...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!