Peking Duck Soup With Pancakes

Last Tuesday it was pancake day, and someone on twitter asked me why I wasn't making pancake soup.  A few thoughts went through my mind - the first of which was Wow, what an awesome idea, closely followed by Pancake Soup? That sounds awful, surely.  This was then followed by a quick Google search which revealed that yes, pancake soups do exist and yes, they seem very nice.


At about the same time, Mrs Soup returned from the market with a duck (Why does this sound like it is turning into a fairy tale?  Perhaps I should have checked to see if the duck laid golden eggs before I cooked it...) and several things clicked into place.  Duck... pancake... duck and pancake soup!

So after Sunday Lunch, where the majority of the duck was consumed, I set about making duck stock in preparation for the soup

Ingredients
For the stock
1 Duck Carcass
1 Onion
2 Carrots
2 Stalks Celery
2 Bay Leaves
1tsp Black Peppercorns
2 Cloves
4 Egg Whites

To make the stock, simply put all the bits in a large pan. Don't worry about chopping the vegetables too neatly, just rough bits will do.  Then add 2l of water, bring the pan to the boil, cover and leave for 3 hours.  This will make your whole house smell wonderful - I did it before I went to bed and ended up having dreams about this very soup!

Let the stock cool and then strain all the bits out.  You can skim off the fat at this point, or let the stock cool completely, when it turns into a jelly.  Then the fat can be collected and used, either for the soup recipe, or for making rather wonderful roast potatoes to go with your Sunday Roast.

To clarify the stock, you will need the four egg whites, whisked and then stirred into the COLD stock, otherwise they just cook straight away and you end up with a horrible mess.  Stir the egg whites into the stock and then slowly bring the pan to a boil.  Don't stir it at all, but the eggs will start to cook and form a scum on the top. After about 5-10 minutes on a gentle boil, you can skim this scum off the top and you will be left with a nice, clear stock.  Passing it through a fine sieve or muslin bag wouldn't hurt either!

Once the stock was done, I could start on the soup itself.

  
Ingredients
250g Shredded Duck Meat
25g Fresh Grated Ginger
1.2 l Duck Stock
1 Onion
2 Cloves Garlic
Duck Fat
1 Orange
2 Star Anise
1 tsp Sechuan Peppercorns
2 tbsp Plum Sauce
1 Red Chili

For the pancakes 
55g Plain Flour
1 Egg
Pinch of Salt
100ml Milk
35ml Water
25g Butter


1.  Chop the onion roughly.  Heat some duck fat, or oil (about 2tbsp) in a pan.  Add the onion, garlic and ginger and fry gently for 3-5 minutes, until the onions have softened but not coloured.

2. Remove the zest from the orange.  Add this, and then the juice from the orange to the pan, along with the half of the duck stock (500ml), Star Anise and Peppercorns.

3.  Bring the soup to the boil and then cover and simmer for 30 minutes

4.  Let the soup cool slightly, then sieve out all the vegetables, return to the pan and add the rest of the stock, the shredded duck meat and season to taste.

Disclaimer : I hate making pancakes.  There was swearing!

5.  Prepare the pancakes, roll them up and slice them into thin strips.  Place a pile of the sliced pancakes in the middle of warmed dishes, then serve the soup over these.

[I'm sure you don't need telling how to make pancakes, but if you need a reminder, let Auntie Delia guide you.  I made half the quantity she makes]

6. Garnish with chives and thinly sliced red chili. Serve and enjoy!

Plum Chutney

Another plum recipe, because we were given quite a few plums, and rather than just make a huge batch of one thing, it seemed like a good idea to experiment.  So here is a plum chutney.  As well as having the plums given for this one, we were also given the onions (thanks Mum!)

 I think that for Christmas, I will be giving everyone I know either seeds or baby trees (Saplings?  Treelings?) so that next year I will be on the receiving end of even more fruit and vegetables.

Also, if you know someone who has a fruit tree in their garden but doesn't do anything with the produce (you will be able to pinpoint the houses of these people as the pavement in front of their houses will be slick with rotting windfall)  why not just knock on their door and offer to relieve them of the fruit that they don't want.  After all, it would be such a shame to let it all go to waste!

Spiced Plum Jam

One of the great things about making your own jam (and this also holds true if you make your own wine too) is that once you tell people about your hobby, you will never be short of the raw materials.  Anyone who has a fruit tree in their garden will soon be presenting you with carrier bags and boxes full of apples, pears, plums and anything else you can comfortably grow in your back yard.

