For some reason, I followed an online recipe for my first attempt rather than going with my inspiration for this whole project, Eric Ripert. I know, I seem to be obsessed at this point, but he really cooks how I want to cook and the recipes work!

So, I didn’t make the sauce or any of the accompaniments. I just wanted the duck preparation from him. It was like making a steak: pan sear then finish in the oven. So simple. So perfectly cooked.

I cut the wings and legs off the duck and put them in the freezer for another time. I cut the breast off, leaving the bones attached. I seared the breasts skin-side down in a hot pan, on high heat, for about 6 minutes. I drained off the fat, turned the breasts over and put it in a 400° oven for 9 minutes. Took it out, let it rest for 8 minutes. Carved it off the bone, sliced it and served it over israeli couscous with pine nuts and parsley.

Now, full disclosure here…I have a cold. I can’t taste a damn thing. This is killing me. However, texture is everything right now. The texture of the duck was *PERFECT*. I will do this again when my sense of taste and smell returns (god, I hope that’s soon!). I do need to figure out how to render out the fat though, there was too much between the perfectly crispy skin and the meat. This duck challenge is fun.

I simmered lemongrass, ginger, shallots, garlic, lime rind and chicken (I didn’t have any chicken stock made but I had a couple of drumsticks in the freezer so I tossed those in). I let that simmer for about an hour. It would have been better if I had much longer but I didn’t and it was quite flavorful even after such a short time.

Next I skinned the salmon and put it in a dish with garlic, cilantro, a little oil and a splash of white wine. I turned it a few times while I was working on everything else.

I didn’t have any vermicelli but I did have spaghetti so I broke a handful of that into thirds and boiled it up. When it was done I tossed it with cilantro, shallots, lime juice and a little olive oil.

I removed the salmon from the marinade and dried it off. I wanted the flavor but since I was going to be searing it on high heat, I need to get the garlic off as much as I could so it wouldn’t burn. I heated canola oil until it was almost smoking and added the fish. I let it cook on the first side for 3-4 minutes, until it had a nice brown crust starting to happen. Then I flipped it an only kept it about another minute on that side.

To serve I put a small pile of sugar snap peas, cut into 1/2 inch pieces. I placed the pasta on top of that. Scattered some sunflower sprouts from our wonderful microgreen and mushroom folks at the farmer’s market around the pasta. Topped that with the salmon.

I strained the simmering broth and ladeled that over the pasta. To add some crunch I added a few more sprouts to the top, not in the broth. Then a generous squeeze of lime juice over the whole thing.

There is a recipe in The French Laundry Cookbook for “Clam Chowder” which, of course, is nothing like clam chowder because it’s Thomas Keller’s twist on a classic dish. It’s cod cakes with cod and clams. It’s a fantastic dish, I’ve made it before, actually following the recipe. It takes hours. It is not a dish for a weeknight after work.

I used it as an inspiration for these cod cakes though. This made 3 servings.

• 1 1/2 lb cod
• 4 potatoes
• 1 large shallot
• 1/2 bulb fennel
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 stalk celery
• 2 c. white wine
• herbs
• peppercorns
• 1/4 stick butter

• Peel, dice and boil potatoes…preferably yukon golds, I used whatever I’d gotten from my CSA. Drain and mash up in a bowl with 1/4 stick of butter.
• Dice and saute in olive oil: shallot, fennel, 1 clove garlic, celery. When soft, add to potatoes.
• Trim true cod down so you have small, pretty, rectangular filets. Set those aside.
• Cut the trimmings down to 1-2 inch pieces and put in a sauce pan with some herb sprigs (I used marjoram), 6 peppercorns, a clove of smashed garlic and a cup or 2 of white wine. Simmer until fish is cooked. Remove fish from pan and smoosh it up in the bowl w/ the sauteed veggies and potatoes.
• Add salt and pepper and put the mixture in the refrigerator for a bit so you can handle it.
• Once the mixture is cool, heat up olive oil in a pan and form patties out of the potato-cod mixture.



• Place them in the heated olive oil and then walk away…don’t touch them until they are truly browned or they will fall apart and become potato-cod hash.
• When brown, flip and leave them alone again.
• Remove from pan and place on paper towels to absorb extra oil.
• While the cod cakes are browning, cook your cod fillets up in olive oil with just salt as seasoning. Cod is beautiful on its own, you don’t need anything else.
• I served them on top of a kohlrabi puree (like mashed potatoes only better). Or you can serve atop salad with a nice lemony vinaigrette (caesar salad is good, so is a butter lettuce salad with lemon-shallot dressing) – salad, then cod cakes, then cod filet on top.

Preparation time: 45 minute(s)

White Sea Bass in Broth

I picked up my fish from my Seafood CSA (CSS – Community Supported Seafood) yesterday. It’s fun to have no idea what I’m going to cook until after 1:30 when i pick up my fish! Surprise! I came home and pondered for a while. Stared into my fridge….I had a fennel bulb and a chunk of garlic. I almost always have chicken broth since another CSA I’m in gives me 2 dozen eggs and 2 chickens every 2 weeks. The recipe started coming together in my head.

This serves 2 people and could easily be scaled up.

I put a quart of chicken stock on low heat and simmered it with about 2 inches of ginger root, sliced and one fennel bulb, sliced. That simmered about an hour. Reducing by about 1/4th.

Meanwhile, I took the 2 yellow potatoes I had and sliced them as thinly as I could. I don’t have a mandoline. Well, that’s not true, I have one and haven’t the foggiest idea how to set it up or use it. So I use my wicked sharp knife instead! I put the slices into a bowl of ice water where they remained until I was ready to fry them up.

