Session #2: Main Dish - Roast Duck

One of the reason we have this "Main Masak-masak Session" was that most of us are still learning how to cook. Just like any other things in life, when you are new at it, you might do a mistake. So, for example, if I want to learn how to roast a whole chicken, even if it turns out perfect, who is going to finish them all? If I were to invite families and friends, the chicken might ended up burnt instead By experimenting the dishes with my dearest friends, we divide the cost between us and if it burns, it wouldn't cost as much per person. If it turns out well, we could all feast on it and most of the time, even our partners get to taste them. With this group, we could eliminate some risk as well as each of us have some experience of our own and by sharing them, we could avoid some mistakes that we might have experienced before.


Malay restaurants rarely serve ducks. So it is very hard to find duck dishes as most of them are non-halal. So, this session, we decided to have duck as our main dish. One of us had never tasted duck in her whole life but is daring enough to give it a try. Glad that the duck turns out well and enjoyed by all of us. Here is how we roast our duck.


Ingredients
1 whole duck
Lemon juice from 1 lemon
2 tablespoon ginger, blended
1 large red onion, finely chopped
3 teaspoon paprika
3 teaspoon ground rosemary
3 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoon honey
4 tablespoon margarine, melted


Directions
1. Marinate the duck with the mix of lemon juice, onion and ginger for 45 minutes.
2. Mix well the rest of the ingredients and use it to marinate the duck overnight. 
3. Roast the duck at 220c for 1 hour or until cooked. Once in a while, glaze the duck with the marinade.


Here is the recipe for the sauce:


Ingredients
1 large red onion, finely chopped
3 tablespoon margarine
2 tablespoon plain flour
300 ml chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon soy sauc
2 tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper


Directions
1. Sauté the onion until softened, add in plain flour. Stir until browned.
2. After onion and flour mix is thick, add in chicken stock, bay leaf, soy sauce, ketchup. Mix well and season with salt and pepper to taste. 


Done!

Session #1: Main Dish - Homemade Aglio Olio Fettuccine

This was the easiest dish for this session. You can use store bought spaghetti for this as well but we decided to make our fettuccine from scratch. Here is the fettuccine recipe we used.

Ingredients
1 cup flour, sifted
1 egg (Grade A)
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions
1. Beat the egg lightly with the water and olive oil.
2. Make a well in the pile of the flour and add in the egg.

3. Slowly mix the egg with the flour.
4. Knead the dough until it is smooth, firm and dry. Add more flour bit by bit if it is not dry or firm enough. (If it is soft and sticky, it will stick to your pasta maker and it is not an easy task to take out the dried pasta from the pasta maker)
5. Divide your dough into a few balls and roll the dough to your desired thickness. First roll the pasta a few times using the thickest setting. Then, roll in the thinner setting once each until you reached your desired thickness. (For example, after 10 times rolling at 0, you roll once at 1, once at 2 and once at 3 if that is your desired thickness)

6. Roll the pasta through the pasta cutter.

And here is the Aglio Olio recipe:

Ingredients
1/5 cup Anchovy fillets
7 dried chillies, chopped coarsely
7 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup olive oil

1/5 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped

300g squids, boiled with a pinch of salt and tamarind juice

Fresh pasta / half a packet of store bought pasta
Freshly ground black pepper to taste


Directions
1. Cook pasta until al dente (No more white spot, firm enough to bite yet cooked). Drain immediately (so it won't continue to cook in the hot water).
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet and cook the garlic and dried chillies until it speaks.
3. Add in anchovies and stir until anchovies are cooked.
4. Add in the cooked squids.
5. Toss in pasta and stir until well mixed.
6. Add parsley and black pepper. Adjust salt and pepper to your taste.

I love this dish the most! I heard it's a hit among the partners as well :)