Duck, Beautiful Duck!

(must warn those from C@H to please not read the following, if you have meandered over here before the 18th of December)

My Duck tale begins with daughter Tracie and her friend Susan wanting to join us in the "Dinner Party" menu - we'd all decided to do a duck dinner and since her Dad & I were visiting and exchanging early Christmas presents, she decided Mom should help her get the duck. Because we didn't find the required duck breasts, we bot a whole duck and I cut the breasts off, wrapped and froze them for her dinner party. And for my 'hard' work, Trace sent the rest of the duck home with me - not a bad trade on my part.

Fast forward to getting home. I cooked the rest of the duck in a beer braise, removed the meat (yummy tasting, by the way) and started searching for what to do with the hind-quarters of duck meat. I settled on a Bon Appetit recipe - Duck Salad with Cheese Toasts and Port Currant Sauce.

I had enuf of the duck meat for two nice pkgs. so for this salad I only needed one of the pkgs. The salad is tossed with a very simple Walnut oil and Champagne vinaigrette (kept the salad simple, just gorgeous greens and a few green onions) and place on plate. For the cheese toasts - the recipe called for "Pont l'Eveque Cheese and a qood-quality fruit-and-nut bread (such as walnut-raisin), toasted." I had neither, but did have some Brie and dragged the bread machine out and made dough in it for Fruited Snack Bread -


Fruited Snack Bread
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup snipped apricots
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 package Fleischmann's® Rapid Rise Yeast
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
Confectioners' sugar

In large bowl, combine 2 1/2 cups flour, raisins, apricots, nuts, sugar, salt and undissolved yeast. Heat milk, water and butter until very warm (125º to 130ºF); stir into dry ingredients. Mix in enough reserved flour to make stiff dough. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth and
elastic, about 5 minutes. Cover; let rest 10 minutes.

Roll dough to 10- × 15-inch rectangle or to 12-inch circle. Place on greased baking sheet or pizza pan. Bake at 400ºF for 20 minutes or until done. Remove from pan and cook on wire rack. Makes 1 (10- × 15-inch) focaccia. Top with sifted confectioners' sugar. Cut into strips, squares or wedges. Top with whipped cream cheese or creamy peanut butter, if desired.
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Didn't do all of the above - just dumped all the ingredients (3 cups flour) in the machine, made dough, removed and made into just a loaf style bread and baked that up - no powdered sugar or other goodies.

So, for the salad, I toasted two slices, cut them diagonally and while still hot, layed thin strips of Brie on the toast and added them to the salad.
Topped this with pieces of duck meat and sprinkled toasted walnuts over.
Somehow the day got away from me and I didn't get the Port-Currant Sauce made, but I did have some Apple Cider Reduction handy so drizzled that over the salad.

Anyone out there who wants an absolute treat - I hope everyone will try this salad. The 'cheese toast' (such a bland name for such a wonderful garnish) - is absolutely fantastic. And like the chicken roulades with tomato concasse of a few months ago - you need to get a little of everything in the salad to experience the wonderfulness of it!! It is truly orgasmic!

Now, I must keep in mind that this dish was supposed to be kind of a 'throw away' dish to use the unexpected duck I inherited! The real Duck Story here is supposed to be "Pan-Seared Duck Breast & Risotto with Wild Rice, Sweet Potatoes and Sage AND Pear-Ginger Chutney" to be reviewed on Dec. 18th!

I called the only store in 20 miles that I thot I had a chance in hell of finding duck breasts and they did come thru. The butcher said he had three pkgs. in the freezer and I asked him to keep them for me - he didn't know what he had, because he kept saying they were pkgs. of one duck breast - which I assumed meant the entire breast, but he talked like the pkgs. held one half-breast. Got to the store and he has found another pkg., so I grabbed all four pkgs. (~ $13.00 per pkg.) - and because I don't know when I'll be able to get more, blew the week's grocery money and was grinning ear to ear while doing it.

Thawed out one pkg. and lo and behold, it contained 4 (FOUR) half-breasts, each a gorgeous size, about what I had removed from Tracie's duck and had spent ~$14.00 for (well she did). And to think I have three more pkgs. in the freezer!!

The Pear-Ginger Chutney is a wonderful, spicy chutney. I had dried Cranberries so subbed them for the cherries. A great sweet, savory, spicy flavor.

I've never combined wild rice with risotto, much less added sweet potato to the mix, but it is really a nice combination.

AND THE DUCK! I cooked it exactly to the recipe (used a timer and a splatter screen even!!) It was cooked to perfection - just pink in the center and the greatest (I'm so tired of 'wonderful') crispy, tasty skin. I think the pan made all the difference - used a very heavy SST skillet and NO non-stick finish, so I could sear this over the required high heat.

And after the dish is put together, it looks like it could have come out of Bouchon's kitchen (and that's saying something). Then only thing I will do differently next time is fry up some sage leaves for garnish - it needed a little more color. Served dinner with an Abacela winery '03 Estate Tempranillo ( a new wine we have just discovered and absolutely love!) Great match!

Again, this is so repetitive, but to get all the flavors at once...died and gone to heaven! Crispy duck, spicy chutney and the oh so smooth risotto.

This dish gets the second 10 I have every given for our dinners!

P.S. had two halves of the breasts left over (that just sounds wrong!) - so repeated the above salad the next nite!!