First ingredient: Duck

If truth be told, the subtitle for this post is Christmas Eve dinner for two. I had such good intentions to post, post, post during the holiday break, but there was always something more pressing to do (sip eggnog and brandy, make soup, listen to the radio, snuggle on the couch).
Having wrapped up all our gift and grocery shopping, David and I spent the day before Christmas at home — preparing for the trip to visit his family Dec. 25 and 26 and the arrival of my family Dec. 27.
I wanted dinner to be non-taxing, yet special.
After much inner debate, I settled on duck breast. Having never cooked or purchased it before, I called my local butcher for some information and he led me to King Cole Ducks. The home farm for this large producer is located in the north end of York Region and sells fresh, frozen and smoked duck to the public. I visited the busy store Dec. 23 and bought two fresh breasts for the very reasonable price of $8.
It provided the inspiration for a simple and seasonal yet elegant and delicious meal. We paired the duck with a jammy merlot.

Roasted butternut squash and apple soup with maple allspice sour cream.

Roasted butternut squash and apple soup with maple allspice sour cream
This was a reprise of the soup I served at Thanksgiving. Really, a vessel for more of that maple allspice sour cream. I eyeballed the proportions for the sour cream this time around and it was better than I remember.
I made the soup in the morning, reserved two generous servings to reheat for dinner and packed the rest in the freezer for later.

Mixed greens with gorgonzola and pear

Mixed greens with gorgonzola and pear
A simple salad of mixed baby romaine mixed with a white wine vinaigrette and topped with sliced pear and a generous wedge of room temperature gorgonzola.

Pan-seared duck breast with cassis compote and pan-fried Yukon gold potatoes.

Pan-seared duck breast with cassis compote
This recipe comes courtesy of Bob Blumer.
I wanted a tart fruit sauce to complement the rich duck, but not one that involved buying imported fresh fruit. I had a bottle of cassis purchased at Finger Lake Distilling during a camping trip this summer. It was fate.

Ingredients
2 boneless duck breasts
2 shallots, minced
generous splash of cassis
30 mL (2 tbsp) of black currant jam
generous splash of balsamic vinegar

High heat and a well-seasoned cast iron pan made the duck breasts plump up and sear quickly.

Method
Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit.
Using a sharp knife, score 4 (1/2-cm-deep) cuts across the skin of the duck breasts at a 45 degree angle. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Heat a well-seasoned skillet or non-stick pan over high heat. When pan is hot, add duck breasts, skin side down, and cook for 5 minutes or until skin is brown and crispy. Flip and cook for 2 more minutes.
Remove pan from and transfer duck breasts, skin side up, to a cooking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Bake on the top rack of the oven for 6 minutes.
Carefully discard all but 15 mL (1 tbsp) drippings from pan. Return pan to medium heat and add shallot. Stir occasionally for 3 minutes or until shallot begins to turn golden.
Add cassis to the pan and stir with a wooden spoon to loosen up the browned bits left by the duck. Add jam, vinegar and more black pepper, and stir occasionally for 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
Remove duck from the oven and slice each breast at a 45-degree angle into 1/2-cm-thick strips (properly cooked duck should resemble medium-rare steak). Arrange in a fanlike pattern on warmed plates and spoon sauce overtop. Serve immediately.

Pan-fried Yukon gold potatoes
A classic.

Ingredients
225 g (1/2 pound) Yukon gold potatoes, 1-cm dice
salt, pepper
15-30mL (1-2 tbsp) duck fat

Method
Parboil potatoes until nearly cooked but still firm. Season with salt and pepper
After searing duck breasts, transfer 15-30 mL of fat to hot pan.
Add potatoes and fry to a golden brown.
Serve with pan-seared duck breasts.

In search of India

It’s easy to pull together a fairly tasty Indian dinner using the pre-blended spice mixtures, curry powder or garam masala, or sauces you find at the grocery or bulk food store. But for a meal that is more authentic and satisfying in its preparation and flavours, I am learning to start with the whole spices, then grind, toast, fry and blend.
We are hosting dear friends for an Indian feast this weekend. And, while I won’t spoil the surprise by detailing the menu here, I did want to post about the spices required to make six dishes from scratch — starter, main, two sides, condiment and dessert.
Although my spice cupboard (not rack, cupboard) is well stocked, I did need to add some items for this undertaking. Here is the sum of my list.

Perhaps the prettiest of spices, star anise.

These items (most of which I always have on hand) are readily available in my local Bulk Barn:
• green cardamom
• star anise
• coriander seeds
• cumin seeds
• fennel
• cinnamon sticks
• whole dried red chiles
• bay leaves
• saffron
• nutmeg
• mace
• tumeric
• cloves
• cayenne

Indian ingredients: mustard oil, dried fenugreek leaves, fenugreek seeds, kalonji, black cardamom and black mustard seeds.

For other items, look in the Indian section of larger grocery stores or an Indian grocer.
Since I happened to be in downtown Toronto Tuesday, I stopped by a stall at the St. Lawrence Market that had everything else on my shopping list:
• dried fenugreek (methi) leaves
• fenugreek seeds
• kalonji
• black cardamom
• black mustard seeds

I’m excited to start cooking.

Chocolate orange surprise cakes

Whether making or eating, I can generally take or leave desserts.
But if I feel a meal (or the company) calls for one, individual cakes are good bet.
Baked in ramekins, they encourage small portions appropriate for dessert, bake quickly while you’re lingering over wine after the main course and allow for nearly endless variations.
I made these cakes last week. I found a recipe on Two Spoons, which was in turn inspired by a recipe in Julia Le Clerc’s Made By Hand. Don’t you just love the way recipes travel and evolve? I followed this one pretty closely.
I changed the title and asked my husband to name the surprise ingredient. He guessed dried cherries, which was pretty close. The prunes, dark chocolate and cocoa make these cakes intense and rich — without the addition of butter or oil.

