Avoiding Fowl Play?
Image: Cooking anything other than chook seems to get many home cooks into a flap. I remember my mother’s heart palpitations as the annual battle-turkey grew near. We were smart enough not to even mention duck, let alone goose…
Cooking anything other than chook seems to get many home cooks into a flap. I remember my mother’s heart palpitations as the annual battle-turkey grew near. We were smart enough not to even mention duck, let alone goose…
To get over my hereditary fear of cooking exotic fowl, I decided to get along to one of Darren Templeman’s masterclasses. Joining an array of foodies and diners in the Restaurant Atelier kitchen, I am surprised to report that far from fearful, I left Duck, Duck Goose actually wanting to tackle duck!
What made me doubly excited, was that Darren shared the techniques behind a dish I’d actually eaten in his restaurant a month earlier – Caramel & Szechuan Pepper-Glazed Grimauld Duckling Breast with Crisp Confit Leg. Over the course of the class, our small group was shown how to roast a crown, confit duck Marylands and then debone them into a fancy cylinder.
Before long the tantalising aroma of duck in various stages of undress (and redress) filled the room. While you don’t actually pick up a knife until your confit duck and roast goose lunch needs disassembling, you certainly don’t leave Darren’s kitchen hungry – samples abound. It was nice to see producer Beth McMillan from Burrawong Gaian was as keen as I was to sample her own product in Darren’s oh-so-capable hands.
Line up for Darren’s next masterclass, Lamb Lunch, on Sunday 28th October, quickly. For $140/head you’ll learn how to cook a perfectly pink rack of grass-fed Milly Hill Lamb, then get more exotic with a hot and sour Szechuan lamb tartare. Class includes meeting the producer, and a lamb on a spit luncheon.
If boning out still scares you, brush up with Tim Elwin from Urban Food Market first, at Butchery 101 on Saturday 6th October. He’ll teach to butterfly a chook, bone a leg of lamb, and French a rack. You even get a boning knife, glove and all your neatly boned items to take home.
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