You Can Serve a (Halal) Presidential Inauguration Luncheon, Too

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White House Lawn in Winter

If you’re like many other Americans today, you’ve been keeping a close eye on all of today’s historic Presidential Inauguration events. For foodies like myself, what was being served up at this afteroon’s luncheon was of key interest to me.

I’ve heard the Obamas are healthy eaters who also like Mexican food (particularly that which is served up at Rick Bayless’ restaurant, Topolobampo, right here in Chicago). http://www.fronterakitchens.com/restaurants/restaurants.html

This made me wonder if there would be organic food on the menu. What about Mexican food? I was interested to know but never imagined that the menu, let alone the recipes, would be available online!

Served to the President, First Lady and Congressional Staff:

First course: Seafood Stew
Second Course: Duck Breast with Cherry Chutney , Herb Roasted Pheasant with Wild Rice Stuffing, Molasses Whipped Sweet Potatoes and Winter Vegetables.
Dessert: Cinnamon Apple Sponge Cake

Some tips for you to make these recipes halal:

-Leave out the vermouth (a type of alcohol) listed in the Seafood Stew recipe

-For the Duck Breast with Cherry Chutney recipe, substitute kosher grape juice for the red wine and do not use the Dijon mustard called for in the recipe, as most Dijon mustards have red wine vinegar in them. I would not substitute with any other kind of mustard, as they are mostly too ‘yellow’ and may discolor the end result. Just leave it out. And, If you’ve been a reader of this blog before, you know where you can find a halal duck, (http://www.midamar.com), or scroll down to find the article “To Roast a Duckling” where you can read more about halal ducklings.

-For the Herb Roasted Pheasant with Wild Rice Stuffing, if you can’t find a halal pheasant, try roasting a halal quail instead. They can be found, usually frozen and sold in packets of two, in most Middle Eastern or Mediterranean marts. Online they can be found at http://seattlediscountwarehouse.com/Quail%20page.htm, however, I have never bought from this merchant and cannot comment on their quality, taste or halal certification.

-The dessert calls for vanilla extract. Do not use the pure vanilla extract because it is stripped with alcohol, usually vodka, to bring out the extract of the vanilla bean. Instead, try using your own vanilla bean or an imitation vanilla extract- those usually don’t contain any alcohol at all.

Here’s the link to the pages where you can download the menu and the recipes listed above.

http://inaugural.senate.gov/documents/doc-2009-recipes.pdf

Grapefruit and Curried Shrimp Saute

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I wouldn’t normally make this type of recipe out of the blue or just for having both grapefruit and shrimp somewhere in the kitchen. I made this recipe because a fellow website editor was asking for recipe writers, cooks and cookbook authors to come up with a recipe where ‘grapefruit is the main feature’.

This is my own version of a recipe for Grapefruit Shrimp Curry I saw in an old cookbook from Florida that’s been on my shelf for years. If you would like the information for the original recipe and cookbook, please see the information at the end of this post.

I made this recently, and I can tell you, it is wonderful! It tasted like a restaurant-made dish from a Thai restaurant. It was very filling, but not too heavy.

I served it on a bed of rice. You might also want to add a small bowl of fishy or vegetable soup afterwards.

Step 1: Make the Roux

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Step 2: Add the Coconut Milk

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3. Properly Blend the Sauce

Copyright 2009 My Halal Kitchen

4. Add the Shrimp

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5. Add the Grapefruit

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6. Blend Till Shrimp Turns Pink

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7. Voila! Grapefruit and Shrimp Curry Saute

Copyright 2009 My Halal Kitchen

Grapefruit and Curried Shrimp Sauté

Ingredients

4 TB. butter
3 cloves garlic, smashed
pinch of saffron

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped (about ½ cup)

5 TB flour
2 tsp. salt
½ TB. curry powder (1 TB. if you like really spicy!)

2 cups coconut milk
½ cup freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice (about ½ grapefruit)

2 pounds fresh shrimp, peeled, deveined and cleaned
1 cup grapefruit meat (skin removed), quartered and cut in half

4 Tb.(or more, to taste) fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

Method of Preparation

*Note: Prepare all ingredients ahead of time and organize them well. Once you begin this recipe, the steps go fast and you will not have time to leave the stove lest you burn the butter, dry out the roux or curdle the sauce.

