Don’t fear the hook.

Asian markets offer amazing barbecue duck, but you need to get past the shock of seeing it hanging in the front window.

One of my favorite morning-after-drinking-recipes is hash made with the meat of one of those glorious mallards topped with a poached egg.  You can do all the prep the night before, toss it all in one container and fry it up in the morning.

Duck Hash Recipe

• 1 barbecue duck
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled
• 1 large potato, peeled
• 2 medium carrots, peeled
• 4 scallions, cut to 1/2 inch lengths
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter

The day before:

1. Remove duck meat from bones, separate meat from fat and skin and cut both piles into 1/2-inch  pieces.
2. Boil sweet potato, potato, and carrots until cooked, cut into 1/2 inch cubes and combine with scallions and meat.
3. Add skin/fat to a hot pan to render fat and crisp skin.  Pour off fat, add butter and reserve for the morning.
4. Add crispy duck skin to other ingredients. Season with salt and pepper to taste and refrigerate covered.

In the morning:

1. Add 4 tablespoons fat to a wok or large skillet.  Once hot, add hash and stir fry until crispy and brown on the edges.
2. Serve on a bed of greens with a poached egg on top and hot sauce on the side.

The belly is where the bacon is, but if you don’t want to smoke it, you can braise it.

Recent studies have shown that bacon is the ultimate hangover cure, because of it’s high protein content – converted to amino acids – resulting in a clearer head and the enticing smell leads to eating more, increasing the metabolism, thus speeding the healing process.

Simply brine the belly for 3 days, then move the belly from brine to oven before you go out on the town.  When you get home, turn on the oven and go to sleep.  When you wake up, breakfast is almost ready.

Braised Pork Belly

Brine

• 1 cup sugar
• 1.5 cups salt
• 2 tablespoons pickling spice
• 2 tablespoons black pepper
• 4 cups water
• 4 cups ice

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Everything Else

• 2-3 pounds pork belly, skin on
• 1 quart frozen chicken stock
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 6 shallots, peeled
• 1 small potato, peeled and quartered

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3 days ahead: mix all brine ingredients but the ice, bring to a boil and simmer until sugar and salt have dissolved.  Take off heat, add ice and let completely cool, then submerge pork belly and refrigerate.

The night before: before you go out, remove pork from brine, place in covered pan with remaining ingredients in cold oven.

Before you go to bed: set oven to 200 degrees and set your alarm for 8 hours. Leave a note on your pillow or you’ll forget.

In the morning: slice the belly into quarter-inch strips across the grain and sear on both sides until crispy.  Savor the smell, simmer cooking  liquid to reduce with the vegetables and then blend to create gravy.  Serve with gravy on the side.

Note:  This also makes a great garninsh/edible swizzle stick for a bloody mary.  Celery is for sissies.

It contains juice and assorted vegetables, making it healthy, and vodka, which will aid in your recovery.

Add ingredients to a highball glass in the order below, stir with celery and add remaining garnish.  Take a deep breath.

• Bloody Mary: (roughly)
• 4 ice cubes
• 2 ounces vodka (optionally half firewater)
• 4 ounces V8
• Juice of 1/4 lemon
• 1 Dash Worcestershire sauce
• 2 Dashes Sriracha
• 1 Pinch celery salt
• 1 Pinch black pepper
• 1/3 teaspoon horseradish

• Garnish:
• 1 celery stick
• 1 lemon wedge
• 1 spear pickled veggies (or olives)
• 1 strip crispy bacon

The florescent bottle you bought isn’t grenadine; it’s the bastard red-headed stepchild, but thanks to the public demand for antioxidants, pomegranate juice is now available in every store in the double-bubble bottle, so we can all make our own grenadine, the right way.

Grenadine Recipe

1 16-ounce bottle of Pom (pomegranate juice)
1 cup of granulated sugar
1 shot of vodka (preferably high proof)

Simmer the juice until reduced by half, then stir in sugar to dissolve, and add vodka.
Let cool before pouring back into original bottle.