...and more duck!

Even though we just had some duck breast the week before, we wound up having duck again the following week! For a while now, I had been planning to pick up some foie gras from my favorite Sonoma duck source when Uly and I go to Sonoma for a mini-vacation in late December. However, I just couldn't wait when I saw that they had duck confit on sale again after being out of stock for several months. I jumped at the chance and ordered a bunch of duck leg confits (4 pairs!) as well as replenishing our foie gras supply.


Fresh seared foie gras, cranberry walnut bread

Since we had the foie gras anyway, we decided to go with that as our first course. I have to say, even though frozen foie gras is still yummy even after a year, there's just nothing like a nice fresh piece of foie. We decided not to have a sauce, and just served it seared as is, so we can fully enjoy the flavor that freshness brings. I wanted some brioche to go with it, but sadly Trader Joe's no longer carries it so I just had to settle for some cranberry-walnut bread (this way we can use the same bread for cheese later). The sweetness of the bread helped compensate for the lack of fruit/sauce and was a great compliment to our "naked" foie gras.


Chateau Monbazillac 2000 with the foie

I had a bottle of Chateau de Monbazillac 2000 that has been sitting in our cellar for quite some time, so it seemed like a good time to break it out. I almost forgot that we had it, I think I bought it on sale a long time ago. Monbazillac is one of those wines that they usually pair with foie gras at restaurants, given its similarity to Sauternes (but usually cheaper since it's a lesser-known region). I remember actually enjoying Monbazillac more than Sauternes in the past, due to its lighter, more subtle flavor. Maybe if I ever have a really good Sauternes like Chateau d'Yquem that will change my mind. I do think that having aged this wine for a bit (we probably bought it 3-4 years ago) definitely made it lighter, more subtle, and definitely much better! Maybe I should "forget" about some of my other wines for a few years too! As an added bonus, it gave me a good excuse to use my also-new port/dessert wine glasses (yeah, I've been obsessed with wine glasses recently!)

On to our main course. The duck confit is probably the easiest duck dish we've ever prepared, since it's pretty much already cooked. All we had to do was warm it up in the oven for about 20 minutes and we're done! For our main side, I prepared some Pommes de Terre Sarladaise (potatoes cooked in duck fat), which is a classic accompaniment to duck confit. Unlike my roast potatoes, this dish requires a lot less duck fat so it's a bit (just a bit!) less rich and greasy. A touch of garlic and parsley at the end helps cut through the fattiness too...in the end this kind of reminds me of garlic fries! It seems like a fitting accompaniment to a nice rustic dish like duck confit. For our veggies, we just steamed some haricot verts (french green beans) to have something light and healthy to balance the meal. We were able to prepare the sides in pretty much the same time it took to heat up the duck confit...so for a lot less labor, we actually had a duck main course and sides that was way easier to make that last week's duck breast, and just as good (if not better!). Good thing we still have 3 more pairs of duck leg confit in the fridge!


Duck leg confit, steamed haricot verts, pommes de terre sarladaise

We had a nice bottle of burgundy (Magnien M. Morey Saint Denis 'Tres Girard' 2005 ) to go with our duck confit dinner, figure we'll go all the way with the French theme, and it was nice to try a French Burgundy in my new glasses to contrast with the American Pinot the week before. This wine was stronger and more powerful than the Pinot, and went perfectly with the more flavorful dark meat of the duck leg. It helped complete our nice, simple, and very French duck meal. I think duck is definitely up there as one of my all-time favorite meats now.


Magnien M. Morey Saint Denis 'Tres Girard' 2005

Duck, duck...

I recently got a brand-new pair of Riedel Burgundy/Pinot Noir glasses, and I was dying to try them out. We still had some duck breast in the freezer, left over from our other duck dinner a couple months ago. I loved the cherry-port sauce from that meal, so I decided to make it again. However this time, we cooked our duck breast sous-vide style, which definitely resulted in more tender and evenly cooked meat.


Cooking the duck breast "sous-vide" style.

For the sides, we again had Eric Ripert's glazed carrots with cumin from last time, since I just loved how well that went with the duck and the cherry sauce (. We decided to change up the starch though, since the duck-fat roasted potatoes was just way too rich. This time, we opted for a celery root puree, a side that we have used in the past for braised short ribs. The celery root puree was lighter and more vegetal than regular mashed potatoes, and I think it went perfectly with the duck! This is probably the 3rd or 4th time we've made duck breast at home, and I am happy to say we've finally perfected our duck breast dinner! This is definitely going into my dinner party file.


