Mallard

We were on our own for Christmas Day: one 74-year old gent and his much younger (by 11 months) wife! No children (in darkest Wiltshire and in the USA), no visitors. Very peaceful, in fact!

However, it was clear to us that there was no future in cooking a turkey or goose for our Christmas meal unless we wanted leftovers for weeks on end. That thought is what prompted our visit to one of the butchers in the Covered Market that I showed last Friday. We saw this mallard, and thought it would fit the bill perfectly. It did!

Running at about our normal Christmas schedule, the bird was ready for the oven at about ten-to-four. We started on some smoked salmon at almost dead on four, and the mallard was out of the oven, rested, and we were eating it by roughly half-past.

The mallard turned out to be an excellent inspiration. Although the bird looks quite small in this photograph, it had adequate meat for two decent helpings each, and there is still a reasonable amount left over. The meat was succulent, tender and very tasty; and unlike a farmed duck, there was almost no fat on the bird. On the plate, you see as well some balls of two kinds of stuffing that we cooked with the mallard.

We celebrated a really nice Christmas Day. The weather was mixed cloudy and sunny, but when the sun was out it was almost warm. Here is a sunny scene from our traditional walk in the local park. But there were also dark clouds around earlier on. And we were surprised by these floods at the end of the park: I don't think that we have ever seen such flooding happen before. The line of trees marks the passage of a little stream that flows elsewhere into the Cherwell. Evidently, it is the low ground around the stream that has become saturated.

So we really enjoyed our quiet day on our own. The peaceful times are ending now! Visitors arrive in about two hours, and there is a succession of different people eating or staying with us on and off until 2 January; and most of the gaps will be filled by kind invitations outside that we have accepted.

As a record, I've made a photojournal for the day.

Here are wine details for our family. With the salmon (and the preceding present opening), we drank an excellent St Aubin 1er Cru 2002 (St Aubin is in the Côte de Beaune, the vineyards being located mainly in a side valley to the west of Chassagne-Montrachet). For the mallard, we selected a 1987 Château Beychevelle (Saint-Julien), which was in superb condition, and with the Christmas pudding, we sipped a glass or two of Château Ramon 2010 (Monbazillac).