Smoked Duck Risotto with Pea-Shoots

Thursday May 29

After we nibbled the last of the meat off the duck legs on Tuesday, we reunited them with the rest of the carcass and - no, we didn't re-animate the duck; we're cooks, not mad scientists. We made broth out of it for a smoked duck risotto.

The broth was produced as if for garbage stew, with these changes: smoked duck not chicken, including the brown, smoky skin; only celery tops for seasoning; and much more water, as the risotto would need at least three or four cups of broth.

We picked the duck meat off the bones, but threw away the soggy skin. And when the broth had chilled overnight, we skimmed off the duck fat and saved it for sweating the onions.

The risotto was prepared pretty much as it had been the last time we made it, but we made two crucial errors. One was that we only used one heaping cup of rice, so we didn't have enough left over to make risotto cakes. Two was that Barbara had the ingenious idea of clipping some ends off her sugar-snap-pea vines and adding them in the last ten minutes of cooking. She thought they would taste like tender snow-pea shoots, but they turned into tough little threads. Tasted fine, but took a good deal of chewing. Next time, she'll either grow snow-peas specially for their shoots, or use fresh green peas.

Still, a savory and sophisticated dish. America, smoke more ducks!