Sides: glazed carrots with cumin (left), celery root puree (right)

For the wine, we opened a nice bottle of Flowers Pinot Noir 2006. I first tasted and loved this wine when Uly and I dined at Le Bernardin last year, and I had to have it so I found it online and bought it shortly after we got back. It's been sitting in our cellar for over a year and I figured it was a good time to open this bottle, especially with the Eric Ripert connection (the glazed carrots recipe from his duck episode, and he also had a separate episode on Flowers Pinot Noir). I think it was probably a bit too subtle for the duck (we did have it with fish at the restaurant) but nevertheless did justice to my pretty new glasses. As much as I love cabs, sometimes, it's just great to have a good Pinot to mix things up!


Our main dish, and Flowers Pinot Noir


Our finished plate...perfectly cooked duck and sides!

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Just a couple years ago, Uly and I *never* ate leftovers. I remember Thanksgiving two years ago when both my sister and my mom shuddered as Uly threw out the turkey carcass!

So you can imagine Uly and I were quite proud of ourselves this year for really utilizing our Thanksgiving leftovers. First, we ate the turkey w/ all the fixings again for lunch the next day. Then we ate some leftover beef stew for dinner.

We took a break on Saturday, but on Sunday we got a bit more creative with our leftovers. For lunch, we made 2 kinds of turkey sandwiches! Mine is more of the "typical" post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich, with turkey breast meat, gravy, and cranberry sauce on baguette. Uly made a croissant sandwich "California style" with turkey breast meat, red onions, lettuce, and avocado. We even each had 2 more sandwiches for lunch on Monday!


Had some leftover bourbon-pumpkin cheesecake and a glass of sherry as an afternoon snack.


And for dinner, we had turkey pot pie! We had previously boiled the carcass to make turkey stock, and used this as a base for our turkey soup. Added some celery, carrots, herbs, and macaroni, then topped it with some puff pastry. Since we were too lazy to go get real butter puff pastry, we used the oil-based one made by Pepperidge Farms. It's not as good and buttery as the real stuff, but it did the trick for the pot pie and went really well with the soup. For our wine, we drank some Thomas Fogarty Pinot Noir that we got from passport day the week before.


I wonder what else we can do with our leftovers next year...

Thanksgiving 2009

Had Uly's family over plus my folks for Thanksgiving dinner. This was our second time hosting thanksgiving, the first time being 2 years ago. I gotta say it's a lot of work, but it's really nice to have the family over for a nice sit-down meal. We pretty much spend 2 days cooking, and the day after cleaning up, but it was soooo worth it!


The turkey - got a fresh Diestel turkey from Whole Foods. It was really good, but somehow not as good as the first time we made it, even though we made it exactly the same way from the Cook's Illustrated cookbook, brining and all. I think we used an organic turkey last time? Could it have made that big a difference? It was still good though!


Stuffing with bacon, apple, and caramelized onions - Same recipe as before also. I think I put a little too much stock so it was a bit mushy, but it was even better the next day when it got a chance to dry out when I reheated it though.


Garlic mashed potatoes & gravy - Potatoes were nice and fluffy, and turned out better than last time since we didn't put as much cream. After spending a couple days boiling the giblets and reducing the stock several times to make the gravy last time, I went the lazy way out and bought some fresh turkey gravy from Whole Foods. All I did was add some of the drippings from the turkey and you know what? It was just as good. Totally not worth it to make my own gravy, will go the premade route from now on.


Homemade cranberry sauce - unlike the gravy, this one only took around 5 minutes to boil the sugar syrup and add the fresh cranberries. And unlike the gravy, this was totally worth it. I'm never going back to the canned stuff. Even better when used for leftover turkey sandwiches!


Green bean casserole - Last Thanksgiving, Leah made this and it was so great that I begged her for the recipe...and she said, "I just use the one from the French's can!" I was somewhat tempted to use the more complicated recipes from Cook's Illustrated and Alton Brown, but then I just gave up and use the one from the can that used Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, French's fried onions, and frozen green beans...and it turned out great! Probably one of the most popular vegetable sides I've ever served (must be the fried onion rings on top...).


