Hello Reader,

I cooked this some time ago and am sharing it this weekend because I’m away.

This is a scheduled post.

Recipe

Equipment

• Water heater and circulator
• Water bath
• Wok

Ingredients

• Duck breast (Zhang, Deng et al. 2022)
• Hoisin sauce (Chew 1983)
• Soy sauce
• Cabbage
• Fennel
• Carrot
• Daikon (Nekitsing, Blundell-Birtill et al. 2019, Sun, Charron et al. 2020)
• Bird’s eye chillies
• Shallots
• Ginger
• Spring onions
• Rice bran oil
• Sesame oil

Instructions

1. Insert a duck breast and a couple of tablespoons of both sauces into a plastic bag.
2. Vacuum seal the bag and refrigerate for a few hours.
3. Heat the water bath to 55 °C (131 °F).
4. Put the bag containing the duck breast and sauces into the water bath and cook for about 90 minutes.
5. While the duck is cooking, shred the cabbage and julienne the carrot and daikon.
6. Finely slice the fennel.
7. Slice the Bird’s eye chillies.
8. Mince the ginger and finely chop the shallots.
9. Slice the white portion of spring onions across the fibres.
10. Slice the green portion of the spring onions longitudinally with the fibres.
11. Place the spring onion slices into some ice water to keep them fresh.
12. When the duck is cooked, remove the bag from the water bath and open it. Remove the duck breast and drain the liquor into a small bowl.
13. Put the duck breast into the refrigerator to firm a little.
14. When the duck breast meat is firm, slice the duck with a sharp knife. Set aside the breast meat in a small bowl.
15. Put the chillies, cabbage, carrot, daikon, and fennel into a large bowl.
16. Boil a kettle of water.
17. Pour boiling water over the chillies, cabbage, carrot, daikon, and fennel.
18. Allow the vegetables to steep in the water until slightly softened.
19. Drain the water from the vegetables.
20. Heat the wok and then add some rice bran oil.
21. Sauté the spring onion whites, shallots and ginger until they become fragrant.
22. Add the drained vegetables and the cooking liquor from the duck and stir fry.
23. Add in some sesame oil and soy sauce.
24. Add in the slices of duck and stir fry, ensuring everything is thoroughly mixed through.
25. Transfer the food from the wok to a bowl.
26. Give thanks to the Lord.
27. Eat the food with chopsticks and a spoon.

Photographs

Final thoughts

Duck breast is a very nice cut of meat. I think one weekend soon I’m going to try roasting a whole duck.

References

Chew, T. (1983). “Sodium values of Chinese condiments and their use in sodium-restricted diets.” J Am Diet Assoc 82(4): 397-401.

Counseling a Chinese patient on a low-sodium diet can be an arduous task for the dietitian. Special consideration of cultural beliefs, food preferences, and food practices must be incorporated into the individualized instruction. Equally important is the need for familiarity with the sodium values of frequently consumed foods and condiments indigenous to the Chinese population. To date, published sodium determinations for such items are quite limited. Representative samples of commonly used Chinese seasonings and sauces were collected. Analysis was performed by Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. Many of the condiments often forbidden in the sodium-restricted diet contained less than 200 mg. sodium per teaspoon in all the samples tested. These included: sweet bean sauce, rinsed and unrinsed fermented black beans, hoisin sauce, satay sauce, fermented bean cake, and rinsed and unrinsed dried shrimp. These data can give the dietitian the option of calculating these often “forbidden” items into the sodium-restricted diet. Factors to be considered are the patient’s typical meal pattern, situational needs, comprehension level, degree of compliance, and other available information.

 

Nekitsing, C., et al. (2019). “Taste Exposure Increases Intake and Nutrition Education Increases Willingness to Try an Unfamiliar Vegetable in Preschool Children: A Cluster Randomized Trial.” J Acad Nutr Diet 119(12): 2004-2013.

