Gascon Stir Fry

October 30, 2014 — Leave a comment

This is the first time I’ve added last night’s rice to today’s duck hearts.

duck hearts
duck fat
butter
small onion,diced
Cassis
cinnamon
red wine
sugar
salt
last night’s rice

Duck Hearts:

slice into rounds

brown in duck fat in batches ( all at once and you boil the damn things. yuk )

add salt with each batch

remove from pan and set aside

Then the rest:

add big butter nub and diced onion

move around the pan until softy melty

add a splash of Cassis and a dash of your red wine

add a dash of cinnamon

add a dash of sugar

add the duck hearts back and move around the pan

add last night’s rice ( about a cup leftover so it seems )

[end scene]

You Got Your Electrons, Your Protons and Your Fritons

March 12, 2014 — 2 Comments

Making Fritons today. These are lovely, crunchy ducky bits. They are the Gascon version of Chicharrón. Duck skin and fat leftover from your gorgeous duck butchering boiled in fat.

I’ve not done Fritons before. I asked our local duck farmer extraordinaire how to cook them. She said, “just cook the shit out of them.” … but it was in French and I’m sure she said something more elegant and less American.

Once these little crunchies become crunchy, I’ll slot them out with a spoon and salt. Fritons are a great snack that will keep you going until dinner.

WKRP electron, proton, neutron ref:

Duck Hearts, It’s What’s For Dinner

January 21, 2014 — Leave a comment

Oh the perks of living in duckville, France.

Cinnoman
Cassis
Shallots
Duck Hearts
Dash of your glass if red wine
Salt
Pep
A dash of sugar?

Served with a dash if rice for the children.

Why Hello Foie Gras, I Missed You

February 5, 2013 — 1 Comment

I’m trying my best to space out the pots of foie gras I have in the fridge. But I could no longer hold out. There are still a few pots left. I see a foie gras omelette in my future.

… And yes, that is a pair of special wire cutters in the background that are supposed to be used for your special bicycle “fixie” collection and instead we use them for fencing. It’s the Gascon way, use what you have and make what you don’t have.

Duck Stock

December 14, 2012 — Leave a comment

I think I’m going to need a bigger pot.

Confit Revealed

November 12, 2012 — 5 Comments

The confit has surfaced from its little retreat at flavor camp. And it came out … Delicious! Okay, so you stick duck bits in a vat of hot fat and fah-git about it. Not hard, but you need to be patient. You need to have the time ( and a hefty glass of wine ). You need to love duck. This is my third time with duck confit and this is what it takes:

Ducky bits, legs and/or machons
Thyme
Bay leaves
Salt
Pepper

Salt and pepper over night
The next day you can rinse or not rinse
Stick in a big pot and cover with duck fat for an hour or two or so I don’t even remember how long these beauties bubbled

You can stick it in a jar if you wish. I stuck my big vat in the fridge then, a week or so later, I heated it up enough to pull some out for dinner and shoved the rest in a bag. They sell confit in bags around here. I like to do like they do. I’m not certain how long it lasts in a bag, therefore I recommend you eat it in the best way you know how.

Ratatatouille Tonight with Some Firm Duck Breast

October 29, 2012 — Leave a comment

I love ratatouille. I had a Marseillaise pop ’round last time I made this lovely dish. I showed her the Ripailles recipe that included some lemon. “Citron? Mais NON! Jamais!”. Then she told me all the secrets of a standard French dish of which I will share as the blog rolls.

“Duck again?” the kids whine. Oh if they only knew how lucky they are. Yes, it’s duck again. We learned this little “finger” number at a restaurant in Toulouse after our Carte Vital was renewed. Slice the duck breast in fingers with a little salt-and-pepper’s-here action then do your fry routine. The slices give it a nice, even cook with some juicy redness in the middle without being too red.

For whatever reason or child or chicken or cow, I have forgotten to finger and had to cut fingers mid-fry. This worked like a charm and you can feel an obscure recipe developing ( now why do I slice the duck breast into fingers after I’ve started frying it? I’ll tell you why, because whomever wrote that recipe had kids and cows and chickens and farm and they forgot to slice the damn breast. )

But 6:30 is approaching. In a very non-European way, dinner is served before 8pm. As such, we need to let the ratatouille rest overnight and serve up a new squash dish.

I’m a Fat Man, Myself

October 15, 2012 — 1 Comment

I stumbled into this conversation about our breakfast. My breakfast or how I slept last night would fall under “conversations I’d like to avoid because I’m not emotionally ready to jump into that demographic.”. But there we were, Kevin and I, talking about breakfast. So, I explained what we typically have in the wee morning as the sun rises, the coffee brews and the little ones open their eyes to a fresh new day.

It starts off with some rye bread that I baked the night before.

Sliced thin, then fried in foie gras fat or duck fat. I do love my local duck farmer. Have you hugged your local duck farmer today?

