Limpkins Redux

The Limpkins are still here fluttering about the lake, truly happy little Limpkins. It made me think. In these days of recession where everyone is concerned about the cost of things like food and gasoline, what do you suppose Limpkins taste like? Are there recipes using Limpkin as an ingredient? There are times I’ve stared at the meat counter in Publix thinking to myself I wish there was a new meat. And all along it has been screeching at me “take me; I am the new meat, Limpkin”. I laughed hysterically when a neighbor was eyeing the Muscovy Ducks, also in abundance around the lake, and suggested that duck gumbo would be an interesting alternative to the Christmas goose. I thought these duck couldn’t possibly taste good, look how lumpy they are. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Muscovy duck has been sighted on up market restaurant menus in New York. I chuckled to myself when I saw it this past summer, remembering my neighbor’s suggestion about duck gumbo. I did not order it.

So now I started a quest to find out about these Limpkins in cuisine. Yup, the recipes are out there. Some references referred to them as “succulent”. They are also called “great duck”

The oddest recipe I found for Limpkin was from Manaus in Brazil…recipes of the Amazon. A word of Caution on this recipe, it calls for Tucupi which is an extract from the root of the cassava tree, which is peeled, grated and squeezed. The liquid is then boiled for hours. If not sufficiently boiled it is poisonous due to the presence of hydrogen cyanide. On second thought It might be better to fly to Rio and take another flight to Manaus (about 4 hours) or a bus (36 hours) or perhaps it would be better to make an inquiry at “Whole Foods” or take a good look around “Fairway”. It might be lurking there.

Anyway, here is the recipe. It is not my recipe and it appears to be written by someone whose first language is not English. I found it an amusing read. It would probably take a lifetime to ferret out the ingredients. Jambu is not traditional watercress.

Duck in the Tucupi Sauce (Pato no Tucupi)

Ingredients
1 great duck
3 small onions, peeled, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic
100 grams of bacon in slices
5 ripe tomatoes (optional)
1/3 of cup (tea) of vinegar
1 leaf of laurel tree
1/2 spoon (coffee) of cumin powder and black pepper
1 cup (tea) of oil
1 bunch of jambu (or watercress)
1 liter of Tucupi
12 spoons (soup) of toasted cassava flour
Salt

Preparetion steps:
Clean the duck cleans very well. Following, pierce it slightly with a fork and spice it with beaten garlic, salt, laurel tree, black pepper, cumin powder and vinegar. Leave it to take taste of one day for the other. After this time, cover the duck with sliced of bacon, place it in a roasting pan, arrange for top the slices of onion and tomato. It waters with oil and it has led to the moderate oven, leaving to bake until the duck is ruddy and soft. Remove it, cut it in pieces and leave it in the proper gravy. Clean jambu, wash and it has pricked (it conserves the stems to give more taste), boil tucupi with 2 cloves of garlic previously beaten, per more or less 15 minutes. When using watercress, do not boil it. Add pieces of the duck in the gravy and leaves to boil per 20 minutes. In the hour to serve, place in each plate 2 cassava flour soup spoons, arranges for top 1 or 2 pieces of duck and pours gravy sufficiently (well hot). The gravy mixed the flour, will form a species of will pirão.

* To make the gravy of the Tucupi:
Grape the cassava, press the broth and place it to cook with sufficient garlic. After cold, bottle it.

A good option to make with tucupi is the Tacacá celebrity:
Boil one liter of tucupi with a twig of jambu and three peppers malaguetas. It makes a well thick mass with half kilo of manioc powder and water. It mixes half kilo of dry shrimps and serves with gravy of tucupi for top, hot.