1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter on low with the garlic and saffron, approx. 5 min. Do not burn. There is no need to stir.
2. Once the butter mixture is done, pour into a separate large sauté pan. Add onions. Over medium-high heat, sauté the onions but do not brown them, approx. 5-7 minutes.
3. With a wooden spoon, blend in the flour to make a rough paste, or roux. Add the salt and curry powder and blend. Keep blending to avoid burning the roux, until all ingredients are well mixed.
4. Turn heat to medium-low. Add coconut milk and blend until the roux is completely free of any lumps. Add grapefruit juice and keep stirring to smooth out the mixture and avoid curdling of the coconut milk. Cook until thick, approx. 3-5 minutes.
5. Add shrimp and stir, until you see that some have begun to turn pink. Next, add the grapefruit sections and continue stirring the mixture to avoid anything from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Turn heat to low, if necessary. Be sure that shrimp is cooking well by turning pink and becoming a bit smaller than when raw. This may be a bit difficult to see through the pinkish color of the sauce, but keep turning the shrimp in the pan to look for this color. Cook in this manner for approximately 10 minutes.
6. Serve on a bed of white sticky or jasmine rice and top with roughly-chopped cilantro.

Serves 4-6, depending on the appetites!

The original recipe was for Grapefruit Shrimp Curry, found in Maurices Tropical Fruit Cookbook, by Maurice de Verteuil. Great Outdoors Publishing Compnay. 4747 28th Street North. St. Petersburg, FL 33714. p. 30

Ingredients:
5 TB. butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
5 TB. flour
2 tsp. seasoned salt
1 tsp. curry powder
1 chicken bouillon cube
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup grapefruit juice
2 pounds cooked shrimp, peeled
1 cup grapefruit sections, cut in half or bite size

Method of Preparation:

1. Saute onions in butter. Do not brown.
2. Blend in flour to make a roux. Add seasonings and bouillon cube. Blend.
3. Add liquids. At this point, you must stir constantly to avoid curdling. Cook until thick.
4. Add shrimp adn grapefruit sections and heat through over low heat. Serve on a bed of rice.

Duck Fat in a Roasted Red Pepper and Cheese Sandwich?

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Ok, I know this isn’t the most exciting notion of a sandwich, but scroll down and see the pics of this creation and you’ll at least wonder if it tastes as good as it looks.

Are you back?

Ok, give me credit- I creatively reused -instead of wasted-that plethora of duck fat that came from my duckling last week (scroll down to read my post, To Roast a Duckling).

Well, I don’t deserve a whole lot of credit. It really wasn’t my notion of ‘reusing’ that spurred me into this frenzy of finding dishes I could cook using it; it was more of my gourmet-obsessed mind to create dishes that look like they’ve come straight out of a (fancy) restaurant. I read about how all the best chefs in the world tout the incredible flavor that drips from this bird. I want to be like them, in my own kitchen (and without all the stress). Besides, did I forget to mention that Julia Child told me (not directly, of course) to use this fat, too?

You might be thinking that this fat isn’t very healthy, comparing its thick texture when cold to hydrogenated oils, hardened vegetable oils used to line your baking pan, or even lard, but duck fat doesn’t fall anywhere near those oils in comparison. In categories of taste, versatility and healthiness, it beats out all of them.

I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist, so I can’t give you clinical study results or medical advice, but I can suggest you read more about what the experts have to say about it. There is a long, but particularly interesting article about saturated fats by Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon in the link below. They mention duck fat by name in their reference to how the French have a ‘lower rate of coronary heart disease than many other western countries’. http://www.health-report.co.uk/saturated_fats_health_benefits.htm

I also really love a book called Real Food by author Nina Planck. The information she provides in her book really helped me to release my fear of eating butter, cheese, whole milk and animal fats (halal only, of course). In fact, she provides solid and clear arguments about why you shouldn’t choose otherwise. Foods that are processed, chemically altered, genetically modified, unnaturally preserved, and even some that are pasteurized really come into question in her book. I suggest anyone interested in getting healthy or responsible for feeding and raising young children should read this book cover to cover.
http://www.ninaplanck.com/index.php?page=real_food_book

Ok, so I got off topic for a minute- but found a great opportunity to share one of my favorite authors with you….

Back to the roasted peppers.

I had an enormous bag of ‘Mysteriously Sweet Red Peppers’ from Mexico- yes, that was on the label- that I had to do something with. They were nice enough to stay firm in my refrigerator’s crisper until I could figure out what I wanted to do with them for a week or two.

