So after reading Hank Shaw’s new cookbook and attending the duck-centric dinner at Range, ON TOP OF ordering duck two or three times in recent memory from my local Thai delivery joint, well, I was hellbent on preparing duck at home. The CGP and I have previously grilled whole ducks on the Big Green Egg, but I really wanted to try to cook duck breast on the stovetop, a la PBS and Hubert Keller. Okay, maybe not quite THAT lofty. But I definitely had duck on the brain.

Hank makes a case for cooking duck parts separately. The breast is best served seared and medium-rare, like a well-aged steak. The legs, cooked low and slow in their own fat (confit), are analogous to pulled pork. In my experience, it is next to impossible to roast a whole fowl and get a rare breast and well-done legs. So while I was eye-balling the whole frozen ducks at my grocer, I just wasn’t in the mood to thaw and break them down. I wanted CRISPY skin and I didn’t want to work too hard for it (I have my off days, too), so I went the easy route — boneless, skin-on breasts from the freezer case. The 14oz package was just the right portion for the pair of us, and it was a much more approachable quantity of fowl.

Sunday nights are our unofficial “Date Night” (Wednesdays being the official one). So I did want to do justice to the duck in terms of sides and beverage. I chose to make a wild-rice pilaf tossed with toasted pecans and dried currants and roasted off an acorn squash in the oven. I made a sangria and an apple pie for dessert. Definitely date-night worthy

Duck breast isn’t any harder to cook than a steak. You need a a sharp knife, a heavy-bottomed skillet, and some salt and pepper. So this post isn’t so much a “recipe” — but a technique.

Prep:

About 45 minutes before you throw your duck in the pan (that means about an hour before you want to eat), pull your thawed duck breast out of the fridge. If the two breast lobes are still attached — slice through the joining fat/skin and separate into two. Pat the both sides of the duck dry with a paper towel and sprinkle both fat side and meat side liberally with kosher salt. Let rest on a cutting board while you carry on (this is when I finished the squash and made my pilaf). After 40 minutes or so, use paper towels to thoroughly dry your duck and cutting board. Use a VERY sharp knife to cut a 1/2″ cross-hatch into the fat, being careful not to cut into the flesh. Use your fingers to gently spread the cuts to see that you are not accidentally butchering the flesh. Season the fat side with a generous amount of freshly-ground pepper, using your hands to press the pepper into the flesh. Smear a teaspoon or so of fat in the bottom of your cold pan. I used bacon fat, but previously rendered duck fat (lucky you!) or olive oil would work as well.

Cook:

Place the breasts fat-side down into the cold pan, making sure to press them down for maximium surface contact. Turn your pan to medium and let it all start to heat up. The fat will start to render and it will sound like bacon frying. Keep the temperature moderate — we want to render off fat without blackening the poor thing! Turn it down if it starts to sizzle too vigorously (sorry — that’s an instinctive thing!). It’s going to take at least 8 to 10 minutes, depending on fat your bird was. I will move the breasts around a little, just to make sure they don’t stick, but you pretty much leave them alone. When the skin is golden and crispy and most of the fat seems to have rendered, carefully flip them over. I say careful, because you could have 1/4″ to 1/2″ of happy bubbly fat in that pan by now. You are going to cook them just 3 or 4 minutes on the other side — just enough to brown the meat side. At Hank’s suggestion, I use my tongs to turn the pieces on each of their sides for just 20 or 30 seconds to “sear” the sides too.

Rest:

Remove to a clean cutting board and loosely tent with aluminum foil for 5 – 8 minutes while you make the pan sauce.

Pan Sauce:

Carefully pour the accumulated liquid fat into a heat-proof container, leaving just a tablespoon or two behind in the pan. Put the pan back on the stove on medium. Toss in a tablespoon or so of finely chopped shallot. Stir that around until most of the oil is absorbed and they start to soften. Deglaze the pan with a tablespoon or three of chicken broth (duck broth if you’ve got it of course). Swirl around scraping up the dark bits (fond) and let some of it evaporate. Add 1 tablespoon of creme de cassis (currant liqueur) and a tablespoon of dried currants (I actually set the currants to soak in the liqueur about the same time I pulled the duck breasts out of the fridge). Swirl around and let it cook down a bit. Turn off the heat and add a teaspoon or two of softened butter, swirling to incorporate.

Serve:

Whirl around to the cutting board and slice your breasts across the grain, place on a plate, and spoon some of the pan sauce across the artfully arranged slices. Eat. Moan. Eat some more.

