~ Regency Style Roast Duck and Crispy Roast Potatoes ~
 
Serves 4-6
Cooks in 3 hours (includes preparation and resting time)
 
Ingredients:

• 2kg whole duck
• 1 kg potatoes good for roasting (e.g. Desiree)
• 1 cup of good quality duck or chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon plain flour
• ¼ cup brandy
• salt and pepper to taste

 
Stuffing:

• ½ cup toasted walnuts
• 40g unsalted butter
• 100 grams of lardons (bacon pieces)
• 1 green apple, grated (leave skin on)
• 1 tablespoon sage leaves, chopped finely
• 1 tablespoon brandy plus more if needed
• 1 stalk celery, finely diced
• ½ large brown onion, finely chopped
• ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1 & ½ cups stale breadcrumbs

 
To serve: steamed green beans for 4-6
 
Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Take the duck out of the fridge and bring to room temperature an hour before cooking.
2. For the stuffing, roast the walnuts on a baking tray in the oven for about 5 minutes or until they just begin to color. Remove from the oven and when cool enough, chop the nuts roughly and set aside.
3. Heat the 40 grams of butter in a medium non stick frying pan, then sauté the lardons, grated apple, diced onion and celery, and sage over medium heat for about 5-8 minutes until soft or just beginning to color. When almost cooked, deglaze the pan with the brandy. Transfer to a mixing bowl.
4. Reduce the oven temperature to 180ºC.
5. While the walnut, lardon, apple and sage mixture is still hot, add the breadcrumbs, and combine well. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then moisten with a little extra brandy if needed to just bring together.
6. Stuff the duck with this mixture and secure the cavity; tie the duck legs together with cooking twine, or plug the cavity with a whole, small (or half) an apple to stop the stuffing escaping. Use a metal skewer through the back thigh area of the duck and the apple to keep the stuffing from falling out.
7. Prick the duck skin lightly, season lightly with salt then place on a rack in a large roasting pan in the pre-heated oven for an hour.
8. While the duck is cooking, place the potatoes in a saucepan. Cover with cold, salted water, bring to a simmer and parboil for 5 to 10 minutes, drain and then return to the saucepan and toss to roughen up the surfaces a little.
9. After the duck has roasted for an hour, remove the tray, transfer the duck to a plate, then carefully pour the hot fat and juices from the bottom of the roasting tray into a jug. Skim off the fat to use for roasting the potatoes (or put the jug in the freezer until the fat sets and then you can remove it very easily). Set aside the remaining juices to use later for the gravy.
10. Return the duck to the roasting tray and continue to roast in the oven. After 15 minutes, place the potatoes with the reserved duck fat in another tray (add an extra tablespoon of olive oil or melted butter if needed to make sure the potatoes are all coated in fat), season with salt then put in the oven on another shelf to roast. After 30 minutes, turn the potatoes so they crisp evenly.
11. After the duck has roasted for another hour (two hours roasting time in total), remove it to a carving tray and stand for 20-30 minutes while you finish roasting the potatoes (they take about an hour), steaming the green beans, and making the gravy.
12. To make the gravy, drain off the extra fat from the duck roasting tray, leaving about a tablespoon in the bottom as well as any meaty bits clinging to the pan. Put the tray on the stove top over medium-low heat and add the tablespoon of flour; stir with a wooden spoon and cook for a few minutes to make a light nut brown paste. Top up the reserved juices from the jug that you collected earlier, with an extra cup of chicken stock and the ¼ cup of brandy. Pour into the roasting tray, blending in the paste, then increase the heat to medium-hot, stirring constantly until the gravy boils and thickens. Turn the heat to low. Skim any extra fat off the sauce if desired. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
13. Carve the duck and serve with the drained roast potatoes, beans and gravy. Enjoy!