I decided on roasted vegetables- an easy dish because all you have to do is spend a few minutes to loosely chop your items, throw on some salt, a bit of sugar, any seasoning you like and add some fat. Put them in an oven-safe dish and throw them in the oven at 350-375 degrees and wait for your nose to tell you they’re done, not burnt. Mine took about 40-45 minutes to get really nice and brown.

In this particular dish, I added red onions and whole, peeled garlic cloves to add flavor. I used about 4 TB. of the cold duck fat, but a great alternative is extra virgin olive oil. You could add eggplant or zucchini- any type of vegetable with a similar cooking time. Carrots or potatotes would need longer to cook unless they are blanched, so don’t use them unless they are.

When your dish is done, serve with French, Italian or pita bread and dip your peppers into them. You could also serve as a side dish to chicken, or top a pasta dish that needs a bit of jazzing up.

Copyright © 2009 My Halal Kitchen

One thing I must say is that this dish is even better the second day when the flavors have married.

That’s where this sandwich comes in.

Copyright 2009 My Halal Kitchen

I didn’t want to eat it in the same way the next day, so I got out a sandwich bun and toasted it. Meanwhile, I warmed up my roasted peppers in the microwave with a slice of Tillamook swiss cheese on top. When everything was ready, I ate it with pure delight, realizing I couldn’t have gone out and had a better sandwich elsewhere.

It’s not only the gratification of making your own food, without difficulty or waste, but the gratification of knowing that home really is the best place in the world to eat, making a mini meal like this worth the effort.

So, are you convinced yet? Make this sandwich yourself- or just the peppers as an appetizer with bread- and you’ll become a sort of taste believer.

And, umm, you don’t really have to use duck fat- unless of course you roast a duckling, too.

Quick Creamed Spinach Soup For a Last Minute Dinner

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Does this ever happen to you? You’ve planned a gourmet dinner for the evening (ok, semi-gourmet) and, just when you think you’ve got enough time and everything is under control, something seriously breaks your pace- a stove that needs to be calibrated, a husband coming home earlier than anticipated, meat that isn’t completely defrosted, or a recipe you’ve just read to the end and realized you need two hours to cook instead of one?

Well, most people would only be afflicted with one of these problems per dinner drama, but last night, I had all of them to deal with. My Navarin Pantier (Lamb Stew with Spring Vegetables) was my recipe project of the day, another of Julia Child’s delights I was trying to master. (No wonder the cookbook it comes from is called Mastering the Art of French Cooking).

I made the fatal flaw Julia always warned about in her TV episodes of The French Chef: “Read the recipe before you begin to cook”. Well, I thought I did, but in reality I’d only read half– the part where she tells you to cook the lamb for an hour. The next page is where she tells you, “Regulate heat so liquid simmers slowly and steadily for about an hour longer….”

I had no ‘Plan B’, knew my husband was famished, and I had very few exciting ingredients in the house to play with.

Taking one look around my fridge and counter, I had to think quick about what I could do with apples, cheese, spinach, onions, tomato paste, odd pieces of cheese, and various experimental jars of homemade creme fraiche. It was like playing ‘Iron Chef’ against myself.

Ok, it has to be soup and salad tonight. Soups without pasta, rice, potatoes or meat are usually not hearty enough to fill a hungry stomach, but I knew if I made a simple soup with creme fraiche added, we could eat it with hearty bread and a salad, which would be perfect for the late dinner we would have.

I decided on a Creamed Spinach Soup made by sauteeing onions in butter and olive oil and adding tomato paste and water to fill half the pan. I let it cook till it came to a boil. I then added spinach and let it simmer for about 10 minutes, just enough time for me to cut the cheese and peel and slice the green apple for my salad. I left the slices to soak in cold water until I was done so they wouldn’t brown.

I returned to my soup and tickled it with my handy immersion blender- a tool every soup maker should have, in my opinion. I blended a little at at a time, until the entire pan was a creamier version of the original. I let it simmer for a minute or two, then added 2 heaping tablespoons of my homemade creme fraiche, stirring it in until all of the whiteness of the creme disappeared. Two minutes later, I was satisfied that it was finally a creamed spinach soup.

