Duck

BORDEAUX The juniper berries are an earthy contrast to the sweet prunes — a prized regional product — in this dish. Serve roasted sliced potatoes and sautéed mushrooms alongside. What to drink: Red Bordeaux or a varietal blend of Cabernet and Merlot.

My recipe was adapted from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I've changed the meats (a lot) and the seasonings (a bit). I've also tinkered with cooking times and sequence.

This duck recipe is unusually light and delicate.

Ken Hom likes to dry his duck the traditional way: He hangs it in front of a fan at cool room temperature for 1 day. In keeping with U.S. food-safety standards, we've adapted his technique for the refrigerator, with excellent results. The Pekin (Long Island) duck available in the U.S. has a thicker layer of fat than the French variety, but we were still able to roast away most of the fat layer, leaving mahogany-colored crisp skin. Active time: 40 min Start to finish: 3 1/2 days

A refined version of a New Orleans classic. Ask the butcher to remove the backbone and quarter the duck.

Active time: 1 3/4 hr Start to finish: 2 1/2 hr

You can use good, strong chicken stock for this recipe instead of homemade duck stock — it won't be as rich, but it's better than not cooking the dish at all as it is heavenly!

This impressive dish is served at Le Cirque 2000 in New York. Order two 5-pound fresh ducklings from a butcher. Ask the butcher to cut each duck into two boneless breasts, two leg pieces, and two thigh pieces. Reserve the carcasses for making the sauce. You will probably need to order the rendered duck fat as well.

Once esteemed as a preservation method, cooking and keeping duck in its rendered fat results in meltingly tender, moist, and extremely flavorful meat which can be used in a variety of simple preparations. Sear the duck legs in a hot skillet or shred the meat and add it to salads, or, perhaps best of all, make duck rillettes. Just remember the duck must be salted a day before you plan to cook it.

One of the dishes that introduced Americans to French food. This version calls for duck breasts and a simple reduction sauce.

The rare breeds of Rouen Clair and Duclair from Stone Church Farm (845-658-3243) are small, tender, and have a low fat content, which makes them preferable to commercially available birds. We recommend the aged ducks, which have a richer taste. Order them two weeks ahead to allow preparation and shipping from the farm and request that the necks be removed. Since this recipe calls for a fair amount of soy sauce, it is important to use a brand with well-balanced flavors (such as Kikkoman).

The tamarind, a tropical shade tree native to India, also grows in Southeast Asia, Africa, Hawaii, Mexico, South America, and, of course, the Caribbean. Its long brown brittle bean-like pods each hold a sweet-sour sticky brown pulp containing up to ten seeds. Its flavor is akin to dates mixed with lemon and peaches. Just as we in the West often use a squeeze of lemon to lift the richness of a dish, in Asia they use tamarind. The American palate is not accustomed to the tamarind's particular brand of sourness, and so Western dishes using the fruit are usually tempered by ingredients that soften its acidity. In this dish, the heavy cream in the Smoky Plantain Crema balances the tamarind's acidity, while the chipotles complement the flavor of the grilled duck meat. When preparing this, note that the duck should marinate overnight.

When the weather turns chilly, a dinner of perfectly cooked duck, with crispy skin, rosy succulent meat, and a balanced fruity sauce, is something to dream about. This duck dish delivers all these things. It calls for whole ducks which can be found fresh or frozen in most supermarkets for a price per pound not much more than chicken. The breast and leg meat are removed from the carcass and marinated. The carcass is made into stock, strained, and boiled down into a rich sauce. When it's time to cook the duck, the legs are baked in the oven until fully cooked, tender, and crispy, and the breasts are sautéed on top of the stove until the skin crisps but the meat is still rosy. If you are not confident cutting up the duck yourself, buy a fresh duck from a butcher, who will cut it for you. Don't let the many steps scare you off. The result is well worth it, and you can do much of the work the day ahead. The day before, or the morning of serving day: Cut up the duck and marinate it; make the duck stock (3 hours); and strain the stock and boil it down to make the sauce (1 hour). **20 minutes before serving:**Begin cooking the duck breasts. 45 minutes before serving: Begin cooking the duck legs; reheat the sauce. 5 minutes before serving: Allow the duck to rest, then slice and serve.

Here's a great main course from the Post Hotel at Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. If you can't find boneless duck breasts, buy two whole ducks, and ask the butcher to remove the breasts for you. Freeze the leg and thigh meat to use at another time. Partner this with green beans for a colorful presentation.