Christmas cooking with Mairtin

I cooked dinner tonight for some friends of mine. Attemped the noodle soup again.

The menu was

1. M&S apple and pork sausages and red onion grilled in hoisin sauce
2. Roast potatoes
3. Prawn crackers
   
4. Potato stuffing
   
5. Duck noodle soup
   
6. Roast duck
7. M&S double chocolate cookies, Carte D'Or vanilla ice-cream and mince pies

1. The sausages were easy. I boiled them, added some sliced red onions and lathered them in hoisin sauce. Placed them under the grill for a few minutes to brown.
2. On TV last Friday, Jamie Oliver was preparing a Christmas dinner and He used the run-off from the foul to roast the potatoes. I oiled the oil from the duck skin. I left this cool and separate over night. I decanted the oily top layer and kept it to one side. I skinned and boiled the potatoes. Poured some of the oil over it and through them into the grill to give them a colour.
   
3. Got Prawn crackers from the asian market, shallowed fried them in a frying pan, until they became big and white but not until the became brown (3-8s)
4. Boiled the potatoes separately. Mashed them up. Added sliced spring & red onions, carrot, baby corn and braeburn apples. Left some butter on top of the mixture and put in the oven to roast.
   
5. The soup was easy but time consuming. Again the night before I made my stock. this time I used duck (10.00Euro from Tesco!). I boiled the water, added some veg (spring onions, red onions, baby corn, red chilli peppers, bak choi, carrot plus garlic and ginger for some substance), skinned and boned the duck. Threw the bones in with the vegtables, left it boil for an hour or so. Turned of the heat, let it cure. Before dinner, I fished out the bones. Boiled the stock, 30 minutes before serving I added fresh vegtables (as previously listed). Prepared the noodles in separate pot and combined them when it was time to eat.
6. I wondered most of the day what to do with the duck meat. I decided to slice it up into bite size chunks with pinenuts, garlic, diced apple and red onion. Wrapped it all in foil and threw it into the oven until it was edible looking.
   
7. The desserts were graciously supplied by two of my dinner guests, Gleb and Barbara

The food was very tasty. The first time I took the roast duck out, it was still a bit too pink, the juice still a bit red, so I popped it back in to the oven. My favourite dish was the roast duck, because resulting gravey was so delicious I had to drink down the dregs of it once all the meat was gone. - I figure the mixture of apple, garlic, ginger and duck juice was what defined it. [said with poker faced eaernestness] In future I will put the gravey to one side and use it with the potato stuffing or generally all over the meal. The roast potatoes had a very decadent smack to it, I wished I had made more of them :(

That is all. I think Easter will be my next culinary excursion, I have not decided for certain though...