Copyright 2009 My Halal Kitchen

Copyright 2009 My Halal Kitchen

Copyright 2009 My Halal Kitchen

Copyright 2009 My Halal Kitchen

Returning to my salad, I rinsed and drained the baby greens then gave them a whirl in my other kitchen favorite- my salad spinner. I dried the greens with a paper towel and laid them gently in a bowl, added rough cubes of white cheddar and slices of the green apples I’d cut earlier. Later they were dressed in a simple mix of extra-virgin olive oil, salt and apple cider vinegar.

Copyright 2009 My Halal Kitchen

Sitting down to a simple, quick dinner of Creamed Spinach Soup, Greens Salad with Apples and White Cheddar and a hearty slice of flame-warmed pita bread was a great end to the drama that plagued my kitchen only about a half an hour earlier.

A Sundae to Ease into Sunday

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Copyright My Halal Kitchen 2009

On a cold winter day, what excuse can we give ourselves that a homemade sundae isn’t a great idea?

I don’t want to think about it.

They say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ and we needed this.

Ok, we didn’t need it but we wanted something to accompany our Saturday evening movie night and the thought that tomorrow would seem like it’s really Monday.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of Trader Joe’s products, so need I say more about where I got the ice cream for our sundaes? (No, they do not pay me to write about their products– but hey, if somebody out there from TJ’s wants to hire me to do that, I’ll give it some thought).

Ok, back to serious business: ‘Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream- Super Premium’ was the main ingredient. And, since I’m not trying to be over-complicated or wasteful here, I only used two other ingredients lurking in my cabinet and fridge: Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup and Salerno Butter Cookies.

All three ingredients were layered in a plastic, hand-me-down parfait cup and on top a finale of the chocolate syrup was drizzled. If I had any more whipped cream left over from last month’s pumpkin pie fest, you bet I would’ve topped it with that, too.

I think the chic-flick I made my husband watch tonight was a bit easier for him to get through…

Where to find these products:

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream-Super Premium: http://www.traderjoes.com/

Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup– any retail grocer should have it, but if you happen to be in a remote location or somewhere outside of the U.S. (or on another planet), you can go to the Hershey’s website and they will ship it to you: http://www.hersheygifts.com/?sc=WG959&HG_ID=HG_Google:30860

Salerno Butter Cookies: These cookies aren’t just for adults with a sweet tooth, like us. They are particularly good for teething babies. I buy mine at Jerry’s Fruit and Garden in Niles, IL (located at 7901 N. Milwaukee Avenue. 847-967-1440) for 99 cents a box! They’re hard to find for a decent price online, but you could try to contact the company that manufactures them: Archway and Mother’s Cookie Company, PO Box 762, Battle Creek, MI 49016, United States, (269) 962-6205, (269)962-8149 fax, http://www.cpequity.com

*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are entirely based on my own personal tastes, which may obviously be different for others who try the same product(s). The reviewer also declares that she has not received any monetary or non-monetary compensation from the restaurant or food product company for writing this review.

Copyright © 2009 My Halal Kitchen. All rights reserved. The information contained in this blog may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of My Halal Kitchen.

Brunch is Served

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Copyright My Halal Kitchen 2009

Every weekend morning I have the same dilemma- make a quick and usual breakfast, or make it an occasion by serving special foods that are timely to prepare but sure to please.

The need-to-please disease I have tells me that small breakfasts should induce guilt. But what if I could serve a sizeable breakfast without all the struggle and extra time in the morning? I didn’t want to just put any old leftovers together- that would be a bit too obvious….

Luckily my husband isn’t a picky guy and doesn’t snub food the same way I would if I didn’t like it, which actually made me want to do a nice thing- not take up too much time in the kitchen (which throws off our entire schedule entirely), without skimping on the food, either.

I decided to serve up eggs baked in ramekins, a savory pastry filled with spinach and feta cheese, a mixed salad, and sliced grapefruit. Not too fancy, but just enough to please, I hoped.

I prepared the baked eggs or ‘Oeufs en Cocotte‘, according to the base of a recipe I saw on a Julia Child French Chef episode. I changed some things to make each dish of two eggs baked in a ramekin then set in hot water to our own liking: Mine was mixed with leftover homemade buttermilk dressing and on my husband’s I poured a simple, plain leftover tomato sauce (see details below). After about fifteen minutes of baking in the oven, they were done. In the meantime, I was able to set the table and prepare the next dishes.

