Cape Town - Sometimes you turn a corner and you’re faced with something that flings you back through the years. I don’t often find myself in Green Point except when passing through, although when I was a teenager this was part of my stomping, or should I say loafing, ground. I’d gone into a liquor store through its parking lot, and came out and suddenly realised where I was. In front of me was Varneys Road and a double-storey house that now looks very “done”. It’s painted a neutral earth tone offset by black, and something about its aura suggests it’s a posh guest house.
It was a guest house when I knew it too, but not in the way we think of them now. It was plain white and all its many rooms were let out by a large, elderly German woman who ruled the place like a suspicious matron. It was the most Dickensian period of my youth and my mom and I shared a single room in the top right-hand corner of that guest house for 13 months before we could find and afford a rent-controlled flat. That’s something else that’s fallen by the wayside.
I stopped in my tracks as memories flooded back, shopping bags forgotten in my hands. The house across the road, where the Rorichs lived and where the kids played in the deep, grassed back garden, is now part of the bottle store’s parking lot. Across Main Road, the old stadium is gone, its replacement bathing in splendid obsolescence in the summer sun. And beyond the stadium, down roads that weren’t there in my teens, the ever-burgeoning V&A Waterfront, where as a teenager I spent long hours while bunking school. Then it was all quays, cranes, ships and sheds. I couldn’t have imagined then how it would be transformed. Couldn’t imagine that I might one day be a journalist invited to dine in the penthouse suite of a fancy hotel at the furthest end of one of the world’s greatest waterfront developments, where the American president himself would dine and slumber.
You just don’t know, when you’re that naive teenager gawping at your unfathomable little world, quite what is out there and what fate might bring your way.
I was in the neighbourhood because I’d heard about a new butchery that sold rabbit and duck and all manner of great meat cuts, including Wagyu beef and weekly consignments of venison. Cape Town’s meat life is getting better, at last. I’ve often been frustrated when trying to find rabbit or duck, or any cut of meat barring the bleeding obvious, but here’s The Butcher Man, and in lower Kloof Street there’s Frankie Fenner’s – things are looking up.
The reason for the mission was an assignment the Table Bay Hotel had given us – a group of six invited food writers – during that dinner in a suite at the hotel. It’s opening a new restaurant, Camissa, next month, and it challenged us each to come up with a recipe for a dish that might, or might not, end up on the restaurant’s menu.
Without wishing to give the recipe away, I was thinking duck, and had gone to the Butcher Man to see what they had. Then would come the question of whether I’d cook breast or a leg portion, or both, and then there was the small but not insignificant matter of costing. We’d been warned to bear costing in mind because the new restaurant will be a high-end bistro and dishes need to be reasonably affordable.
I’ve since developed my recipe for the challenge, and this is not it. I’ll report back in a few weeks’ time on that dish and the outcome, but for now I’ve decided to get some practice cooking duck, both ways, so that when the time comes I can choose my cut and perfect the recipe.
I’d bought some parsnips (at last – been looking for them for months) and mangetout for colour, but the central ingredient was to be a bright, pert pink grapefruit. I’d wanted to avoid the obvious orange, and also liked the idea that grapefruit is less sweet and has a pleasing bitterness, especially if you also use some of the zest. To bring up the sweetness that goes so well with duck, I used a dash of Triple Sec liqueur in the sauce, and a sprig or three of thyme for subtle herbiness. For depth, some chicken stock would provide a backbone. Now, I’m always happy to own up when one of the recipes I try doesn’t quite work out, but this one was so delicious we all wanted more.
You roast the duck leg portions in the oven, and you fry the breasts in a dry pan. The former takes longer, so start with that.
Duck two ways with a spiked grapefruit sauce
(For 2)
2 duck leg portions
4 parsnips, peeled and cut into thick dice
2 duck breasts
1 cup/250ml chicken or duck stock
3 or 4 thyme sprigs
1 ripe grapefruit (juice and finely grated zest)
Good splash of Triple Sec (up to about 45ml/3 Tbs)
Salt and pepper to taste
A handful mangetout, blanched, refreshed, then tossed in olive oil and seasoned
Heat a heavy cast-iron oven dish on the stove top and brown the duck leg quarters well all over. Shake the pan to prevent sticking. The duck’s fat will soon start seeping out. Pour this off or use it for frying potatoes if you’re making some. Season with salt and pepper and transfer the dish to a pre-heated oven (180ºC) and roast for 40 to 45 minutes, then turn off, leave the door ajar and allow to rest for five minutes.
They need no more than this – all the accompanying flavour is in the sauce, and duck has an intrinsic flavour you don’t mask or mess with.
After you put the leg portions in the oven, steam the parsnip chunks for 8 to 10 minutes, pat dry and add to the oven dish, tossing them in the duck fat. Season.
Fry the breasts skin-side down in a heavy pan on a medium heat for about 10 minutes, pouring away the fat that oozes out, and then turn and cook for another two minutes. Wrap tightly in foil and keep aside.
To the pan in which you’ve fried the breasts, add the chicken stock, thyme, grapefruit juice and zest, and simmer, stirring, until it reduces over a high heat to a lovely pourable sauce. Add the Triple Sec and simmer for another two minutes or so. Season and strain.
Slice the breast and arrange the pieces on one side of the plate, with the leg placed nearby, the whole – with the mangetout and parsnips – garnished with thyme. - Weekend Argus