Duck, Duck, Goose or a game pleayed on us by The Silver Spoon translators

I’ve had two days off. Friday I was not feeling good. Every bone, joint and muscle in my body ached. Jim was going to Costco. I asked him to bring dinner home. Instead he ordered Chinese from across the street. Saturday was make Max food day, so I said we were going out. I can only cook for one man at a time. Saturday at the Club is half price wine, but they screwed up Jim’s meal, so he was not happy.
A few days ago, I talked about starting the figs for Duck Fillets with Figs. We were supposed to have the meal on Wednesday and our friend was going to join us. She ended up canceling and then we had buyer traffic so I held off until today. I fixed the meal, but it only turned out eatable due to extreme measures. Following is the recipe from The Silver Spoon and I will follow with commentary. This may be the first and only cookbook I toss in the trash. By the way, Mary, this is an Italian Cookbook. Mary has asked why I don’t cook much Italian food. This cookbook could be the answer.
1 small duck, with liver
1 T EVOO
1/4C butter, plus extra for greasing
1 C red wine
1 T lemon juice
5 ½ # figs
½ white loaf, sliced and crusts removed
1 lemon
Salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Set the liver aside. Season the cavity of the duck with salt and pepper and truss with kitchen string. Place the duck in a roasting pan, add the oil and 1 ½ t of the butter. Roast the duck for 1 hour then remove from the oven and lower the temperature to 400 degrees. Cut off the wings, breast and legs and break up the carcass with a meat mallet. Stir the red wine into the roasting pan, add the carcass and cook in the oven for 10 minutes then remove from the oven but do not switch it off. Pass the cooking juices through a food mill into a pan and stir in the lemon juice. Chop the liver and add to the sauce. Cut the figs almost in half and open out slightly. Grease another roasting pan with butter, add the figs and put a small piece of the remaining butter in each, then bake until lightly browned. Remove the figs from the oven and season with salt and pepper. Melt the remaining butter in a skillet, add the slices of bread and cook until golden brown on both sides. Carve the legs into slices and cut the breast into fillets. Place the fried bread and duck in the middle of a warm serving dish arrange the figs around them and spoon the sauce over the duck.

First of all there is no way that 4 people could eat at a setting 5 ½ # of figs. After looking at the photo, I believe the meant 5 figs cut in half. After you put the duck in the oven you have 7 ½ T of butter to cook the croutons and put inside the figs. Five and one half pounds of figs is 2, 11 x 17 trays. If you have the patience to stuff this many figs; more power to you, but 7.5 T of butter would not go very far. Also if you have to buy the figs, it would cost about $300. When you read the rest of the recipe, you realize that this is way too many figs. I brought it down it one tray, but finally realized the translation might be 5 figs cut in half. Finally you get to the part where you are putting red wine, duck drippings and carcass through a food mill. It dawns on me, they mean duck press and guess what, I do not have one. So I divert. I took the duck out after 1 hour and cut off the breast, leg-thigh and wings. I chopped up the carcass and put it back in the pan. This was hot, painful and very messy. I added all the figs to the mixture and put it back in the oven. I cooked it for 15 minutes more and removed the eatable duck pieces to a platter with half the figs. I did put the rest in a food mill and removed the bones as they clogged the mill. I ended up with a very flavorful sauce which I heated on the stove while cooking the croutons. Jim though it was very good. I said enjoy as you will never have it again. I cooked spinach as a side. I did it in a pan with EVOO and garlic instead of the microwave. It was much better. The wine we used for the sauce and then drank was an Australian Cabernet Sauvignon by Peter Lehmann. As I type this and edit it, he is still in the kitchen cleaning up the mess.  He was out shopping during most to the work and I did a lot of cleaning.  This is a kitchen destroyer.