This free food is amazing, and the generosity of friends is very much appreciated, but it does beg the question of why the purveyors of fruit aren't turning them into jams, wines, pies, crumbles and assorted other goodies instead of passing them on to me.  I for one am not complaining (and never having owned a fruit tree, perhaps the quantities produced are enough to satisfy anyone's fruit-lust and still have some to spare)

So here we go with another jam recipe, this time a spiced plum jam.  I love plums, can't get enough of them - they are perhaps my favourite fruit.  I have a habit of liking them very un-ripe and sour, and as a consequence, I get told off for eating them before anyone else has a chance to.  The plums we were given were a lot more ripe than that, which is better for making jam with (and also stopped me from eating too many when they were being pitted, which is probably for the best).

 This jam is a wonderfully spicy, fruity taste that made the whole kitchen smell like Christmas, even though it's only September.  Blimey, less than 100 days, need to start planning some Christmas posts...


This recipe only makes 3 jars - I only had a limited amount of plums and wanted to do a few different things with them.  Feel free to increase the amounts should you have bushels of plums (can you measure plums in bushels?)


Ingredients
650g Plums (pitted)
650g Sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 Cup Water
1 Cinnamon Stick
5 Cloves
8 Cardamom Pods
1/2 tsp Ground Allspice
1/4 tsp Nutmeg

Method
Pit and chop the plums, then wash them.  Place them in a large pan with just enough water to cover them.  Add the sugar, lemon juice and spices, heat the mixture to dissolve the sugar and then simmer for 10 minutes.  The plums will start to break up as they cook. At this point, you can fish out the plum skins if you don't like them in the jam - it's easier than trying to peel the fruit beforehand.

Also, remember to put your jam jars in the oven to sterilize (120ºc for about 20 minutes should do it)

 
(A good tip is to remember how many cardamom pods and cloves you put in, so you can check they all come out again at the end!)

After 10 minutes, bring the mixture to the boil. Boil hard for another 10 minutes and then test to see if the jam has reached setting point.

As usual, you can check this by putting a saucer in the fridge to chill.  Drop a teaspoonful of jam onto the saucer.  Let it cool.  If you can push a jellied trail through it with you fingernail, it’s ready.

Remember to fish out the cinnamon, cardamom and cloves, then transfer the jam to the sterilized jars and store in a cool dry place.

Elderberry Scramble

So Team Tuesday (Team Soup doesn't sound quite as catchy, does it?) were out in the wilds of our local canal path, looking for berries and getting dirty looks from cyclists, and knowing looks form old ladies out for a Sunday Afternoon stroll (they know exactly what is edible, and also how to make the best pies and jams - ask one and see) and we found many, many Elderberry trees, with branches drooping under the weight of huge bunches of berries, all ripe and full of flavour.

In a flash, we had filled a plastic bag with bunches and headed home to prepare them.  As the main purpose of collecting Elderberries was to produce wine, the majority weren't too well cleaned and prepared - simply running a fork through the bunches to liberate the berries (and a few creepy-crawlies too) was enough for them, before they were put in a bucket with all manner of other things that start the alchemical processes involved in turning fruit into wine (a process I don't even begin to understand - I'll leave that to those members of Team Tuesday who have a PhD)

Having some berries left, I thought that I would whip up some sort of pudding, but I wanted to try something a bit different from the usual crumbles and pies, and then I found this interesting recipe which is a sort of a cross between a bread and butter pudding and a summer pudding.  It's a nice way to use up any left over fruit that you have lying around, and a nice way to celebrate the few remaining days of summer we have left before the nights draw in and I just want to hibernate (But at least I will have bottles of Elderberry wine to keep me company)

Ingredients
450g Elderberries
250g Pears
250g Plums
200g Bread (Crust Removed)
500ml Milk
50g Butter
3tbsp Plain Flour
2tsp Lemon Juice
Sugar
Cinnamon


Method
Make sure that the elderberries are clean and free of stalks, peel and slice the pears and pit the plums, quartering them.

In a large pan, heat the butter and then cook the fruit over a low heat for 5 minutes.  In a cup., mix the flour with some of the milk to make a paste, then add this to the fruit.

Next add the rest of the milk to the pan.  Cut the bread into small pieces and then add this to the pan as well, cooking until the plums are soft.

Season to taste with sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice, then serve and enjoy!