Beef Bourguignon - Uly wanted to make this as a "second entree" to make it as substitute for people who don't wanna eat turkey (Seriously, who doesn't wanna eat turkey on Thanksgiving?). But it wound up being really tasty and popular. Looks like we'll be making this recipe again sometime...



Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake - I made a couple of these cheesescakes last year to bring to Uly's family and my aunt's potluck. Still great, and such a nice seasonal dessert! It's all about the gingersnap crust (and of course the extra bourbon I poured in)!

We drank the following with dinner (and after):
Gloria Ferrer Royal Cuvee - Just some bubbly as a nice aperatif before we start eating
Ridge Geyserville 2007 - This was one of the Chronicle's picks as a wine to go with the Thanksgiving meal, and I gotta say, I agree with this pick. An excellent wine, as all Ridge wines are.
Perrin et Fils Gigondas 2006 - Our other choice to go with the meal. Figure we'll mix it up with a French wine, and these Rhone wines do seem to go really well with poultry
Germain-Robin XO Brandy - Had this as a digestif after dinner. Since trying this at Michael Mina I've been wanting to get this for a while. I'm not a big Brandy/Cognac person like Uly but I just love the smell of this one (smells like stronger port) and the slight sweetness that it has (that again, reminds me of port). Good stuff.

Well, that's Thanksgiving 2009. I'm not sure we'll host it every year, since it's so much work, but definitely worth doing this once in a while.

Bucatini alla Amatriciana

This is one of Uly's favorite pasta recipes. It's just so easy that we can pull it off with barely any preparation. In this case, we happened to have some pancetta on hand, and we just thought, why not make some pasta? We use the recipe from Cook's illustrated, and all you need is some pasta (we like to use Bucatini, but linguini and other long pastas will do), pancetta, canned tomatoes, and some crushed red pepper. It makes for a nice rustic Italian meal.


Zonin Amarone della Valpolicella 2003

Some Chianti would have been nice, but at least it gave us an opportunity to open up the bottle of Amarone that has been sitting in our cellar after we bought it for half-price at World Market a while back. I was worried it would be too strong, but it wound up going well with our meal.


Left: Parmiggiano-Reggiano, Right: La Tur

But of course, since it's me were't talking about here...gotta have some cheese. Since we're going with the Italian theme here, we busted out the Italian cheeses. Milk Pail had a super sale of La Tur, one of my favorite soft cheeses (only 4.99! It usually retails for ~$12-15), so I just had to have some more of that. Then of course, there's the old standby of Parmiggiano-Reggiano. One cheese so soft and creamy, the other one crumbly and salty...just the perfect way to end the meal!

Fall baking

I don't know what it is about cold weather that just makes me want to bake, bake, bake. I think I just like having the kitchen be warm and smelling like nice baked goodies...there's nothing as comforting on a cold day as a nice warm dessert.

Maple Leaf cookies (11/15/09)

It was sooo cold in the house I just wanted to warm myself up from the inside with some cookies! I got the recipe from Epicurious, and made these kind of cookies once before, but I just stuck with regular maple syrup and took the easy way out and made plain round cookies...they were pretty tasty but just looked like regular butter cookies. However, I found a maple-leaf cookie cutter at World Market (only 99 cents!) and have been dying to make these again. This time, I used the Grade B maple syrup that was mentioned in the recipe, which gave it more maple-y flavor. At the suggestion of some of the commenters, I also sprinkled them with Maple sugar that I bought at a gourmet store a while back...it caramelized nicely while baking and added even more maple flavor! I couldn't stop eating these when they came out of the oven, and they didn't last too long either when I brought them to work the next day. Yum!

Bread pudding (11/8/09):

After my wine-and-cheese girly movie night with Leah, I still had a bunch of bread left, since I went overboard and bought two kinds of bread. We wound up finishing only about half of each, but I just feel so bad wasting some good Acme baguette and cranberry walnut bread. I wound up making some bread pudding, and I had so much bread that it was enough to make 2 batches! I brought one to the lab at work, and had Uly bring the other batch to his office. I usually make it with brioche, which yields the best results (Trader Joe's sells them for $4.99), but they work for any leftover bread that I have around the house. The cranberry-walnut bread added a bit of sweetness and nuttiness that was a nice variety from my regular recipe.

