Last Night’s Dinner

Sitting down with this stack of books and magazines, flipping through them, sketching out a menu for the week and beyond, well, it’s about all that has kept me sane over the last few days. A health scare for a beloved family member and an extremely busy period at work have had me frazzled, the end result being that I haven’t spent much time actually cooking. On the upside, we had a great time hanging out with old friends and new over the weekend, and we ate more meals out over the course of 3 or 4 days than we probably had in the entire month prior. I’m itching to cook more, but I must say this break has definitely provided me with some culinary inspiration.

I promised you guys a rundown of my lunch at Le Bernardin, and as expected it was a fantastic experience. The meal began with a starter of lightly smoked salmon rilletes for the table. My first course was a plate of six perfect raw oysters, ranging from teeny tiny and briny to big and plump and sweet, followed by a gorgeous main course of Florida grouper with shiso and maitake mushrooms in a lemon-miso broth. My boss likes to make sure I get the “full experience” when we go out to these lunches, so I was able to sample his selections as well – his first course of super-sweet peekytoe crab and entrée of red snapper in a ginger and scallion broth were also just wonderful. To go along with our lunch, we had a bottle of 2005 Shafer Red Shoulder Chardonnay, a really lovely and complex wine. The food and drink were amazing, the service was top-notch, and it was really a special experience I am grateful to have had. I came away with some fun ideas for future seafood dinners.

As for the rest of our weekend, Mike did the heavy lifting where dinners were concerned. On Friday night, he put together a delicious rendition of Fergus Henderson’s braised duck and carrots from “The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating,” then on Sunday he seared a couple of grass-fed ribeyes and made a batch of fries to go alongside. My contribution to the meal was inspired both by the dish I had at Sweetwater Tavern on Thursday night, as well as by a recent Blue Kitchen post – a bright and tasty chimichurri sauce which was a perfect foil for our rich steaks.

I decided to put together a big batch of Bolognese sauce on Sunday and let it cook all afternoon while Mike and I did other things around the house, and as it turned out, it was a good thing I did. My workweek has been extremely busy, so while I wasn’t able to prepare the meal I had planned for Monday night, we didn’t have to scramble for a plan B – I just reheated some of the sauce (to which I added a healthy dollop of ricotta and the rest of a batch of pesto I made last week), cooked up some pasta and had dinner on the table in no time.

Not the prettiest dish in the world, but curling up with a glass of Barbera d’Alba and a rich and meaty dish of pasta at the end of a 13+ hour day was just what I needed.

It’s entirely possible that I’ll be eating takeout at my desk tonight as we finish up this big project, but once we’ve finished I look forward to going through my cookbooks and magazines and my little red notebook and getting back in the kitchen to take some of these recipes and ideas for a spin.

We began another meal cycle last weekend, this time with a whole duck. Mike and I have become big fans of duck as much for its flavor as for its versatility, so this was a series of dinners we were particularly looking forward to. We took a quick trip to The Brooklyn Kitchen on Saturday to get some new tools, returning home with a shiny new boning knife and poultry shears which Mike was eager to put to use.

He took the duck apart, setting the backbone, wings and organs aside for me, and reserving the extra skin and fatty bits to render down later. I placed the duck trimmings into a stockpot with some vegetable trimmings, salt and water and let them perk away to make a stock, then I stepped aside and let Mike get to work on confit.

Here’s what happened next, in his words:

After breaking the duck apart into its components, I sliced the breasts away from the bone and set the legs aside for confit. We had two additional legs that we had ordered separately, which I used as well.

I had previously made a batch of cure mix, based on a recipe by Dan Barber of New York’s Blue Hill restaurants. I sliced a shallot and scattered it on the bottom of a small casserole. I then sprinkled generous portions of the cure mix over the duck legs and rubbed it in. The casserole then went into the fridge for 24 hours. (I have cured legs for as long as 72 hours, but it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference how long you cure them, once you pass the 24-hour mark.)

The next day, I pulled the casserole from the fridge, brushed the cure mix and shallot off the duck legs, and placed the legs into a larger casserole. Meanwhile, I gently warmed about three to four cups of duck fat on the stove, so that it would melt. I poured that over the legs and put the casserole in the oven on 200. I let them bake for two hours, turned off the heat, and left them in until the casserole was cool to the touch. The legs went into a plastic container, with the fat poured over them. I lidded up the container and placed it in the fridge. You could, if you can spare the casserole, simply store them in the fridge that way, as long as you cover them with plastic wrap.

When you’re ready to use the legs, be sure to pull the confit container out of the chill at least one hour before you need them. This helps the fat soften up enough that you can pull the legs out without all the meat shredding off the bone and remaining in the fat. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.

We didn’t eat any of our duck that first night, but we had the makings of three duck dinners at the ready, and on Sunday, I tackled the first in the series, a duck and sausage gumbo. My first taste of duck and sausage gumbo came years ago, at the now-defunct LeBleau’s Cajun Kitchen outside Destin, Florida. I was smitten and began work on my own version soon after I returned home, and while it may not be the most traditional gumbo recipe out there, it’s a crowd-pleaser.

Duck and Sausage Gumbo

I usually make a big batch of gumbo for friends shortly after Thanksgiving, using the carcass of the bird to make stock and adding some of the leftover turkey meat to the gumbo. If you’re looking for a new way to use up some of your post-turkey day leftovers, this is a good option – just use turkey stock and meat in place of the duck in the recipe below.