The savory pastry is a favorite in our home, mainly because the smell of baked phyllo puts me in a wonderful mood. Based on a combination of a recipe for Turkish borek from my dearest friend, Inci, and a Greek recipe for spanakopita handed down loosely to me from my cousin’s Yaya (grandmother), I have finally found a recipe that works for us. This one was prepared yesterday, but we really couldn’t finish it last night. It was too hot to eat and this is one dish where patience allows you to enjoy it more. The cheese has time to set and the dough is not as flimsy when it’s cooled. Today three pieces were reheated in the microwave for about two minutes and resulted in a perfect, warm taste. The cheese was set and the spinach had time to mingle with it, just enough time to complement each other nicely (recipe below).

The salad was super easy. In my conscious effort to eat up the largest carton of mixed organic greens possibly for sale at Costco, I decided now was a perfect time to eat it up- and give my husband an excuse to eat something green. Just throw the greens in a large bowl, top with sliced tomatoes and drizzle the mix with olive oil, a pinch of salt and dried parsley flakes. Voila! It’s done.

I almost forgot to mention the proud addition I just had to put on the table- a small bowl of my homemade crème fraiche, which I had been experimenting with all week. Until I get it perfect, I suggest you just buy the best one on the market today: the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company’s Crème Fraiche, sold at Trader Joe’s stores or online at: http://butterandcheese.net/cremeFraiche.html

The last addition was the plate of peeled and sliced grapefruit, a great way to end the meal and clean the palate after all the dairy at the table. The important thing to remember about grapefruit is that if it’s peeled properly, you won’t taste any bitterness; instead it will taste sweet and refreshing. It’s a bit of work, but don’t have it any other way.

Brunch was prepared and served today within a half an hour. It was delicious, healthy and very pleasing to both of us. There were no excuses left for today’s schedule to go awry. Uh oh, what have I started?

Please see recipe information for Buttermilk Dressing, Eggs Baked in Ramekins (Oeufs en Cocotte), and Savory Spinach Pastry:

Buttermilk Dressing (by Tierra Miguel Farm, which I found in the book Slow Food Nation’s Come to the Table: The Slow Food Way of Living, p. 118)

Ingredients:
2 C buttermilk
1 whole hard-boiled egg
¾ cup olive oil
10 sprigs parsley
5 sprigs celery leaves (optional)
2 cloves garlic
4 scallions, green and white parts chopped
1 handful of any fresh green herbs on hand, such as sorrel, nettle, watercress, or cilantro
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Method:
Mix buttermilk, egg, oil, parsley, celery leaves, garlic, scallions, and herbs in a blender or food processor until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Makes 6 to 8 servings of dressed salad.

Resource:
Heron, Katrina, Ed. with a foreword by Alice Waters. Slow Food Nation’s Come to the Table: The Slow Food Way of Living. New York: Rodale Books, 2008.

Eggs Baked in Ramekins (Oeufs en Cocotte) can be found in Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Fortieth Anniversary Edition, Volume One, pages 123-124. It was written by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck. New York, Alfred A. Knopf. 2001.

Savory Spinach Pastry
You will need:
One package of phyllo dough
1lb. bag of frozen spinach
1 lb. feta cheese
2 eggs
approximately ½ cup each of olive oil and cold milk, mixed together in a cup
large rectangular pyrex dish
black seeds or sesame seeds to taste

Buy one package of phyllo dough typically used to prepare baklava. When the dough is cold, but not frozen, open it up to its full length. Lay the dough down so that it looks rectangular. With kitchen shears or scissors, cut the dough in half vertically. Reserve half in the fridge to keep cold and keep the other half out to prepare on your counter.

Using a pastry brush, ‘paint’ the bottom of your pyrex dish with a mixture of ½ cup olive oil and ½ cup milk (this should be in a cup next to you as you work). Lay a sheet of phyllo dough on top of it, then continue to paint each sheet one by one until you have finished this half of the dough.

Mix the feta cheese, eggs and frozen spinach in a bowl until well mixed. Pour on top of the phyllo dough you have painted in the pyrex dish. Pat the mixture down so it lies flat.

Bring out the cold dough from your fridge and continue to pain each layer individually until you are finished. Paint the very last layer generously and then add either sesame seeds or black seeds, but not both.

Bake in a 375 degrees oven for approximately 35-45 minutes, depending on your oven. Allow to cool before eating.

*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are entirely based on my own personal tastes, which may obviously be different for others who try the same product(s). The reviewer also declares that she has not received any monetary or non-monetary compensation from the restaurant or food product company for writing this review.