For my bread pudding, I used a combination of this recipe from Epicurious with some tweaks, including some techniques added from Cook's Illustrated. I usually make it with brioche(Trader Joe's sells them for $4.99), which yields the best results, but they work for any leftover bread that I have around the house.


Brioche Bread Pudding

Modified from (Bon Appétit | February 1999)

Ingredients:

Bread Pudding

1 1-pound brioche (or any other leftover bread), cut into 1/2-inch cubes
8 large eggs
2 cups whipping cream
2 cups whole milk
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup Disarrono (almond liqueur) or Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
1/2 teaspoon freshly-grated nutmeg

Topping
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
freshly-grated nutmeg to taste

Preparation:

Reserving around 2 cups of bread cubes, place the rest in a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan. Whisk eggs, whipping cream, milk, sugar, liqueur, vanilla and almond extract in large bowl to blend. Pour over bread cubes. Let stand 30 minutes, occasionally pressing bread into custard mixture. (Can be prepared 2 hours ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Arrange reserved bread cubes on on top of mixture, pushing down gently to partially submerge. Mix cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar in a small bowl. Brush exposed bread with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar mixture. Bake until pudding is set in center, about 40-50 minutes. Cool slightly. Serve warm with cold freshly-whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Catch of the Day

After going camping, Uly actually brought back a fish! Too bad he didn't actually catch it, but at least Ivan was generous enough to donate his fish for our dinner. We just did a simple pan-sear with some butter, and made a light heirloom tomato salsa. To accompany it, made some basmati rice with some green onion for a little crunch (does that count as a vegetable?). We also finally drank the Picchetti Viognier (2006) that has been sitting in our cupboard since our first passport day over a year ago. It was nice and light, and went perfectly with our dinner.

There's definitely nothing like a really fresh piece of fish...Uly cooked it perfectly, so it was nice and tender inside, and not overcooked at all. This simple preparation definitely did this super-fresh fish justice. Thanks boys!

Savory French Toast

The day after our sleepover, Leah and I decided to make some brunch. We wanted something hearty and heavy after all the drinking the night before...and what better cure for a hangover than rich food and some hair of the dog (in this case, mimosas)!

Most of the savory french toast recipes we saw were pretty damn complicated and required layering the bread with the savory ingredients and baking, seeming more like savory bread pudding, really. Not that there's anything wrong with that and would like to try to make it someday, but we wanted something easy and quick to make for breakfast. I then stumbled into this recipe for "eggy bread", which turned out to be exactly what I'm looking for. Like regular french toast, you dip the bread in the batter and pan-fry it. Unlike most custard bases though, this one was predominantly egg with just a splash of milk, and no sugar at all. I usually use brioche for french toast, but it seemed like it would be too sweet/rich for this recipe so just used a crusty batard for this recipe. After dipping the bread, we fried them and then topped them with grated gruyere cheese and melted the cheese in the skillet. On the plate, we then topped them with sliced heirloom tomatoes and chives. Of course, no savory breakfast is complete without some bacon!

Will definitely want to have this again, and try different variations in the future. It totally hit the spot after a long night of drinking!

Slumber Party

Since Uly was going camping with his buddies, Leah and I decided to have a wine, cheese, and girly movie night! We had planned on watching Hannah Montana to make fun of it (best done w/ lots of booze, but we wound up watching 4 movies total that night (and went through >3 bottles of wine). Good times!

Hard cheeses (clockwise from bottom left): Manchego, Parmiggiano-Reggiano, Ford Farm farmhouse cheddar


Soft cheeses (clockwise from bottom left): Cypress Grove Truffle Tremor, Castello blue cheese, Explorateur triple creme


Sonoma smoked duck, and spicy chorizo


Acme cranberry-walnut bread and baguette


The wines: Loxton Sonoma Reds , Quinta Cruz Rabelo 2005 (Port-style), Château Léoville Poyferré Saint-Julien (Bordeaux) 2005, Champagne de Venoge NV, Luchador Shiraz 2007 (not pictured...wound up getting that later!)


Wineglasses for champagne, bordeaux, and port


Girly movies: Hannah Montana (the movie), The Proposal. Also wound up watching Mulan and Beauty and the Beast (not pictured)


Leah about to partake in our feast


Getting ready to open the champagne


Our total damage from the day...polished of 2 full bottles and 2 half-bottles, with some leftover port. Good thing the port will last a while! Girly wine night is fun!

