Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Ham

Made Duck Ham(brined and smoked duck breasts) this weekend.
Started Thursday evening, made the brine for the breasts as below. Recipe from Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn.

Brine ingredients:
0.7 liters of water
60 grams of kosher salt
16 grams sugar
7 grams pink salt (6.25% nitrite)
40 grams maple sugar
a few sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
3 grams dried juniper berries

simmer all ingredients over medium heat to dissolve the salt and sugars, when cool place in the fridge.

Friday morning, put the breasts into a 1 gallon zip-top bag along with the brine and sat that bag in a container in the fridge till the evening.

Friday evening, rinsed off the breasts and patted them dry and placed them on a rack in the fridge overnight.

Saturday morning, smoked the breasts at just above 200 degrees Fahrenheit. I used alder wood chips that had been soaking overnight, it took about 2.5 hours to get the internal temperature of the duck to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. I also smoked the leg/thigh pieces along with the breasts. The breasts when done were pink inside like ham and a bit of thigh meat I had to test was white, both were great. The nitrite in the pink salt keeps the meat pink.

 I had bought a whole duck which weighed just under 5 lbs. and got 2 duck breasts, 2 leg/thigh pieces, a jar of rendered duck fat and I should have some duck stock from the carcass and wings sometime this weekend.

Harvested the garlic today, last year we had to wait till the end of June, Yeah for global climate change. The total was 59 heads, with about 14 still in the garden. This should last us awhile. Last year we almost made the whole year without buying garlic.

Pulled the garlic and then planted tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers and some basil.

May Flowers

Snug Harbor Cultural Center had a plant sale this weekend. Picked up a phlox, a veronica speedwell and a periVincle, all for a good cause. It was misty all Saturday morning, but I still took a stroll around the place. A large part of the cultural center is the Botanical Garden, which has a Chinese Scholars garden, a white garden, a Peony garden (most had gone to seed), a herb garden, a secret garden, a rose garden, a Tuscan Garden and a greenhouse, but no Rock Garden. This is the Neptune Fountain, Snug Harbor used to be a old age home for old sailors till the 1960s when they were shipped off to North Carolina.

 

This is some plant from the White Garden.

 

This is the Allee of pleached Hornbeams, I can imagine it being scary if it was foggy.

Meanwhile back home.

 

'Japonica senanense', a dwarf sedum, in a fake stone bowl with a mica flaked quartz mountain and lava pebbles flown in special from Hawaii. A new purchase, but not from Snug Harbor.

 Our Peony Garden interspersed with Lilly of the Valley and Spanish Blue bells

 Clematis 'Nellie Moser', this year we have had the most blooms yet.

Erodium, this one actually made it through the winter.

Saxifrage - paniculata minutifolia 'Red Backed Spider' 

From the front garden we have some Coral Bells.

Common Comfrey - a good addition to a compost heap, it adds lots of nitrogen.