Chocolate orange surprise cakes

Chocolate orange surprise cakes — with the surprise ingredient.

Ingredients
50 g pitted prunes, finely chopped
125 mL (1/2 cup) fresh orange juice and water (use freshly squeezed juice of one orange
50 g dark eating chocolate (70 per cent cocoa)
30 mL (2 tbsp) cold water
1 large egg
60 mL (1/4 cup) brown sugar
zest of 1 orange
pinch sea salt
30 mL (2 tbsp) cocoa
60 mL (1/4 cup) flour
2 mL (1/2 tsp) baking soda

Method
Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit.
Heat prunes and orange juice/water mix on medium heat to soften the prunes and reduce the liquid until thickened.
Beat the egg and sugar on high until pale and frothy.
Remove prunes from heat. Stir in chocolate and cold water.
Fold chocolate mixture into egg mixture. Add orange zest.
Sift in dry ingredients and fold until just incorporated.
Divide between 4 125-mL (1/2-cup) ramekins.
Bake about 20 minutes. Cool on a rack.
Dust with icing sugar and serve warm or at room temperature.

You can’t have too much corn

When David’s brother, sister-in-law and young nephew agreed to a last-minute visit on Labour Day weekend, they promised to bring a peach pie and corn. I’d already purchased a dozen cobs for the weekend, so David pulled out the Weber Ranch and grilled the whole lot, alongside some pork tenderloin, for dinner. Potato salad and mixed greens rounded out the meal.
Naturally, we had leftovers. And, with my sister and her young son joining us all for brunch the next day, a great reason to try a new recipe.
We liked these fritters so much (and had so much fantastic grilled corn stashed in the freezer), we made them again Thanksgiving weekend.

Corn fritter frying in my favourite cast iron pan.

Corn fritters
This recipe a slight modification of one by PEI chef Michael Smith.
I found I needed just a little more flour to stick everything together and I used less oil to fry the cakes.
I served the fritters with a choice of maple syrup, chili sauce and piquante sauce. My preference is the piquante.
Makes four generous servings.

Ingredients
3 ears of fresh corn, kernels removed from cobs (about 1 L or 4 cups of kernels)
3 eggs
60 mL (1/4 cup) flour
45 mL (3 tbsp) corn meal
salt and pepper
2 green onions, thinly sliced
250 mL (1 cup) grated cheddar cheese
vegetable oil

Method
Whisk corn and eggs in a large bowl.
Add flour, cornmeal, salt and pepper and mix well.
Stir in green onion and cheddar.
Heat large skillet over medium heat. Add a little oil and spread to evenly cover pan.
Add spoonfuls of batter and flatten to form cakes.
Cook until golden, flip and cook other side.
Continue cooking in batches, adding more oil as needed.

Thanksgiving post mortem

Turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

Thanksgiving dinner was a success.
The turkey was stuffed and in a 325 Fahrenheit oven by about 2 p.m. The 9 kilogram bird would take about 4-1/2 hours to roast.
Our guests arrived around 3 p.m.
I had cooked the sausage, washed the apples and picked and washed the sage, so it only took a few minutes to pull together the sausage with apple and sage. We served these with the meringue nuts, sauvignon blanc and Creemore Springs Urboch before dinner.
After a walk around the garden, I started on dinner.
For the first course, I reheated the roasted squash and apple soup and whipped up the easy maple allspice sour cream garnish. The garnish was a surprise hit. The combination of maple syrup and allspice is something I will use again — perhaps as a flavouring for baked squash?
The fresh local turkey was tender, juicy and flavourful.
To accompany it, I served cranberry sauce, brown butter mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes and sautéed Swiss chard. For easy sweet potatoes, peel and cut into large cubes, then microwave with a bit of water until soft. Drain Add a little butter, brown sugar and nutmeg and microwave again for about a minute. The chard (the last from my garden) was sautéed simply in a little olive oil, red pepper flakes and chopped garlic.
My mother-in-law, who makes perhaps the best pastry I’ve ever tasted, brought apple and pumpkin pie for dessert.

Sausage with apple and sage

Sausage with apple and sage
I adapted this Laura Calder recipe only slightly. I used local Gala apples instead of Granny Smith (which tend to be imported) and in larger pieces than she suggests. I also cut down on the olive oil and butter.

Ingredients
2 pork sausages, cooked
1-2 apples, peeled and cored
20 mL (1-1/2 tbsp) olive oil
15 mL (1 tbsp) butter
pinch sugar
24 small sage leaves

Method
Slice sausage into half-centimetre slices on the bias.
Cut apple into small cubes.
Heat oil in a saute pan and fry sausage slices on both sides until golden brown, remove to a platter.
Wash pan. Melt butter in pan. Add sugar and fry apple cubes tossing occasionally until golden on all sides.
Add a little more oil to the pan, if needed, and fry the sage leaves until slightly crisp, 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Brown butter mashed potatoes
This is an occasion treat at our house, only served with big traditional meals such as turkey or prime rib. It is inspired by this recipe from PEI chef Michael Smith, although I use less butter and add a little milk or cream.

Ingredients
4-5 large potatoes
80 mL (1/3 cup) butter
60 mL (1/4 cup) milk or light cream
few pinches of nutmeg
salt and pepper

Method
Peel potatoes and cut into large cubes. Place in pot with lots of cold water. Heat until boiling and simmer until cooked, about 20 minutes.
Drain and mash potatoes.
In another pot or pan, melt butter, swirling the pan, until it becomes golden brown and gives off a nutty aroma. Add milk to stop cooking.
Add butter and milk mixture, nutmeg, salt and pepper to potatoes and stir.