 
Sources & References:
 
The London Art of Cookery and Domestic Housekeeper's Complete Assistant, John Farley, 1811.
 
http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/A-Georgian-Christmas/
 
http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.ae/2013/12/a-regency-christmas-feast.html
 
Christmas Traditions in Regency England by Regan Walker http://thewritewaycafe.blogspot.ae/2014/12/christmas-traditions-in-regency-england.html#.Vj9-Klpm3dk
 
http://www.historicfood.com/Comfits.htm
​

For The Bluestocking Belles' books carry you into the past for your happy-ever-after. When you have turned the last page of our novels and novellas, keep up with us (and other historical romance authors) in the Teatime Tattler, a Regency scandal sheet, and join in with the characters you love for impromptu storytelling in the Bluestocking Bookshop on Facebook. Also, look for online games and contests and monthly book chats, and find us at BellesInBlue on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Come visit at www.BluestockingBelles.com and kick up your bluestockinged heels!
 
MISTLETOE, MARRIAGE, & MAYHEM is a collection of novellas by the Bluestocking Belles. Heat rating: From G to PG-13
 
In this collection of novellas, the Bluestocking Belles bring you seven runaway Regency brides resisting and romancing their holiday heroes under the mistletoe. Whether scampering away or dashing toward their destinies, avoiding a rogue or chasing after a scoundrel, these ladies and their gentlemen leave miles of mayhem behind them on the slippery road to a happy-ever-after. ***All proceeds benefit the Malala Fund.***

For details of all the stories in Mistletoe, Marriage and Mayhem... Click the READ MORE link 
  
Book buy links:
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​

​So, I wanted to write a WWII romance for the holidays but had already committed to a Christmas story for a contemporary box set. Trying to kill two birds with one stone, (go ahead and groan, I love clichés,) I decided to combine the two love stories. Dante’s Gift was created with the help of my stepfather, a British veteran from WWII, stationed in North Africa and Italy. 
 
After doing my research, and finding a battle in Italy that would add some grit to my story, I went to Eric. Lucky for me he had been at that particular battle. He took one look at the name Cassino and shot down my idea like a true fighter pilot. As I crashed and burned, he quickly grabbed a map to find a better setting. His finger pointed to Foggia where he had been stationed at a large air base. I watched him trace a line towards Naples and the coast. Pointing to a place called Benevento, he said, “That’s it. That’s your setting.”
 
“Why?” I asked, hoping to hear another great adventure from his soldiering days.
 
“As a messenger traveling back and forth between the air base and Naples, I went through this little town often.” He smiled, as if remembering something or someone pleasant, then coughed and gave a quick glance over his shoulder at my mother.  “The Yanks bought sticky buns here. They cost a fortune because food and supplies were so scarce. But a soldier will pay a high price for a reminder of home.”
 
He helped with many small details that most people would never notice. What did they use to tape up a glass counter or cover broken out windows? Accurate descriptions of the local geography and available food were all great bits of information that I needed to weave into the prose to make it believable. The correct slang for an American versus a British soldier.
 
My story, of course, contains a scene or two with Eric. Look for the British pilot! I  also included a famous liqueur, Strega, that is still made there today. The small church of Santa Sofia, where my characters attend a funeral, is the only church that survived the bombing during the retreat of the Germans and the entry of the Americans.  And of course, there are the sticky buns. 

For more information:
Information on Santa Sofia, Benevento
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Sofia,_Benevento

Here is a link to a newsreel showing Benevento during WWII. The Germans had just left and the Americans were moving in. The destruction was terrible and the main cathedral had been bombed to pieces. But Santa Sofia, the smaller church, remains standing today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2RXMn7kJ00
 
Information on Strega and the legend of the Witches:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strega_(liqueur)

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iBooks http://apple.co/1N0XSSd
​

England 1922: In the shadow of the Great War, grieving widow, Helen Morrow and her husband’s cousin, the wounded and reclusive Paul, are haunted not only by the horrors of the trenches but ghosts from another time and another conflict.

The desperate voice of a young woman reaches out to them from the pages of a coded diary and Paul and Helen are bound together in their search for answers, not only to the old mystery but also the circumstances surrounding the death of Helen’s husband at Passchandaele in  1917.

As the two stories become entwined, Paul and Helen will not find peace until the mysteries are solved.

