Caneton a l'Orange

What a pain in the butt this recipe was, but after dinner we tasted the orange sauce that came with the duck and said, worth it.  I have to get an oven thermometer and see about the ovens as I don’t think they are right, so that added to the drama.  I served shoestring potatoes with the dish, per Julia’s suggestion and I roasted asparagus.  Unfortunately the fries did not cook as directed and by the time I finished the sauce they were over crunchy.  I told Jim I am over trying to get fries right.  Next time, he will be running to McDonalds as dinner nears.  If everything is not perfect, I get upset.  Julia says never apologize, pretend it is perfect.  I can’t do that.  When I work for hours and it is not up to my standard, I almost can’t eat.  Maybe I am getting to old to do these really complicated recipes.  Another problem with this recipe is that she says a 5 1/2# duck serves 5-6 people.  Without an appetizer, Jim would have been starving.  I would say, one duck for 2 people max.  The best part of dinner was Chateau Gloria.  It is my favorite wine.  Our friend Jim brought us a bottle when he came after Thanksgiving.  It was as wonderful as I remembered.  I think, ever more wonderful. 

I am not going to put the recipe in the blog.  Between the stock recipe, the basic duck roasting recipe and the directions for the sauce we are looking at about 8 pages of instruction.  If you are at all serious about cooking you need to buy Mastering the Art of French Cooking VOL. 1.  You need to start at least one day before as you need duck stock.  I made the stock on Sunday.  This is made from the giblets, neck and wings of the duck.  A couple of problems that I encountered was the after roasting the duck and finishing the sauce.  The part of removing the fat in the roasting pan adding ½ C Madeira and reducing the liquid to 3 T.  It didn’t work for me.  I noticed that it was burning and it was way over 3 T.  I scraped 3 T off the top and threw the rest away.  I finished the sauce per the recipe. 

Julia wants you to put all the orange slices on the platter.  It looked gorgeous.  Jim threw a fit and I had to remove them while he was carving.  So that was Christmas dinner this year.  We had truffle pate for our appetizer.