I whisked together:
1/4 cup white miso
2 T seasoned rice vinegar
2 t soy sauce
a dash of cayenne

Grapeseed Oil

I brushed that over the sea bass fillets. This is not chilean sea bass. It’s locally caught white sea bass. It’s more of a cod texture…actually, it may be a type of cod?? Not sure! Sustainable, green-listed fish :)

Cut the fillet into 1/3-1/2 pound pieces. Brush the miso paste onto the top and bottom of the fillet. Set these aside for a few minutes.

Frying crisps

Fill a semi-high-sided pan with about 1″ or so of grapeseed oil (or other high-heat oil). I love the shade of green that the grapeseed oil has. It just looks cool. Bring the temperature of the oil up to 350°. I’ve had this candy thermometer for years and I don’t think I’ve ever used it. Glad I had it though! While waiting for the oil to heat over medium-high heat, remove the potato slices from the ice water and dry them thoroughly with paper towels. You don’t want them wet or you’ll get splattered with hot oil! Carefully drop the slices into the hot oil a batch at a time. I put about 10-15 slices in at a time and it didn’t drop the temperature of the oil dramatically. Let them dance around in the oil until they are brown. Remove carefully and place on paper towels to drain the oil, I also dabbed the tops with papertowels, then sprinkle with a nice finishing salt. I used Shinkai Deep Sea Salt and it was perfect.

Things got a bit hectic when I was trying to do crisps and fish at the same time. Put the sea bass into a quite-hot pan with a little olive oil. I wanted a nice crust on the outside of the fish and a pretty raw center. This fish was caught the day before, it was beautifully fresh. Sear for 1-2 minutes on each side.

Place the fish in a shallow bowl. Strain the simmering broth into the bowl. Sprinkle with chopped scallions. Serve the crisps on the side.

We drank, oddly, a pink wine with this. I hate pink wine typically but this one was light and citrusy and paired rather well.

This time I live-tweeted the making of the soup, just for fun. A sort of step-by-step recipe without instructions! This is enough soup for 16-18 people.

3 onions:

Onions

4-5 quarts chicken stock simmering on the back burner:

Chicken Stock Simmering

3-4 carrots (mulitcolored, they looked cool!):

Added Carrots

1 fennel bulb and 4 stalks celery:

Fennel and Celery

Cooking all that stuff down, entertaining myself with the camera:

Waiting for veggies to cook down

4 yellow potatoes:

Potatoes will go in next

3/4 bottle white wine and 6 cloves garlic:

Added white wine and garlic

One bunch kale, somewhat “julienned”…I’d say finely shredded:

Shredded Kale

6 small zucchini:

Zucchini

Snap peas, halved:

Lastly, snap peas

In there with the zucchini went 3 cans of cannellini beans and then the soup was ladeled over spaghetti that I broke in half before boiling (so it would be possible to eat it with a spoon!)

To serve it was first pasta, then soup, pesto on top of that (basil-walnut-lots of lemon), and for everyone but me, shredded parmesean.

Topped with pesto for serving

Yum.

Shred 2 lbs of potatoes, I used the shredder in my food processor, and one sweet onion. I just picked up some walla walla onions that went well. I also used a combination of white, purple and red potatoes to make these look funky :)

Place the potato-onion mixture in a strainer, salt the mix and let it sit over the sink for a while to draw out some of the water. I let mine sit for, maybe, 30 minutes? Longer is probably better.

Squeeze the mixture in some paper towels and get as much moisture out as you can.

Take a bit of the mixture and make a small patty, place some smoked salmon on top of the patty, then place more of the potato mixture on top of the salmon to seal it inside.

Drop this filled potato pancake gently into a small amount of oil and fry it up until it’s brown and crispy…flip it and brown the other side.

Do this on medium heat so they potatoes don’t brown too quickly or they’ll still be raw on the inside!

I realized right as these were finishing that I needed a sauce for them. I’d just picked up plain yogurt so I just minced a garlic clove, mixed that into some yogurt, added a little cayenne and salt and it was perfect! So simple.

Easy: Spinach…wash it, put it on a plate
Lentils…cook them with a clove of garlic and some thyme. Choose your preferred liquid to cook them in, I use chicken stock.
Green garlic dressing…recipe featured here.

To plate…well, spinach, then spoon some lentils on top, then drizzle some dressing on that. You didn’t need me to spell that out did you? Oh, and if you like, crumble bacon on top. To pretty it up, I added some julienned turnips and chive flowers.

I love the CSA season. I can eat ridiculously healthy with very little effort or thought. When all that is in the fridge is vegetables, lunch or a quick snack is so seasonably delicious whether you try or not! The salad was a mix of lettuces, 2 multicolored carrots thinly sliced and one HUGE radish, also thinly sliced. I tossed it with the following dressing:

When I make it again, I’ll try to remember to take one and add it here.

I had quite a few turnips from my CSA. The only way I’ve ever had turnips is roasted in big chunks and I didn’t like them like that. But I do like thin, crispy starchy things with butter sooooo….

I peeled and sliced the turnips into quarter moons if the turnips were huge or half moons if they were smaller. I put some olive oil in my cast iron pan and then started layering them around. After one layer I put some dots of butter and some thinly sliced shallots. Then I layered some more turnips and then topped that with rosemary, butter, and pepper.

I cooked it, covered, on the stovetop on medium heat until the bottom started to brown. Then I put it, uncovered, in a 400° oven for, well, too long for most people, but good for us…until the bottom was almost black. I thought it was great! Hubby was lukewarm on the dish but I really liked it.

I served it with Herb-Roasted Chicken and a salad. I’d just picked up both my veggie CSA box and my CSA chickens so what else were we going to have for dinnner?!?

Along with it I had a beautiful 2008 Robert Denogent St. Véran les Pommards white wine. Everything came together beautifully.