anise as well, but I stuck to the recipe and didn't try this out).

300g chestnuts (boil  for about 20min or so, remove shell and skin)

Directions
1.  Rub the ground ingredients over the duck, together with the sugar, salt and soy sauce.

2.  Use a large, heavy bottomed pot.  Fry the onions in the oil till soft.  Add the duck, and fry till browned.  Add the spices, chestnuts and the water.  Cover the pot and cook.  Check the duck and turn over in the course of cooking.

3.  The duck should be cooked after about 1-1.5 hours. Remove duck and chestnuts, pour gravy in separate jug. Skim off the fat, and add the remaining gravy to the duck and chestnuts. (Be sure to keep the fat though. To use for cooking other dishes).

Propping me up for the past three years

My Ikea shelf brackets hold up my beading frame

When I visited the Pinang Peranakan Mansion, one thing that caught my eye was the beading stand which young nonyas used to prop their beading frames on. Alas, such beautiful antique pieces are not easily found and in any case, are pretty pricey. So when I wanted to find something to prop up myown beading frame, I had to find an alternative. Ikea to the rescue! Two wall shelf brackets (the same colour as my beading frame) did the trick nicely and have been serving me well ever since. With a light shining right on the frame, it is quite an ideal beading set-up (see left).  By the way, the reason why the surroundings look a little dark is probably  due to the camera exposure.  It is actually taken in the light of day.

After 3 years....

 Anyway, six months have rolled around again and it's time for my regular update. It's my third year on this single pair of shoes and I am happy to say that the top halves of both shoes are complete now, and the right shoe is slowly catching up with the left. The cloud pattern is showing up quite nicely, I think.

On hindsight, maybe I should not have made such large shoes. I'd be that much closer to finishing them off, more encouraging for a beginner like myself.

Three year beading history here.

In the Pot

The thing about me and cookbooks is this:  I tend to have favourites - there are some recipes I will cook repeatedly, and others will remain uncooked forever.  I would really not be able to do a Julie/Julia thing and cook every recipe in a cookbook.  And so it is that the Pot Roast in "Robin's Eurasian Recipes" has indeed become one of my favourite recipes.  It's easy to cook, and the smell of the onion gravy filling the house in the process is absolutely heavenly.  I brought it for my extended family's annual Christmas eve dinner, and so thought it was timely to share it now.

Before I go on, a little about the book itself.  Robin is the father of Quentin Pereira, whose restaurant "Quentin's" is one of the few truly authentic Eurasian restaurants in Singapore.  Quentin's used to be on East Coast Road (see my earlier post) but has since moved to the Eurasian Association Clubhouse in Ceylon Road.  The menu is based on the recipes in this book (including this Pot Roast recipe - after eating it, had to make it!).

There's one thing about this dish though.  It is indeed heavy on onions - which means, that much time and tears are spent peeling the shallots.  Still, no pain, no gain. My mother makes it with fewer onions, but adds a mirepoix of celery, onions and carrots instead.  I prefer the oniony version (because of the wonderful aroma mentioned earlier).  But we both add cinnamon, cloves and star anise, which was not in the original recipe.  Anyway, here it is - my slightly modified version of Robin's Pot Roast recipe:

Pot Roast, covered with onions

Ingredients:

1.5-2kg beef (I use shin)

1 medium onino, sliced

5-6 carrots, chunked

4-5 medium potatoes, quartered

2packets fresh button mushrooms 

2 beef stock cubes (I've used 1 beef and 1 mushroom instead)

2 tbsp ground pepper corns

1 litre water

1 stick cinnamon

3-4 cloves

2 star anise

(Blend together)

20 shallots (or 5 medium-sized onions)

6 tbspdark soy sauce

2 tbsp pepper

2 tbsp sugar

Directions

1.  Marinate the chunk of beef in 10 tablespoons of the blended mixture, for about an hour.

2.  Fry the marinated beef in a pot, to brown.  Remove from heat and set aside.  

3.  Fry the onions till soft.  Add the rest of the blended mixture (including any remaining marinade) till fragrant.  Add the water (should not be too much, just enough to generate steam to cook the beef), beef stock and peppercorns.  Heat till it reaches a boil.

