Notes from the kitchen
Only took a year and a half, but Contra’s first SF supper club finally went down a few weeks ago. Menu and pics below:
Cucumber, avocado, radish, borage
Squid, purple potatoes, preserved lemon, piment d’espelette
Grilled salmon collars, salsa verde, za’atar flatbread
Buttermilk panna cotta, boysenberries, granola
Dinner for 16, minus dessert. Wish I had pictures.
I got this little fella as a party favor after a dinner party a few months ago. My girlfriend’s cousin had a freezer full of them after one of his friends went duck hunting and I was happy to take one off his hands. After finally deciding to make a Tuesday project out of it, I thawed the bird then salted and let it sit uncovered overnight in the fridge to help the skin crisp up better.
Since I’ve read about chefs experimenting with dry-aging wild game, some for up to 73 days, it was interesting to see the color change after only a day. It’s also somewhat surprising to see how little fat there is – I keep forgetting this ducky was a worker bee who hauled ass down to Cabo every summer.
Since this was my first time working with wild duck, I kept the preparation really simple by roasting in a hot oven with s+p, and a few star anise pods and garlic cloves in the cavity. The meat had a nice steak-like quality to it, nicely perfumed with anise but with none of the gaminess I expected. I did drop the ball though by forgetting to snap a pic after (the picture above is post “dry-age,” pre-450 degree oven).
Next time I plan to try a more assertive sauce like an apple mostarda or something else fruit-based to see how the meat holds up.
Next up: Curing duck breasts for a duck prosciutto and a duck speck.
Sounds funky, doesn’t it? Well, that’s kind of the point. I first came across the idea on Ozersky.TV, where Harold Moore of Commerce demoed the technique. I let these puppies cure in kosher salt and sugar (3:2) for a week before letting them hang from cheesecloth in the fridge. The picture above is after a week of air-drying. I’m interested to see how the texture and color change the longer they hang.
Why bother? I think it’s a great introduction to the curing process and the results are so unique – rich, salty, eggy – not unlike bottarga in some ways. It grates like a hard cheese and adds a nice finishing touch to carbonara or any other dish that yearns for yolk.