Duck Salad

If you like Vietnamese food, then this duck salad should go on your menu for the week. I took recipes from two different food blogs and cobbled them together into a close approximation of the vermicelli dishes I get at Vietnamese restaurants. I roasted the duck the day before because it takes around 3 hours to render off all the fat. My suggestion is that you DO not do this if the dish you are eating for dinner that night is disgusting and makes you want to vomit. Just so happens the meal I made on Sunday that I had to eat again on Monday, the night I roasted the duck, was an enormous FAIL. So I had to eat that crap while the scent of roasting duck tickled my nostrils. I ended up helping myself to a leg when it came out of the oven, and gave Sonny the other one as an apology for my awful awful spaghetti. I also saved the fat, and am definitely going to use it for something.

Recipe 1: Aromatic Duck Salad I changed it obviously but I like to give credit where credit is due.

1 Roasted duck (mine was 4 pounds and change)
1 package Rice Vermicelli
1 seedless cucumber thinly sliced
1 Bunch scallions, sliced into matchsticks (huge pain in the ass)
2 cups mung bean sprouts

To roast the duck:
Salt liberally and pat dry. Don't forget to remove giblets and if you want you can trim off loose fat, but why would you want to do that? Let sit for about half an hour at room temperature while you preheat the oven to 350. Roast at 350 for two hours, turning every half hour. Increase heat to 375 and roast for additional 30 minutes, then roast at 400 for ten minutes to re-crisp the breast. Total cooking time about 2hr 40 min for a 4 pound bird. The leg should swivel easily and pull out without a struggle. Just so you know flipping the duck is a bitch because you want to be careful not to prick the skin, so you have to fiddle with spoons and cavities and what not to get that sucker on its back and vice versa. Let rest 20 minutes.

Once the duck is cool enough to handle--in my case the next day by which time I couldn't frakking wait to eat the stupid thing--cut off the wings at the joint, and then cut that sucker in half lengthwise. Then cut the halves in half lengthwise. Work the meat off the bones, you want to end up with perfect little pieces of sliced duck with the skin still attached.

To cook rice noodles:
Bring water to a boil, take off heat and throw the rice noodles in for five minutes. Do not over cook, rinse with cold water while draining.

To slice cucumber:
Slice in half cross wise, and then in half again lengthwise, then slice thinly crosswise. This would be good with little matchstick cucumbers but I didn't have the patience for that. If you do, well . . . you're weird.

To slice scallions:
I have no idea how people get those perfect little scallion matchsticks. Can you buy them that way? I mean seriously slicing those suckers is the most irritating job in the world. Half of the bunch ended up sliced on a diagonal, because I am not made of time.

Throw everything together.



Recipe 2: Nuoc Cham This I kept the same, except my directions are the lazy way.

1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup fish sauce (Viet Huong Three Crabs brand)
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 of a lime, juiced
3-4 cloves of garlic , minced
2-3 Thai chili pepper, minced

Add the sugar to the water and swirl until the sugar dissolves. Throw everything else in.

Pour some dressing over your salad, and voila. A dish that makes up for my colossal spaghetti failure. AND there's enough left for lunch for two more days. Thank God!