4.  Add the beef, and cook for 1.5 hours, till soft.  (Alternatively, pressure cook for half an hour).  Add the  carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms.  Cook till the carrots/potatoes are soft.  

5.  When the beef has cooled, remove and slice thinly.  Place in serving dish,and add the vegetables and gravy.  Can serve with some nice French baguettes, but my preference is to eat with sambal belacan and rice.

My Own Ellice Handy

Elsewhere in this blog, I have made reference to the excellent Mrs Handy's cookbook, "My Favourite Recipes". My grandmother has a copy of the first edition, my mother swears by her second edition. And me? I am glad to say that I got my copy of the fourth edition, as a Christmas gift. It's a beautiful hardback book, with the introduction from Mrs Handy and an additional background note about her life.

Where the original only contained the written recipes, this version includes photos, additional mouthwatering incentive to try out the recipes. The recipes include not just the imperial measurements (the complaint of an earlier post) but handy conversions to metric measurements (pun intended).

I am looking forward to trying out my first recipe from this new cookbook :-)

(Mrs Handy's "My Favourite Recipes" is available from major bookstores.  Or you can, as suggested in a comment on my blog, write to sallych@landmarkbooks.com.sg to place an order.)

Penang Roots

I had the pleasure recently of returning to Penang together with my extended family, to visit relativees there.  I had  earlier written about my previous visit to Penang.  This time around, our extended family trip made it easier for my cousin and I to get in touch with our Penang relatives.

My great-great grandparents
and my great-grandfather (on the right)

It was also a good opportunity for me to find out more about my paternal  grandmother and her family. According to family lore, it was my great-great-great grandfather who came to Penang.  His portrait hangs in the family home, dressed in the robes of a Mandarin.  His son, my great-great-grandfather, had a few children.  How many, I am not sure - but this photo (on the left) shows my great-great-grandparents with two of their sons - one of whom was my great-grandfather.  His  daughter would become my grandmother.  (Incidentally, the photo in the picture is actually a replica of the original - why it is relatively unfaded still.  The original, much  faded, is displayed opposite to this replica.) My great-great grandparents also had (at least) one daughter.  She would become my paternal grandfather's mother - as mentioned previously, my paternal grandparents were first cousins.

Front door

My great-grandfather married a KL girl.  She had three children, one boy and two girls.  But sadly, he died young, leaving his wife to bring up the children.  Two of them would stay in Penang, but my grandmother moved down to Singapore after her marriage to my grandfather.  But whilst she may have left physically, she would retain her Penang nonya upbringing all her life - always wearing her sarong kebaya.  And of course, according to her children, she was an excellent cook!

It was thus a nostalgic journey back to Penang, to revisit our family home, with its portraits on the wall of my ancestors.  It is not a magnificent mansion like the Pinang Peranakan mansion, just the home of a more humble Baba merchant and his family.  It is a traditional home, with the carved wooden doors opening into the reception room, containing the family altar, and ornate peranakan furniture, some of which are still there today.  (Supplemented by the desktop computer and printer in one corner of course).

Behind the reception room, the house opens up into the family areas, lit up by the airwell which lit up the interior of the home.  The plants and water feature bring the outdoors indoors, a quiet oasis in busy Georgetown.

My great-grandmother's pillow

My Penang uncle has spent quite a lot of time and effort restoring his home and also in supplementing his collection of antiques and curios - many displayed in his cabinets and on his shelves.  Some have sentimental value - in particular this little leather pillow, which was used by my great-grandmother for many years.  Hmmm... I must say give me my nice soft fluffy pillow anytime!  Note also the little pair of slippers on the right.

I venture to think, that if my great-grandfather were to come back today, he would still feel that he was in familiar surroundings.  A homecoming indeed.

More photos together with others of my Penang visit(s) here.