Happy New Year!!!!

I hope you had a great start to 2016!

This dinner came about in an effort to clear up the fridge- I wanted to use up the fig spread and anchovies I had left over.

Duck 

Ingredients

• Duck, cleaned and cut
• Fig Spread (in a jar)
• Anchovies fillet in oil
• African hot pepper mix (from local African store)
• Garlic
• Salt to taste, if you wish

What you’ll need

• Ziploc bag
• Vacuum food sealer, if you own one
• Small spice mortar and pestle

Farro

Ingredients

• Farro, presoaked overnight [Bob’s red mill organic farro]
• Celery, chopped
• Rainbow Chard stalks, chopped
• Bell pepper, yellow
• Red Radish, chopped
• Chicken Broth (or your choice)
• Salt to taste, if you wish

What you’ll need

• Chopping board
• Boiling pan

What I did:
In the spice mortar, I combined and mixed together the anchovies, fig, garlic and African hot pepper mix to desired taste. The marinade was added to the duck inside the Ziploc/ vacuum plastic food bag and vacuumed sealed. This was left to marinade overnight, it can be for shorter period if you wish.  On the day, the duck was baked at 350C in the oven for 40 minutes and then finished off on the stove top griddle pan to get the caramelization.
The farro was presoaked to allow for shorter cook time the next day, otherwise you can cook directly on the same day. To the presoaked farro, I added my chopped vegetables ( celery, chard, bell pepper and radish) and cooked in chicken broth until softened.

Taste
We could taste the fig , the duck was sweet and spicy. The fig made the duck to be more than just sweet and spicy. The farro was a good accompaniment to the duck for us. I have in the past done Apricot duck, and some variation of orange duck. I have found that duck does really well with sweet over time! Plus, who does not love the Chinese tea duck or peking duck.