Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, Supper Club style

So, I'm not eating much meat these days. 

We hosted our June supper club and Daniel & I chose Dim Sum as our theme. The morning before, Amanda, Nicole, and I headed off to Hmart, the local Asian supermarket. Heaven: stacks of unidentifiable fruit and veg., kimchi in giant plastic bags, a million kinds of dried mushroom and shrimp, and the best mangoes I've eaten since Guatemala.

Menu

Steamed duck buns with pickles and sour cherry hoisin glaze
Shrimp and pork shui mai
Chicken mushroom soup
Turkey lettuce wraps
Vegetable potstickers
Green beans with xo sauce

And for dessert:
Mango pudding
Fried sesame red bean balls

We cooks went above and beyond and way out of our comfort zones.

But the real story of the evening is the ducks. 

I decided to make steamed duck buns but I'd never made duck before and wasn't sure if I'd be able to find fresh ones. On Saturday, Joe and Nicole say, hey we have a friend who's a hunter and he has frozen ducks. And lucky you! He's bringing some over. We're thrilled. I'm envisioning frozen, processed duck breasts. No, siree. Dropped off on our porch are four intact, feathered, heads-on, wild ducks. Beautiful, beautiful ducks. Frozen solid in ziplocs. 

Daniel spent five hours dismembering these babies--dunking them in boiling water, plucking, beheading, removing unmentionables, picking out shot, cleaning again. 

Brontë kept close to the action. The kids kept asking, is that Mrs. Mallard? (Remember the charming children's book Make Way for Ducklings?) They didn't seem fazed or upset, just curious. Our belief that people should know where their food comes from was officially under review. Butchers exist for a reason. 

Meanwhile, I was engrossed in Ph.D.-level culinary research. 

Thank goodness that Amanda has one of Denver's top chefs on speed dial, who generously shared his steamed buns recipe and some tips for marinating and roasting wild duck meat.

Five hours later and I plunked those babies into a 24-hour buttermilk, onion, and five-spice brine. The next day I rubbed them with a garlicky ginger-hoisin sauce. Roasted them on a rack, glazing often. De-boned the meat, roasted it again (a la carnitas) with more sauce. Whipped up a sour cherry-hoisin sauce and homemade yeasted steamed buns (doughball delights), quick-pickled cucumbers, and made chicken mushroom soup and pork and shrimp shui mai. We chilled the saki and wine, set the table with Omi's china, made jasmine tea, and took a deep breath. But I still smelled an aluminum, swampy pond smell despite a bucket of bleach. Mrs. Mallard was haunting me. 

Everything turned out to be fantastic. 

But let's just say that very little meat has passed my lips since that day, especially not anything resembling Mrs. Mallard. But I'm not a purist. I would eat it in a restaurant and I'd eat it at someone else's home. And I'd (probably) do it again, because I still think we should all know where our food comes from--especially when the end result tastes so delicious. 

Bon appetit!