​Today is Melbourne Cup Day. The horse race that ‘stops a nation’ – literally. I had only been in Australia a few short months (at school in Perth) and at lunchtime on the first Tuesday in November, the girls, took a smuggled radio down to the back of the playing fields to listen to the running of the Cup. It was 1968 and Rain Lover won.

As an Australian there are few better things to claim in your pedigree then descent from a convict.  Only one other thing could possibly trump that… and that is claiming a connection with a famous horse. I can claim both… and, oddly, they are related.

Before we continue… the horse is not the famous Phar Lap, but the next most famous horse, the winner of the very first Melbourne Cup, Archer.

Archer’s owner and trainer was my Great+ Uncle, Etienne DeMestre, grandson of Mary Hyde, my convict ancestor. Etienne’s mother, Mary Ann Black had married an interesting Frenchman by the name of Prosper DeMestre, who established himself as a businessman in Sydney in about 1818. They had a large family of which Etienne was the youngest son and my own great+ grandmother, Annette, the youngest daughter.

Anyway, back to the horse. The DeMestres owned considerable property on the Shoalhaven River in NSW (to the south of Sydney) where they bred and trained horses. The DeMestre stables at Terara were a model of how such stables should be run and informal race meetings were often held at their private race track.  Horses dominated their lives and as anyone involved in that industry will tell you, it was drought or plenty. I have read some very amusing correspondence from one of the deMestre women complaining about her beloved horse being sold from underneath her when funds ran low.

The great horse, Archer, was foaled in 1856 and came into Etienne’s hands in 1860. Archer was one of three horses DeMestre sent to Melbourne for the running of the first Melbourne Cup. One of the many, many family legends is that in order for his horse to reach, Etienne walked Archer from Shoalhaven to Melbourne (some 850kms). So great is this myth that it was even made into a film (Archer’s Adventure 1985 starring Nicole Kidman – yes really!). However like all good myths, it is just that… the furthest Archer had to walk was the 8 miles to the wharf on the River. Before railways, boat was the only way to transport horses (and sadly DeMestre’s 1876 cup entry was lost at sea along with nine other racehorses).

That first Melbourne Cup was a modest affair, watched by a mere four thousand spectators. Ridden by popular jockey Johnny Cutts (wearing the all black livery of the DeMestre stables), Archer took out the field of seventeen to become the first winner. He won again the following year and would have raced in the third cup, but the entry was received too late. The refusal to allow the entry led to a boycott by interstate trainers and the smallest field in the history of the cup was run that year.

Archer was retired to stud after injury and lived out a long and happy life. In total, DeMestre trained five winners of the Melbourne Cup (a record only bested by Bart Cummings). However he was plagued by financial and health difficulties and died in 1916 at the age of 84. 
​
Which brings me to one of the strange coincidences in life… I was talking to my friend, Australian historical romance writer, Tea Cooper about her latest release THE HORSE THIEF… and in the course of conversation Tea told me that she had drawn heavily on the story of Archer for her own story, set in the lovely Hunter Valley (north of Sydney) which lays its own claim on Archer…

​Tea writes “… there is a local Hunter Valley myth that Archer was in fact a ‘Hunter horse’ and indeed a famous Hunter horse by the name of Young Dover was frequently ridden from Maitland to racetracks across NSW. He won many races after travelling over 100 miles in one day.

Today the Hunter Valley in NSW is regarded as one of the most important horse breeding areas in Australia, but it wasn’t until the 1870s that the first Hunter horse won the Melbourne Cup. Perhaps the reason the Hunter lays claim to breeding the first winner of the Melbourne Cup is that the stories of Young Dover and Archer have melded in the minds of Hunter Valley residents over the years. In some of the more ‘historic’ watering holes in the Hunter Valley, Archer is still claimed as a Hunter animal.

For fiction’s sake I have adopted the Hunter version of the myth. The Kilhamptons did not exist other than in my imagination, nor did their property, Helligen. It is loosely based on the historic homestead, Tocal, near Paterson in the Hunter, north of Sydney…’

It therefore seems appropriate that here on Melbourne Cup Day I introduce Tea’s wonderful story of a horse… and a dream.

Print available now in bookshops and from Harlequin MIRA http://ow.ly/SS1WP  
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