Big Birds, Baked Beans and Brown Bread

Good morning. I’m going hard on the fats and proteins this weekend. That’s not only because it’s still winter, but also because, for many, next week brings the start of Ramadan and its daily fasts that start at dawn and end with iftar, the sunset meal to break the fast.

We have loads of recipes for Ramadan, including a marvelous roast chicken with couscous, dates and buttered almonds (above), a recipe that Julia Moskin adapted from the food writer Yvonne Maffei. It’s a winning combination. (I’m partial, as well, to Yotam Ottolenghi’s spiced maqluba with tomatoes and tahini sauce, and to Ifrah F. Ahmed’s Somali-style fava bean stew.) Ramadan Mubarak, one and all.

Featured Recipe

Yvonne Maffei’s Roast Chicken With Couscous, Dates and Buttered Almonds

View Recipe →

More poultry? The farm where I get my Thanksgiving turkey every year also sells ducks, some of them cooked, rotisserie-style, in the shop at the front of their fields. I shred the meat from the carcass, crisp the skin in a skillet and wrap a bit of each in warm flour tortillas with hoisin sauce and sliced scallions for a dopey version of Peking duck that’s just as enjoyable as anything you’d get at Decoy or Hutong in Manhattan.

Mark Bittman’s recipe for an easy roast duck can give you similar results this weekend, or you can go whole hog (bird) with Kay Chun’s recipe for Peking duck with honey and five-spice glaze instead. I urge you to do so because most folks don’t eat duck often. (Americans consume just .34 pounds of duck each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.) And they ought to. Duck’s delicious.