Duck Curry

The other day we had duck for dinner – og beautiful whole roasted duck. On the side, we had some vegetarian skewers, as not everyone eats meat anymore. However, not all was eaten, neither duck nor the vegetable skewers but instead of “just eating left overs”, I cooked up a beautiful duck curry. It goes without saying – that this could just as easily have been cooked without the duck …for vegetarians.

On a note – I really have to stress, that the amounts of meat and various vegetables used are not exact – and should not be. Equally, you might have other vegetables than what I had on hand – or chicken instead of duck. The dish is equally good. The other night – my duck curry was made as follows and served with rice.

Ingredients:

300 g peeled cooked/roasted duck

1 slice of pineapple cut into chuncks

7-8 button mushrooms

1/4 green pepper (chunks)

1/2 red onion, cut into pieces that could fit on a skewer

1/2 pre-cooked sweet potato cut into chunks (pre-cooked means cooked for 15 minutes)

1 1/2 sliced red capsicum

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 can coconut cream (200 ml…do NOT shake)

400 ml. coconut milk

1 portion of curry paste

1 whole cinnamon stick

1 whole star anis

4 kefir lime leaves

1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce

1 1/2 tbsp palm sugar (…or brown if you do not have palm)

juice of 1/2 lime

Garnish with thai basil

Ingredients curry paste

1 large shallot roughly chopped

4-5 cm. fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped

5 cloves garlic

1 1/2 stalk lemon grass, finely chopped

1 fairly spicy chili (small)

1 tbsp. dried chili flakes

1 tbsp shrimp paste

a handful roasted and chopped cashews or peanuts

1 tsp salt – or to taste

Method

For the curry paste, add all of the ingredients and blend into a paste. If you need a bit of liquid, add a bit of coconut water separated from the cream.

For the curry, in a deep pan or preferably a wok, heat up the coconut oil and fry the curry paste for 5 minutes while stirring. Add the coconut cream and mix together with the curry paste until the cream “melts”. Add the coconut milk and the remaining coconut water from the can of cream together with the cinnamon, star anis, shrimp paste, palm sugar and lime leaves and cook for approximately 15 minutes. Add the duck and vegetables and cook along for a few minutes – until warm. (Of course – this only applies to duck that has already been cooked. If you are adding fresh duck or other meats – you must cook this beforehand). If the vegetables are over cooked, I find they get soggy. I like them with a bit of a bite 😉 Finally, add the fish sauce, lime juice and salt to taste.

If you find the sauce too thick, add a bit of water to add to the sauce.

Garnish with a few thai basil leaves.

As mentioned above – this is a dish that works equally well with or without meat and basically with any choice of vegetables although red capsicum is good to have as it both gives color and taste. Also – cherry tomatoes and pineapple work really well, as it is slightly sweet and sour in taste which complements this curry. Otherwise, only your imagination is your limitation.