"Gourmet" Mac & Cheese

Ever since I've tried the "gourmet" version of mac & cheese at a restaurant, I've been trying to replicate it at home. I first looked at Epicurious, which always has some nice gourmet recipes, but most of the recipes were a bit too far off from the original, and none had the wonderful breadcrumb topping that I enjoyed so much at the restaurant version. I then turned to Cook's Illustrated, which always has great versions of classic recipes (If you can believe it, I actually pay to subscribe to their website, but it's been so worth it to have access to virtually all of their cookbooks online).

In any case, their recipe looked really good, I like how most of the cooking is done on the stovetop, and the technique of starting out with a béchamel sauce seemed pretty solid. However, it didn't really have the gourmet feel I was after. I then decided to put my own spin on the Cook's Illustrated recipe to make it more "upscale". The recipe uses 1/2 cheddar and 1/2 jack for the cheese, I replaced it with 3/4 Gruyère and 1/4 Parmigiano-Reggiano. I figure the Gruyère , which is also a good melting cheese, has a stronger, nuttier flavor than cheddar or jack, and the Parmigiano-Reggiano will give it an additional kick. For the upscale factor, I decided to make truffled mac & cheese. I've had versions that used white truffle oil that tasted great, but I wanted to give this recipe a little extra "oomph" so I decided to use some of my jarred black truffles from A.G. Ferrari. These things are great since they are preserved in olive oil, so I can get the flavor of fresh truffle without having to buy and use a whole one. I still wound up adding the truffle oil anyway for extra truffle flavor (IMO, you can never have enough truffle). Instead of macaroni, I usually use penne or some other tube pasta...one of my favorites is this tri-color pasta I get at World Market which has some other subtle flavors built into the pasta (such as basil and squid ink). I also toyed with the idea of adding some pancetta to give it some bacon-y flavor. However, I figure I didn't want any other flavors overpowering the truffle so I went with the plain ziti pasta and left out the meat...it was definitely worth it as this wound up having tons of truffle taste in every bite!


Mmmmm, mac & cheesy...

I would have been totally satisfied with just the mac & cheese with the truffle, but of course Uly just gotta have some meat, so we kept it really simple and just grilled some steak. Since I was going by Milk Pail anyway for the cheeses (*so* much cheaper than Whole Foods), I decided to pick up some dry-aged ribeye at Dittmers. Uly and I have really been getting into dry-aged meats lately, and it's totally worth the price for the extra beefy flavor. We didn't do anything to the steak but put in a little salt and pepper and throw it on the grill, and it came out great. It went perfectly with the mac & cheese (to me, the steak *was* the side dish)! For our two other sides, we just went with some sauteed mushrooms (deglazed with port) and some green/yellow beans from Trader Joe's (the microwave-in-the-bag kind). At least the other 2 sides were pretty easy to prepare so most of my effort went into the mac & cheese


Dry-aged ribeye steak and port-sauteed mushrooms


Final plating - Mac & cheese, grilled ribeye, sauteed mushrooms, green & yellow beans

For the wine, we decided to break out the good stuff. I gave Uly a half-bottle of Stag's Leap Wine Cellar's Cask23 a while back, and we've been dying to open it. Figure with the aged steak and the truffle it was worth opening this special bottle. It was a pretty young wine (2005) but it was super-smooth. However, it still had some nice velvety tannins and very concentrated fruit flavor. You can definitely tell this was a special bottle. I think it's still a toss-up for me which is the best Cab I've ever had, the Stag's Leap Cask23 or Ridge Monte Bello...maybe I'll have to do a side-by-side tasting to be sure. Since we're total alkies, a half-bottle just isn't enough for a meal, so we also opened up a bottle of Ridge Geyserville 2007. I have to say, the Ridge wines are usually super-smooth to me, but my first sip of it was a bit acidic and lacking in finesse after the Cask23. As we got used to it though, it got much better...probably since the wine opened up a bit. I guess we're probably a bit spoiled when we're drinking Ridge as our "second" wine.


Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cask 23 Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Ridge Vineyards Geyserville 2007

But of course, a meal in the Murillo household is not complete without some cheese. You would think I would be all cheese-d out after the mac & cheese but then this is me we are talking about here. I had purchased some farmhouse cheddar at Milk Pail a couple weeks ago and was eager to finally try it out. I have had a similar-looking English Cheddar before (with the black wax and everything) and thought it would be crumbly, nutty, and extremely sharp as the other cheddar that I loved. Unfortunately it was more on the bland and creamy side so it was a bit disappointing. Oh well, at least it was still good, and I got it on special so I paid less than half of what I did for the other cheese. For our soft cheese, I decided to get some Explorateur. When I feel like a triple-creme I usually get Brillat-Savarin (my all time favorite cheese), and we just got a whole pound of Delice De Bourgogne from Costco last month, so I figure we should mix it up. The Explorateur was not as good as these two (not quite as creamy as the Brillat and not as tangy as the Delice), but it was pretty decent, and definitely still way better by far than St. Andre and Pierre Robert. The big surprise of this cheese plate was actually the Danish Castello blue cheese. It was nice and creamy, and pretty mild for a blue cheese, just the way I like it. I was never much for super-strong blue cheeses like Stilton and Roquefort, so this was just right. It still needed some honey to help it out, but it's now been added to my go-to list of blue cheeses (along with Fourme d'Ambert and Roaring '40s).


Clockwise from top left: Ford Farmhouse cheddar, Explorateur, Castello

Speaking of honey, just had to include this very nice artsy shot that Uly took of me trying to get the last of the honey from the jar to our honey pot. Nice shot, babe! (or should I say honey?) ;-)


Anyway, that was our mac & cheese night. Hope you enjoyed this post! Here's the recipe I use in case any of you want to give it a try:


"Gourmet" Macaroni and Cheese
(Adapted from Cook's Illustrated's Classic Macaroni and Cheese, with slight modifications )

Serves 6 to 8, or 10 to 12 as a side.

It's crucial to cook the pasta until tender--just past the "al dente" stage. In fact, overcooking is better than undercooking the pasta. The recipe can be halved and baked in an 8-inch-square, broilersafe baking dish. If desired, offer celery salt or hot sauce (such as Tabasco) for sprinkling at the table.

Ingredients

Bread Crumb Topping
6-8 oz baguette
3 tablespoons unsalted butter (cold), cut into 6 pieces

Pasta and Cheese
1 pound elbow macaroni, penne, or other tube pasta
1 tablespoon table salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 cups whole milk
12 ounces Gruyere, shredded (3 cups)
4 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano, shredded (1 cup)
1 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tbsp (or to taste) white truffle oil (optional, use preserved or fresh black truffle for a true splurge)
4oz prosciutto or pancetta, chopped and sauteed separately to crisp (optional)*

Instructions

1. For the bread crumbs: Pulse bread and butter in food processor until crumbs are no larger than 1/8 inch, ten to fifteen 1-second pulses. Set aside.
2. For the pasta and cheese: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat broiler. Bring 4 quarts water to boil in Dutch oven over high heat. Add macaroni and 1 tablespoon salt; cook until pasta is tender. Drain pasta and set aside in colander.
3. In now-empty Dutch oven, heat butter over medium-high heat until foaming. Add flour, mustard, and cayenne (if using) and whisk well to combine. Continue whisking until mixture becomes fragrant and deepens in color, about 1 minute. Gradually whisk in milk; bring mixture to boil, whisking constantly (mixture must reach full boil to fully thicken). Reduce heat to medium and simmer, whisking occasionally, until thickened to consistency of heavy cream, about 5 minutes. Off heat, whisk in cheeses and 1 teaspoon salt until cheeses are fully melted. Add pasta and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is steaming and heated through, about 6 minutes. Mix in truffle oil/truffles (if using).
4. Transfer mixture to broiler-safe 9-by 13-inch baking dish and sprinkle evenly with bread crumbs. Sprinkle prosciutto/pancetta on top (if using). Broil until crumbs are deep golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes, rotating pan if necessary for even browning. Cool about 5 minutes, then serve.

* If using real truffle, you may want skip the pancetta/prociutto, to get the maximum impact from the truffle.

