Quay Po Cooks: braised duck with ginger

Showing posts with label braised duck with ginger. Show all posts

Friday, January 18, 2013

Beautifully imperfect

I used to be a perfectionist but not anymore. I once read an article by Henrik Edberg and he said:

“Does life have to be perfect before you are happy?

Do you have to behave in a perfect way and get perfect results to be happy?

If so, happiness will not be easy to find. Setting the bar for your performance at a level higher than reasonable usually leads to low self-esteem and feeling like you are not good enough, even though you may have had a lot of good or even excellent results. You will likely feel that what you do is never good enough. Maybe once in a while might feel like something goes just perfect, but then it will be on to next challenge."

I agree with Henrik, chasing for our idea of what is perfection will not only place ourselves on uncessary stress but it will spill over to our love ones or co-workers. So, when I bought this duck from the wet market a few weeks ago, I had the duck deboned and then realized it was the wrong thing to do if I were to make braised duck with ginger . In the old days, I would have run out to go buy another duck but now, I decided to just use what I had. Although the meat was a little dry, the flavors were great. By allowing myself to carry on, without stress or rush, and hoping for good enough, I enjoyed the cooking, and I enjoyed the "good enough duck".

Okay here is the braised duck with ginger. With bone left in, it may come out pretty close to perfect. Let me know what you think of this close-to-perfect or beautifully imperfect dish?

Braised duck with ginger
adapted from smokywok.com with modification

Ingredients:

1kg duck cut into big pieces

150 g young ginger, cut into thick sliced

1 bulb garlic, sliced

½ C shaoxing wine

1 tbs oil

Seasonings:

2 tbs fermented Soya Bean Paste (Taucu)

1 1/2 tbs Oyster sauce

1 tsp Sugar

Method:

Heat oil and brown all the duck pieces. Remove duck pieces and set aside. Saute garlic and ginger. Add in duck pieces and seasonings and stir well. Add wine and leave to boil for about 5 mins. Pour water until it covers all the ingredients. Bring to boil and lower heat to simmer until meat is tender and sauce is thick for about 30 to 4o minutes. This dish will taste better the next day.

I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.