BACKGROUND: Intake of vegetables in children remains low. OBJECTIVE: To compare taste exposure (TE), nutrition education (NE) and TE+NE together on intake of an unfamiliar vegetable (mooli/daikon radish) in preschool-aged children. DESIGN: Children attending 11 preschools in England were randomly assigned by clusters to four intervention conditions using a 2×2 factorial design: TE, NE, TE+NE, and no intervention (control). PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred nineteen children aged 2 to 5 years participated from September 2016 to June 2017. INTERVENTION: The intervention period was 10 weeks preceded and followed by measurements of raw mooli intake as a snack. Preschools were randomized to receive weekly TE at snack time (n=62 children); NE (n=68) using the PhunkyFoods program; TE+NE (n=55) received both weekly taste exposures at snack and lessons from the PhunkyFoods program; and the control condition (n=34), received NE after the final follow-up measurement. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Individual measured intakes of mooli at Week 1 (baseline), Week 12 (postintervention), and Week 24 and Week 36 (follow-ups). STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Differences in intakes were analyzed by cluster. Logistic regressions were conducted to examine odds ratios for intake patterns. RESULTS: Data from 140 children with complete mooli intake assessments were analyzed. TE increased intake from 4.7+/-1.4 g to 17.0+/-2.0 g and this was maintained at both follow-ups. Children assigned to the NE conditions were more likely to eat some of the mooli than children who were not in the NE conditions (odds ratio 6.43, 95% CI 1.5 to 27.8). Combining TE and NE produced no additional benefit to intake beyond TE alone. CONCLUSIONS: Taste exposures encouraged children to eat more of the unfamiliar vegetable, whereas nutrition education encouraged children who were noneaters to try the vegetable. Both approaches were effective and can be used to produce different outcomes.

 

Sun, J., et al. (2020). “Study on Human Urinary Metabolic Profiles after Consumption of Kale and Daikon Radish using a High-resolution Mass Spectrometry-Based Non-targeted and Targeted Metabolomic Approach.” J Agric Food Chem.

In the present study, urine samples were collected from healthy human volunteers to determine the metabolic fates of phenolic compounds and glucosinolates after a single meal of kale and daikon radish. The major glucosinolates and phenolic compounds in kale and daikon radish were measured. The urinary metabolome after feeding at different time periods was investigated. A targeted metabolite analysis method was developed based on the known metabolic pathways for glucosinolates and phenolic compounds. Using a targeted approach, a total of 18 metabolites were found in urine: 4 from phenolic compounds and 14 from glucosinolates. Among these metabolites, 4-methylsulfinyl-3-butenyl isothiocyanate, 4-methylsulfinyl-3-butenyl isothiocyanate-cysteine, and 4-methylsulfinyl-3-butenylglucosinolate-N-acetyl cysteine were reported for the first time in human urine. The combination of non-targeted and targeted metabolomic approaches can gain a full metabolite profile for human dietary intervention studies.

 

Zhang, X., et al. (2022). “Effects of different breeds/strains on fatty acid composition and lipid metabolism-related genes expression in breast muscle of ducks.” Poult Sci 101(5): 101813.

Fatty acid composition contributes greatly to the nutritional value of meat, and breeds/strains are important factors affecting the composition of fatty acid. Recently, few studies have focused on the fatty acid composition in breast muscle of different duck breeds. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to compare the fatty acid composition and lipid metabolism-related genes expression in breast muscle of Jianchang duck (J), Cherry Verry duck (CV) and 3 crossbred strains (BH1, BH2 and MCmale symbol x (BGF2male symbol x GF2female symbol)female symbol (MBG)). Our results showed that the breast muscle of J had the highest contents of C22:1(n-9) but the lowest ratios of -omega 6 (n-6)/-omega 3 (n-3), -mono-unsaturated fatty acid (MUFA)/-saturated fatty acid (SFA) and -polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA)/SFA. The PUFA/SFA ratio was higher in breast muscle of MBG than in that of BH2 and CV, and the contents of C22:1(n-9), MUFA and PUFA were higher in BH1 than in BH2 and CV. Furthermore, the mRNA levels of SCD1, FADS2, ELOVL2, and ELOVL5 were significantly higher in MBG (P < 0.05), while those of FASD1 and ACACA were significantly higher in BH1 than in BH2 and CV (P < 0.05). Principal component analysis showed that fatty acids variation exhibited extensive positive loading on principal components (PCs). Correlation analysis showed that PC1 and PC3 of BH1, as well as PC1 of MBG were correlated with the mRNA levels of ACACA and FABP3, respectively. Thus, it could be concluded that the breast muscles of MBG and BH1 have better fatty acid composition, which was closely related to the increased expression levels of SCD1, FADS2, ELOVL2, and ELOVL5 genes in MBG but FADS1 and ACACA in BH1. Moreover, these results also showed that crossbreeding could optimize the composition of fatty acid in breast muscle of ducks.