Copyright © 2009 My Halal Kitchen. All rights reserved. The information contained in this blog may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of My Halal Kitchen.

To Roast a Duckling

This site has been officially moved to a new domain, http://www.myhalalkitchen.com. Please visit there to see what’s cooking!

To roast a duckling is an endeavor not meant for the faint-hearted of the kitchen. I’ve cooked duck in the past and it was disastrous- tough, pan-seared breast that I never researched how to make in the first place. How hard could it be, really?

It was the early years of marriage and my sweet husband ate every tough-to-chew last bit of it, while I looked at my plate deciding not to finish the ‘mistake’ on my plate. I knew then he was much too nice- or much too hungry. He argues that a person can be both, and that I must agree with.

Well, that was seven years ago and I have since broken down and learned that it doesn’t mean I’m not a natural in the kitchen if I have to read a recipe or study particular cooking techniques, especially in preparation for roasting poultry and game that are not regulars at our dinner table.

While recently shopping at our favorite Mediterranean grocery store, I scanned the frozen food aisle just to see if anything was new in prepared foods such as pizzas and falafel and meats like halal burgers and sejouk, or spicy sausages. I’m not a fan of frozen foods, but once in a while I do find something useful, especially at this store, which sells only halal products- very exciting in its own right.

Much to my surprise, sitting right next to the halal turkeys, I spotted a smaller frozen bird of some sort. I thought it was probably just another whole chicken but it seemed a tad bit larger so I turned it around to look at the label, not expecting it to be anything I would actually purchase (we already had an entire lamb being prepared for us as we shopped). Sure enough, it was the first frozen halal duckling I had ever seen before. I plopped it into the cart and hoped for the best, hoping I wasn’t kidding myself into thinking I could actually make up for the last bird.

At the checkout, the store clerk commented that the roast duckling would be ‘an extravagant meal’. “Great,” I thought. Just what I needed- not only to mess up the duck, but to waste money and ‘extravagant’ food in the process. “I’m in trouble now,” I murmured to myself.

I spent a couple of weeks letting the little duckling continue its destiny deep in the depths of my standing freezer. I thought about it often, trying to come up with my own recipe in my head, and then came to my senses: “NO! Not again, I will ruin the reputation of roast duckling for my husband forever if I do THAT again! I need the perfect recipe.”

Once again, Julia Child came to my rescue, renewing my hope in ever being able to successfully bring a duck to an edible level. My husband’s only preference this time around was not to make the orange sauce that traditionally accompanies this bird dish. “No problem, I’m sure Julia has a recipe for that,” I thought.

Life has a way of allowing you to surprise yourself once in a while. It just so happens that my newfound love of all things Julia Child ever created has brought me to remember the poultry pages of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Fortieth Anniversary Edition.

Simply put, “Caneton Roti”, or Roast Duckling, had real instructions I could follow on two pages (274-275), and I had all the ingredients in tow.

I followed the recipe exact, like an apprentice following a master chef in hopes of earning a Le Cordon Bleu diploma at the final exam. If I messed this one up, I would be traumatized. That’s why I chose the easiest of all the duck recipes, and the only one listed for roast duckling, not duck- aren’t they older, anyway?

I trussed it, cut off the wing tips and stuffed its cavity with fragrant herbs, just as instructed. I poured cut onions and carrots at the bottom of the roasting pan and laid him down gently out of the way of the vegetables. No water or broth needed for this baby- it would generate more fat than I could ever imagine. No need for basting, just keep removing the fat.

After a few hours (much longer than the recipe suggested, due to the funny temperament of my oven), it was finally done- successfully. Served with a side of garlicky mashed potatoes, it was worth the wait–and the work–and the need to follow a recipe, at least once in a while.

If you’d like to try this recipe, you can find it in Julia Child’s book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 40th Anniversary Edition, Volume One. Alfred A. Knopf. 2001. http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Art-French-Cooking-Fortieth/dp/0375413405

To find your own halal duckling, check out Midamar’s website at: http://www.midamarhalal.com/scripts/products.asp?C=Halal+Chicken. Each duckling costs $15.00.

If you live in the Chicagoland area and want to take a drive out to the western suburbs to buy your halal meats, including a frozen Midamar duckling, check out our favorite spot: Mediterranean Oasis Mart Inc., 357 E Bailey Rd., Naperville, IL 60565; Telephone: (630) 420-9507. Ask for Abu Shoosha- he’ll take great care of you.