Poached Pear

So I had a food geek moment. I was going to make myself a salad to have with some of my duck prosciutto, but then I got this idea, the prosciutto would probably go really nice with pear, walnuts and cheese, a good classic combination. It got worse, maybe I wanted a cooked texture to the pear, I could poach it, add another flavour to it, heck, I know, I could totally sous vide that pear! Somehow I didn’t really manage to get the brake on that idea before it came out. Research had started, and it seemed reasonably easy, 2–3 hours at 75ºC, and I’d have a poached pear, easy enough, just keep an eye on a pot of hot water for 3 hours, I had nothing better to do, total food geek brain take over, sanity had left the building.


I don’t do it on purpose, sitting around racking my brain trying to come up with something convoluted and drawn out, my inner food geek is just waiting for the smallest opportunity to escape, much like with the 3 day wait for the pork cheek confit, or making dosa, I had the idea to make the dish, I just had no idea it would take 3 days, and to smaller extents pork hock cake, kai kem eggs or kimchi. It’s usually a passing thought or idea, and the next thing I know I’ve started making something that may take 3 days before I get to eat, or in this case set myself up to babysit a pot of hot water for 3 hours carefully nursing the temperature.

But I’m not complaining, I relish in it, spending hours in the kitchen, waiting and hoping the dish will turn out, that what started out as an idea will be edible and tasty, and that the sacrifice of time and effort will be worth it, and I’ll tell you, the results don’t always match the effort. But if I were to be disheartened after every failure, I doubt I’d ever set foot in a kitchen again, failure is an opportunity to learn from what went wrong, correct and improve on ideas. In saying all of that, the pears turned out great.

Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things - T. S. Eliot.

Ingredients
100 grams Butter (unsalted)
50 ml Brandy
2 pears

• Emulsify the brandy and butter together, use a food processor or stick blender.
• Peel the pears, and place in separate vacuum bags with half the butter mix in each, then seal. You could use a zip lock bag, and remove as much air as possible if you don’t have a vacuum sealer.

• Bring a large pot of water to 75ºC.
• Place bags in the pot and cook for 2–3 hours at 75ºC.
• Keep the flame on minimum and adjust as needed.
• If not serving immediately, transfer the bags to an ice bath to halt the cooking, and reheat in hot water when ready.

Visa Wellington on a Plate is just around the corner and I had the privilege of being able to attend the launch event. It was great to finally meet some fellow bloggers and tweeters, and people from the industry, eat some great food thanks to Ruth Pretty, and down a few good wines. But like all things, nothing good comes for free, and putting aside my absolute terror of public speaking, I’m on stage doing a Peecha Kucha presentation at the City Market event. Which I hope, should be entertaining, if not just for the fact that I tend to talk in half formed thoughts and leave whole ideas in my head and stumble out words in random order from my mouth.

Duck Prosciutto - Part 2

Well it took ten days to reach the 30% required weight loss for my home-cured duck breast prosciutto. The recipe said seven days, but it all depends on the temperature and humidity of where it is hung.

An important note about weighing the breasts, which I didn’t mention in part 1. Weigh the breast after you have wrapped and tied it, as well as beforehand. You need to know how much the string and wrapping weighs, as a few grams can make a difference when figuring out the percentage weight loss.

wrapping = before wrapping - after wrapping
current percentage = ((current weight - wrapping ) ÷ before wrapping) x 100
The second equation will give you what percentage the breast is currently at, you’re aiming for 70%.


The breasts will be firm, with a little give, but not squishy, and a lot darker in appearance.

When you’re ready to eat it, trim off the skin, leaving as much fat on as possible, and if you like, slice off any flesh that has dried out too much (I didn’t bother), and slice as thinly as you can, a little time in the fridge may help.

The prosciutto should last a few weeks in the fridge, and a few months in the freezer, even better if you vacuum seal them. If you’re freezing the breasts, take advantage of the frozen state while defrosting to slice it thinly.


The prosciutto, is rich, gamey, and floral from the thyme (due to the cure).

Duck Prosciutto - Part 1

I have been meaning to make duck prosciutto ever since I read about it in Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman, Brian Polcyn and Thomas Keller, which I got for Christmas, but it's far to easy to put things off. I was in Moore Wilson on the hunt for a nice slab of pork belly, along with a bit of lard, to make a tasty meal of pork confit, and to stock up on kosher salt as my supply at home was getting dangerously low. Taking my time, as I always seem to do, no need to rush when there are so many goodies to tempt yourself with, I saw a lonely packet of duck breasts in the chiller, it was fate.


The method is very simple, you'll need about 450 grams of kosher salt for two duck breasts (or coarse sea salt, not table salt, or iodised salt), a container to cure them in, some muslin/cheese cloth, white pepper and what ever else you want to cure the duck with.

I did two different cures for each breast, one with thyme flowers and juniper berries, and the other with Szechuan pepper and coriander seeds.


You'll want to start by trimming any excess skin of the breast, but don't go crazy, just trim it so it looks nice, then give it a rinse and pat it dry. Set the breasts aside. In a bowl mix together the salt and herbs/spices. You don't have to add any herbs or spices, you could just use salt.

In container pour a layer of the salt mix about a centimeter deep and lay the duck breast on it (flesh side down, skin side up), then cover with the rest of the salt mix, make sure there is no exposed flesh, if you're doing both breasts in the same container make sure they're not touching each other. Ideally you want to use a container that isn't much larger than the breast(s) so you don't have to waste too much salt.

Tightly cover the container and place in the fridge for twenty-four hours.


Remove the breasts from the salt, they should have firmed up, and deepened in colour slightly.


Thoroughly rinse all of the salt off the breast and dry with paper towels. Weigh the breast, and either take a note of it somewhere or make a label you can tie to it later, it's very important to know the weight at this stage.


Dust each breast with some white pepper, or another spice, I used a combination of white pepper and coriander on the Szechuan and coriander cured breast.


Wrap in a single layer of cheese cloth and tie, make sure to leave enough length to use to hang the breast. It's a good idea to add a label with the date you hung it and the weight.


Hang the breasts somewhere cool (10–15°C) and dry (60% humidity), I've hung mine under the stairs as I know it is a pretty constant 10°C no matter the outside temperature. I've seen some people hang it in their fridge, but I'd be a bit worried about cross contamination of flavours.

There are many different times given all over the internet on how long it will take to be ready, but it all depends on the humidity and temperature of where it's being hung. The best way to check if the duck prosciutto is ready, is to weigh it. When it is at 70% of its start weight, it's ready. I've just checked mine and after five days it's only lost 12%.