For the roux:
1 cup fat (you can use vegetable oil or whatever sort of fat you wish; I used duck fat for this)
1 cup flour

For the gumbo:
8-10 cups stock (I used duck stock, but you can substitute chicken)
1 bay leaf
Several sprigs fresh thyme
1 lb. spicy smoked sausage (andouille or something similar), sliced
2 cups cooked shredded duck meat
2 cups diced onion
2 cups diced celery
2 cups diced bell pepper (green is traditional but I’m not a fan, so I use red)
Salt
Cayenne pepper to taste

For serving:
Steamed white rice
Sliced scallions
Crusty bread
Your favorite vinegar-based hot pepper sauce

Melt fat or heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the flour to the oil and begin whisking until incorporated. Stir or whisk often, keeping a close eye on the color of the roux; you want a deep, toasty aroma and caramel-to-brown color, but be careful, as the mixture can burn very easily. This amount of roux cooked over medium heat usually takes between 30-45 minutes start to finish.

While the roux cooks, add the stock, bay leaf, thyme and meats to a large stock pot and bring to a simmer.

Once the roux is ready, add the diced onion, celery and bell pepper carefully to the skillet, stirring to coat the vegetables with the roux. Cook for another minute or two, then ladle in a cup or two of the hot stock, stirring well. Carefully pour the vegetable/roux mixture from the skillet into the stock pot. Season with salt and cayenne, stir, cover and simmer until the liquid thickens, adjusting seasoning as necessary. Cook for 30 minutes (or longer over very low heat). Remove the thyme stems and bay leaf, and ladle into bowls. Add a spoonful of white rice and garnish with scallions. Pass hot sauce and bread at the table.

Mike took the reins for our next duck dinner – smoked duck breasts with sautéed kale and farro with cranberries and a bit of Rogue River Creamery Smoky Blue cheese crumbled in. He says:

The smoked duck breast was easy. Following the instructions that came with our Cameron smoker, I set the smoker on the stove top and piled about 1-1/2 tablespoons of cherry wood chips in the center. I placed the drip pan on top, lined with a sheet of foil. The rack went atop the drip pan. I scored the skin of the breasts and generously salted and peppered them. I placed them on the rack and turned the heat to just under medium. They smoked for 20 minutes. When I removed them from the smoker, I placed them into a hot iron skillet with a bit of olive oil, to sear the skin of the breasts.

Mike felt that they were a little more done than we usually like, but thanks to the smoker they still were tender and juicy, with an irresistible hint of cherry smoke present in the meat, skin and fat.

We’re having the third meal of this duck cycle tonight: a couple of confit legs, crisped up in our cast iron skillet, potatoes fried in duck fat, frisee salad and a nice bottle of red. It’s one of our favorite easy weeknight dinners – sort of a grown-up version of convenience food, but elegant and delicious.

(I’m taking brief but much needed hiatus and plan to return sometime next week. Be well!)

I’ve got a lot to write up, but I just haven’t had the time or the words yet. We spent a good part of our weekend playing with duck - another cycle of dinners similar to last week’s adventures with pork shoulder, and I have recipes to share, but I need a bit more time to collect myself.

If you follow this site then you know that our schedules have been a bit crazy of late, with Mike working steady overtime, so it has been hard to get into a good groove where weeknight meals are concerned. I had a plan for last night, but I’ve been battling insomnia for the last several days and I pretty much hit the wall soon after Mike got home from work yesterday evening. I was too tired to think straight, much less put together the meal I had hoped to. Luckily, our fridge and pantry are well-stocked for situations like this - a good thing, because as I’ve mentioned before, dining and takeout options in our neighborhood are practically nonexistent.

Whoever came up with the idea of slowly cooking then preserving seasoned pieces of duck in their own fat deserves a holiday in their honor, an award named after them, and a statue in the center of town. Because seriously, what a genius idea, and what a wonderful thing to be able to pull out of the fridge for a superfast dinner.

Mike had prepared the duck confit to begin with, and it was he who removed a few pieces from their blanket of fat and crisped them up in the cast iron skillet while I sat on the sofa struggling to stay awake long enough to eat. He also cooked thin slices of red and Yukon gold potatoes in duck fat, starting them on the stovetop and finishing them in the oven until they were crisp on the outside and tender inside. I was able to get my act together enough to toss a salad (we usually do frisee with duck confit, but arugula was what we had on hand, so that was what I used) and then plate everything up. It was just what the doctor ordered - quick, satisfying and utterly delicious.

Cherries have just begun to appear at the Greenmarket, and while I love them straight or with a little something sweet, I love them even more in savory dishes. They’re a perfect partner for duck, and when the temperature inside our apartment proved too warm to sear these duck breasts and make a cherry pan sauce, I had to punt.

I scored the skin/fat side of the duck breasts and seasoned them heavily with salt, then handed them off to Mike to grill (which, by the way, he did to perfection). I cooked up a cup of farro in about 2 cups of salted water, drained it, and set it aside to cool slightly. I mixed up a bit of dijon vinaigrette, added a hefty amount of fresh thyme from the garden, tossed in about a cup of halved pitted fresh cherries, then added the farro and tossed it all together. The tartness of the cherries and sharpness of the dijon mustard were great counterpoints to the richness of the duck.