My friend B and I held our first dinner party last night. Aside from the fact that the guest list was last nimute and had more cancellations than yeas, we had the perfect mix of people and barely any awkward silences were observed.
The Menu:
Roasted Beets and Goat Cheese Salad -- served on butter lettuce with watercress, fennel, red onion and a balsamic and cherry reduction sauce.
Duck Two Ways with Roasted Root Vegetables and House-made Linguine -- Cherry and port braised duck legs, ginger and garlic sauteed duck breasts, roasted turnip, rutabega, sweet potato, and parsnip, and linguine tossed with butter and garlic.
Creme Brulee and Chocolate-Butterscotch Cookies
This was an intense two days worth of cooking since I bought whole ducks and was determined to get every penny out of them. First, B and I broke down the ducks. This involves separating the leg and thighs from the body, then removing the breasts, trimming the fat and trying not to berate yourself for all the meat left on the bird. Then, since the tenders will separate themselves from the breasts while cooking anyways, we felt it our obligation to bread them in panko and fry them up for the best "chicken" tenders you'll ever had. B's husband (who was plenty skeptical about duck) declared they were good with the wary mien of a food-o-phobe.
It should be noted at this point that most of the people in attendance were plenty frightened to be eating duck. Duck, being one of my favorite meats holds little mystery, only excitement. But for the uninitiated, it borders on the exotic or conjures pictures of fat men with hunting rifles. Cooked properly, duck is like the dark meat of turkey with a more complex flavor profile and a wider range of uses. The legs should be slow cooked (2-3 hours minimum), either by braise or confit. Otherwise, the meat is tough and stringy. The breasts can be cooked rare and favor sautee or grill preparations. Those worried about salmonella should note that game birds (duck, quail, pheasant, etc.) do not pose a likely threat of salmonella. The salmonella problems in chicken and turkey generally rise from factory farming conditions. This is good to know when you order your duck in a restaurant and realize it's not cooked to cardboard doneness.
All I knew I wanted to cook for the dinner was the duck legs braised in Port with cherries. I went to the local vegetable market and picked up everything that looked delicious. We are just shy of spring, so there are a few winter root vegetables left for foraging, and that was about it. I did pick up a beautiful head of fennel (when purchasing fennel, you want it to have a rounded bulb that is firm and feels heavy for its size). This all clicked the remaider of the menu into place.
To make the most of the leftover bits, I made stock from the duck carcasses and rendered the fat for later use. Duck fat can be used in replacement for oil or butter when sauteeing and adds excellent flavor.
I will post the recipes for the salad and the root vegetables in another post.
The main lesson I took away from this dinner party was the lesson of timing. I heated the vegetables too early and thus had to kill the heat and reheat them twice making them slightly overcooked. I fired the braised legs in a 475 degree oven way too early and had to reheat them. The breasts were larger than I thought and took about 20 minutes longer to sautee than I thought the would so I ended up impatient and didn’t cook them as nice as I wanted. I also started plating the salads way too early and they should have been served immediately, but they sat around for too long, thus losing a bit of their texture. The one thing perfectly timed was the serving plate of layered pieces of cut duck breasts set on the table with steam still wafting up in happy little wisps.
