Preamble
This was a little something that I made up for my birthday dinner. It's a 200-mile round trip to Adelaide where the nearest decent restaurants are and my health is just too fragile for non-essential journeys. But then I have no objections to cooking my own birthday dinner anyway - I like cooking.
I'm still not happy with the title of this article/recipe, but can't think of anything better to call it.
What I will now describe is what I think I did. Unfortunately, I did not write down the ingredients at the time and - with my memory being what it is - my recollection a week later is a bit hazy.
The Recipe
Ingredients
- Chicken carcass
- Medium onion
- Sprig of bay leaves
- Wild rice
- Basmati rice
- Green lentils of the Puy variety
- Duckling breasts (defrosted from frozen catering pack)
- Swiss brown mushrooms
- Dried chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius)
- Dried cèpes (funghi porcini, Boletus edulis)
- White wine
- White wine vinegar
- Salt
- Pepper
Morning
In the morning I made up a stock of a roast chicken carcass, an onion (chopped) and a sprig of bay leaves fresh from the bush. This was boiled up for 2 hours in the pressure cooker under full pressure, cooled by standing the pressure cooker in a sink of water, then refrigerated until required.
Late Afternoon
Preparation was very simple - everything was added to the liquid (stock, blood from the duck packet, white wine, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper) at varying times as there were three distinct cooking times for rices and lentils. Ingredients added in the following order:
- Dried fungi, wild rice
- Meat, fresh fungi, lentils
- Basmati rice
Total cooking time was 45 minutes.
Serving
I did not bother to photograph the meal - it was just a grey-brown mush. But a delicious one though - every mouthful would have three or four distinct flavours. Most certainly worth repeating.
The meal was accompanied by Pol Gessner Brut Champagne (NV).
The remainder of the catering pack of duckling breasts made a further two meals - duck fried rice and a duck and mushroom pasta.
Allergy Stuff
The recipe described contained no gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, nuts.