Duck night

Duck breast with cherry-port sauce, glazed carrots, and duck-fat potatoes

The first time we cooked duck breast, we did it sous-vide style after being inspired by watching Hung on Top Chef. The recipe we used (from another Blogger!) produced the most tender, perfectly cooked duck I've ever had. The flavors are loosely based on duck a l'orange, but the highlight is the sous-vide method of cooking. However, as much as I loved the texture of the duck, I'm not that crazy about orange flavors in general, and prefer a sweeter, berry-based sauce that I've had at some restaurants. A quick search on Epicurious later, and I have found this recipe for Duck Breast with Cherries and Port Sauce.

Initially, I wanted to do sous-vide and just do the sauce from the recipe, however since Uly had to work a bit on Saturday, figure it'll be easier to just pan-sear it as instructed by this new recipe. Whenever we cook, Uly is usually the one who cooks the main protein, while I do sauces, sides, dessert, etc. so I was kinda scared of messing up the duck. So I just did all the prep and waited for him to get home before doing the main portion of the cooking. I gotta admit though, I definitely missed Uly when I was chopping up the shallots, since I suck at chopping onions and start crying every 10 seconds...Uly has mad knife skills and can chop onions like no other!

While waiting for Uly, I also started working on the sides. I figure some potatoes as our starch and some baby carrots for our vegetable. My initial plan was to just throw everything in a roasting pan with some olive oil and/or duck fat, but then got inspired earlier in the day while watching Avec Eric on PBS. I was a bit skeptical about putting cumin and cayenne on the carrots, afraid that they would be totally overpowered by the spices, but alas, I am just too weak to resist this silver fox (you should have seen me drooling like a fangirl at Le Bernardin). Mesmerized by his French accent, I decided to follow his recipe for glazed carrots, which he also paired with duck, but I stuck to my guns for the sauce. It actually wound up going perfectly with the Epicurious duck recipe, since the mildly spiced carrots were a good contrast to the sweet sauce, and the cumin did not overwhelm as I had initially feared. Merci Eric!

I figure I'll continue the duck theme with the potatoes and use this recipe for potatoes roasted in duck fat. I've made it before for a dinner party and I liked it a lot then...Uly thinks it's too rich though and tastes more like fried potatoes than roasted potatoes. I guess with the sweeter, richer sauce, I can see why the duck fat would be a little overboard. Maybe next time, I'll try something lighter and maybe more savory/herb-y for more contrast with the sweet sauce. Or maybe some truffles. :)

Since this was another duck-themed dinner, we had some (duck) foie gras for our first course. We usually like to buy a whole lobe of foie gras and then slice it up, vacuum-seal it, and freeze it, so we had some handy. However, I saw that the baggie was labeled April 2008! I figured it can't hurt to give it a try, we could always dump it if it was bad (though it would have broken my heart to throw out some foie). Good thing it was still good, and you couldn't tell it's been in our freezer for a year in a half! Gotta love that vacuum sealer! We even used the same cherry-port sauce for our duck breast and it also went perfectly with the foie gras.

For our wine, we started out with the 2006 Goldeneye Pinot Noir from Duckhorn (you see we definitely went overboard with the duck theme here). It was definitely very impressive, and I think I found one of my new favorites! I know people are supposed to like Pinot for their subtlety, but I really liked the more powerful style of this one. We followed up with a 2005 Warm Lake Estate Pinot (Niagara) that we got from our trip to New York. This one was lighter and more subtle, but I guess I just like bigger, more fruit-forward wines so this was a bit anticlimactic after the GoldenEye.

But of course, I can't have a fancy meal without some cheese. We still had some leftover Stilton, and Manchego from our Spanish party, so I picked up some soft cheese at Milk Pail. I had high hopes for the Rouzaire Brie with Truffles, expecting it to taste somewhat like Brillat-Savarin with truffles but it wasn't even close. I was pretty disappointed with the lack of truffle-y taste and the brie itself was just kinda blah in general. I guess I won't be buying that one again.

I probably blew out all my points for the week in this one meal, but it was definitely worth it. I still have the other duck breast in my freezer though keep posted for that meal!

Here are some more pics below of our duck dinner:


Place setting


Searing the duck breast


Foie gras with cherry-port sauce


The duck


Duck-fat roasted potatoes


Glazed carrots


Goldeneye Pinot Noir 2006


Cheeses (clockwise from left: Manchego, Stilton, Rouzaire Brie w/ truffles)