Duck 3 Ways

Duck 3 Ways

This week, I had every intention of trying to remake my failed duck dish (duck wellington) from last week’s supper club. While in the grocery store getting the ingredients to do it again, I found myself standing in front of the glass freezer door where the puff pastry is stored with my hand on the handle, and a question keeps coming to mind “Do I want to be disappointed again?” The answer was no! No, I didn’t give up, I’m not a quitter, I’m just putting the dish on hold until I can gather more information to make it properly. Instead, I did a duck 3 ways. The breast was sous vide at 58°C for roughly an hour to produce a nice pink center. In a really hot pan, I seared the foie gras, the duck breast, and a black duck leg confit that I had hidden in the freezer. The sauce was a reduction of maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, wild blueberries with a hint of salt. Everything worked well together: there was a little bit of saltiness from the confit, fattiness from the foie gras, sweet, sour and tangy flavours from the sauce and a little bit of crispiness from the duck skin on the breast. Even though it isn’t a good comparison, Megan and I both agreed it was better than last week’s dish, with the added flavours and textural components to enhance the experience.

Flexible Chocolate

This flexible chocolate recipe is from my dear friend John from Molecular Culinary Academy. The use of locust bean gum and kappa carageenan gives it a little bit of stretch and flexibility. I used it in the plated dessert shown above, created for a demo for the culinary program at Canadore College many years ago.

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“Aero”, Aerated Chocolate at Home

Who doesn’t love an Aero Bar, am I right? I’m not sure who came up with this technique… I first learned about it from John Placko many years ago when I was helping out with one of his modernist technique workshops. It’s a pretty easy technique: melt chocolate, thin it out, put it in an ISI, add nitrous oxide, dispense, and vacuum. But in order for you to do all those things, you need some equipment…

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“Snow”

Above is a dessert that Megan and I first plated together at Niagara College a number of years ago. We were still in the honeymoon phase of dating at the time, and Megan thought it was cool to tag along to these professional events. This plated dessert is composed of a flexible chocolate, mango and passion fruit fluid gels and meringue tear drops, tuiles, white chocolate “snow”, mango sorbet and some fresh herbs.

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