Slap a nice, thick spread of butter. Not margarine … more like “this better be f-in butter, butter'”

Then add a thin slice of liver paste on top to seal-the-deal. Yeah, so I have foie gras connections, I’m lucky, but any pate made with love ( and garlic ) will do you just fine.

We eat a lot of animal fat ( grassfed mostly ). After extensive research by my husband ( funded by the “how to keep your wife hot” foundation ), I experienced great weight loss and body heath by adding a hearty amount of animal fat to my diet. Believe me, I have HUGE potential.

These little, not-messed with-old-grain deals, fried in fat and covered with yum keep you going all morning and afternoon. You can’t eat too many because they’re very dense.

I never put much thought to our morning meal until it unfolded during my discussion with Kevin. I feel that I’m losing touch with mortal life. When is the next X-Factor?!

Sweet, Yummy Duck Breast

January 29, 2008 — 2 Comments

A united blend of spice, sweet and moist with fun texture that leaves boredom to no tongue.

You Need:
Duck Breast
Sweety, goopy stuff (Emily used a jammy marmelaide)
A little salt and pepper

skin side down

Rub some of that sweet goodness on the duck breasts. Place them skin side to the grill and cover. When they shrink up and brown and are firm to touch, pull them off.

goopy sweet and raw

oooOooooooo nice duck

Emily, Duck!

December 14, 2007 — 1 Comment

This is Emily

Sure it’s a tit freezing day in Seattle. Sure finding charcoal amongst candy canes, fruitcake and brass plated golf tees can be trying. But leave it to Emily, our master chef of the day, to wrangle the crowds scouting out banana leaves, choice duck breast and put out a 3-D cookie with style.

Girl On Grill Action done in cookie medium

Shopping List:
Duck Breasts
Marmalade for a some slimy, sticky sweet breast rub action
Banana Leaves
Masa
Azuki Beans (sweetened red beans)
Carrots with their tops on, modest
Green Onions (Scallion, Spring Onions, same shit)
Butter
Dates
Something fizzy and fabulous to drink

aaah. perty

The fancy beans and banana leaves were picked up at our local Asian grocer de especial Uwajimaya. A place so fine you can pick up what’s for dinner and still leave with some Cream Collon and Totoro books.

emily

To warm things up a bit, Emily lit the coals and cracked open Kirkland’s finest champagne.

mmmm. bubbles

Rachel popped by as well and a champagne taste off commenced. Veuve Clicquot vs Costco’s Kirkland Signature Champagne. Kirkland was up first.

kirkland's finest vs fancy label

Shockingly nice. Good bubble. Another sip is well deserved. Both Rachel and Emily sported the frown nod for Kirkland’s finest. Veuve Clicquot next, huh, a bit bitter. Nice, but how much nicer than Kirkland? Worth extra change for the privilege of advertisement? Both seemed to be solid bottles of mass produced, non-vintage champagne. One bottle starts at forty bucks while the other a mere twenty.

a sip of Kirkland a sip of voov rachel sips

Then the duck was on. Duck fat doing it’s duck fat thing agitated the coals and we had ourselves an impressive flame.

flamey

rachel paints her nails

Carrot girl handed our master chef the carrots and the grill was lidded. After a rest and a failed attempt at a foil bird, the green onions were on. The flames are hot, so don’t go for a refill. Minus a few casualties, the onions were perfect. The sweet tango of duck, caramelized carrot and grilled green onions danced in the mouths of these girls as the morsels were eaten –no- devoured and washed down with a fine bottle of generic champagne.

Go go carrot girl

foiled duck

mmmm duck plate combo

Quick shoe break as the Endless shipment arrived (free overnight shipping oh maw gaw!! If loving Endless is wrong GIRL, I don’ wanna be rightah) and it’s on to dessert.

SHOES!!! Pink cowgirl boots!! GET OUT!!!

Emily quickly whipped up some dessert tamales with sweet red beans and a surprise date all snuggled with masa then bundled and tucked in a banana leaf. After a little sit on the grill, these little babies came out steamy hot and melted in the mouth. Another impressive concoction to dazzle and amaze your friends. And easy to boot!

girl on grill chat

Rachel’s inner chocolate daemon scouted out some frozen brownie bites. This led to grilled brownie done two ways. Version one, straight up brownie on grill action. Version two, hey! banana leaves! … let’s stick some in here!

mmmmm. brownie

The straight up brownie was warm and tasty, but quite dry. The banana leaf version was warm, moist yet had this banana leaf overtone that impersonated green tea. Not this girl’s style.

more grill chat

Okay, so the duck breast, carrot, green onion combo plate converged on a Grand Canyon at sunset color, the taste was FABULOUS. Emily closed down the fall barbeque season with sass. And in true Girl On Grill Action™ form, she walked in the door and it was on.

grillin' and chattin let's go eat