A duck. What to cook with a duck. Side dishes for duck.

 The backstory is I got a frozen duck from Gideon for my birthday in December. It is too luxurious to eat by myself, so I stuck it in the freezer. Now it's April and the Omnicron wave around my the end of the year has subsided, the weather is nicer, and it is time to cook a duck.

The first problem with my meal plan is the flip side of it being too lonely to eat a fancy duck by myself. I started by inviting Yasmin. Then I invited Matt and Emily because they also gave me lot of fancy ingredients for my birthday (most of which I still have, and may incorporate into the meal). And I had to invite Gideon of course, but he hasn't told me if he will come. Also, roommates. So I am dealing with not a lot of duck per person and also a lot of uncertainty about how many people I even need.

Two people have suggested I make Peking duck. I do not know how to make this. I am not really sure how to make any duck (that is the point of Gideon's gift.. he gets me weird things I have to figure out). But I especially don't know how to make Peking duck.

I currently think I will make a large amount of some sort of risotto (that was a gift from Matt & Emily) as a first course, then a small serving of duck with a side of some vegetables as a second course. This is basically the Italian meal style. Which means I could flesh it out with an antipasto course. My main risotto ideas are either mushroom (risotto ai funghi), saffron (risotta alla milanese) or to be very weird, strawberry (risotto alle fragole). This one for orange risotto sounds good too. (risotto all'arancia)

The point of this blog post is to take notes while I look through all the grocery circulars to see what is on sale this week and maybe come up with ideas. The title of the blog post was accidentally SEO bait and then I thought it was funny so I made it more baity.

Bravo: Asparagus $2/lb. Mozzarella $3. They don't list them on sale, but they sell bulk white mushrooms for $3/lb which is a pretty good price and I could use a ton of those with a few porcini (gift from Matt & Emily).

Brooklyn Harvest Market: Asparagus. Mozzarella.

C-Town: Asparagus. Mozzarella. All the sales are the same this week. Escarole $2/lb.

Food Bazaar: Lemons 5/$2, but I'm not dealing with that whole store for that.

Ozzie's: Asparagus. Mozzarella is 2/$4 (must buy 2) so at least that is a little different. And ricotta is only $3.

Green Corner: Strawberries $2/lb. Lemons 5/$2 (I will go here just for that).

My Planned Menu

Antipasti: various olives, some cheeses, giardiniera, roasted red peppers, and maybe some sort of crackers

Primo: Risotto ai funghi

Secondo: Orange duck (anatra all'anatra)

Contorno: Escarole or arugula salad with strawberries, gorgonzola

Cheating on C-Town

I cheated on C-Town today. With a different C-Town. My main C-Town, the one I mean when I write C-Town, is about 4 blocks from my house. It's not very big. It's produce is increasing--a while ago, it had none, then it got some cabbages, tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce on a stand in a space in the back, and now it has a real section. But the prices are gentrifying faster than I am. I still go. I like all my stores. But I find myself buying less.

Usually when I shop elsewhere, it's at Key Food, Associated, Western Beef, Food Bazaar, or Bravo. In that order of frequency or money (but not geography, because Bravo is the closest of all. It used to be called Cat Pee). With so many stores, I don't go to extra C-Towns.

But there were two forces that led me to another one this week. One is that Chase Freedom gives 5% back on groceries from April through June. June is almost over. So I should buy pasta and sardines and whatever won't go bad now. C-Town's circular said Ronzoni was $1, but when I went in twice, that wasn't true. Second, C-Town's circular said they had Heinz mayonnaise (new). I went twice, and didn't see it. If any of my other stores had had pasta this week for $1 or less, I would have just bought it there. I checked them all. None did. So I went to the other Williamsburg C-Town.

Now, I've been there many times. I used to be good friends with someone who lived near there and shopped there frequently. And since I'm an avid shopper and he was an adept cook, I accompanied him often. I didn't think much of it then. Today was different. Today I liked it because it respected the weekly circular. But it also had the best price on tomatillos I've seen ($1.49 instead of $1.69) and the best price on jalapeno peppers ($1.29 instead of $1.49). I didn't buy those things, but I liked it. It carried braunschweiger. It didn't carry Iron City. It doesn't tweet to me or have tumblr. But it's a nice store.

I bought 6 boxes of pasta (they were out of spaghetti, so I got thin spaghetti, which is worse. And I don't eat as much pasta these days). I got strawberries ($2.50), leaf lettuce ($1.59?), Heinz mayo (on sale for $2.99), Fresca ($1.67... eh), chamomile tea ($3.99? $2.99? I don't know the correct price for that, but needed it for the Gin test kitchen), and maybe something else. I don't recall. I spent $20, which is a big trip for me.

I wouldn't have bought so much, but Agnes said she'd come over for the Gin Test Kitchen and I needed to make her dinner. I had just eaten so I wasn't clever with ideas. I went for the strawberry/fennel salad I invented on Sunday. It has a bitter green  (ideally, but I used leaf lettuce today), strawberries, fennel, and red wine vinaigrette. I put some balsamic in it today too cause I had too much oil and didn't want to use the rest of the red wine vinegar. It's pretty good. Agnes agreed that it's pretty good. I forgot to serve it with pecorino romano. I bet it would be good with some croutons too. This is a salad I want to build upon and create variations of. It's the best salad I've invented since apple coleslaw.