James Beard Award-winning blogger Hank Shaw is on his cross-country promotion tour for his latest cookbook, “Duck, Duck, Goose: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking Waterfowl, Both Farmed and Wild.” This is not your typical meet-and-greet in the one remaining brick-and-mortar booksuperstore, rather, Hank is criss-crossing the country on his own dime, collaborating with local chefs to host a duck-themed dinner in THEIR restaurant, making some money for the restaurant and selling as many of his cookbooks as he can. You’ve got to admire his chutzpah!

My friend Beverly turned me on to Hank’s blog. She knows Hank from previous blog conferences and owns his first book, so when she saw he was coming to the DC area, she started asking around for who might be interested in joining her. When I heard that Hank would be collaborating with my biggest Celebrity Chef Crush Ever, Bryan Voltaggio (of Top Chef/Top Chef Masters fame), well, I was on board immediately! We were to be a party of four — Beverly, her husband, a dear friend of theirs, and yours truly.

Let me talk briefly about the cookbook. If you love duck, BUY IT. If you love duck but have been afraid to cook it, BUY IT. If you hunt waterfowl, BUY IT. Hank’s intended audience is the home cook, like you and me, and he makes cooking duck and waterfowl approachable by even a novice cook. It’s not that he dumbed it down — some of the recipes really are quite complex — but he has the knack for explaining so thoroughly in understandable terms that it all just makes sense. Two of my takeaways — hints for duck pan sauces (pick complimentary liquor/liqueur and fruit) and use rendered duck/goose fat in pie crust.

The collaborative dinner at Range was an INSANE five course celebration of duck. There was a duck consomme with duck liver spaetzle (my personal favorite), a char siu duck, duck sausage, dry aged duck (reminiscent of a dry-aged steak), and a dessert course with a duck fat ganache (truly swoon-worthy). I barely stopped myself from licking the plates clean (when I say plates, I mean mine as well as my dinner companions). Hank stopped ’round during our fourth course, and he is as genuine in person as he appears to be in his blog. He of course endeared himself to me when he inadvertently dropped the F-bomb (as I too am wont to do).

On our way out, I gave in to my hero worship and blushingly and stumblingly asked Range’s event coordinator, Tracy, if Bryan were available to meet and maybe take a quick picture. She graciously sent someone to the kitchen to get him, and OMG — I got to meet him! He is a little shy in person, quite humble, and was happy to pose. I told him I was so inspired by the meal, I would HAVE to cook duck myself that weekend! He wanted to know how I was planning to cook it, and I said probably on my Big Green Egg, and his eyes lit up, and he said, those are really good to cook on it, right, and I said yes, we have two, and then others wanted a picture, and the encounter was over. I was a little weak in the knees — it was Chef Bryan!!

It truly was a tasty and inspiring evening. I am fortunate to have attended with other food-crazies like me (three of the four of us pulled out our cameras at the start of each course to take pix as discreetly as possible!). Although I might have been mocked **slightly** for the wobbly knee reaction. And, I’ve got some duck ready to go in a COLD pan as soon as we can get some of the leaves tamed!

This cooking adventure was inspired by my sister-in-law, Liz. She posted on Facebook all about her and my nephew making a apple clafoutis. Now, I have heard of clafoutis, and even looked up a recipe or two, but I was always a little intimidated by the number of eggs (as many as six!) and the use of half-and-half or cream. Not that I’m opposed to eggs or cream, but I really wanted to find a recipe that was a little lighter on the eggs and used low-fat milk, so that I didn’t have to make a special trip to the store if I got in the mood to make one.

Traditionally, clafoutis is rustic French dessert made with dark cherries. I think it gets a different name (flognarde) when you use other fruit, but I’m going with clafoutis because it’s more familiar to folks. Fancy French words aside, this is a baked custard and fruit delight! Served warm, perhaps with a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream or a dusting of powdered sugar, it would be a lovely end to any dinner party. Served cool or room temperature the next day, it could grace a brunch table. But it’s also rustic, and we were happy to eat it a bit too warm with a spoon and gobbled it up cold the next day for breakfast!

Mixed Berry Clafoutis
Adapted from Apple Clafouti – a Recipe from a French Girl

A teaspoon or so of softened butter
2 1/2 to 3 cups mixed fresh berries (I used raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries)
2 tablespoons creme de cassis
1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup low-fat milk
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400F. Set a rack in the center. Smear the softened butter evenly on the bottom and sides of a 9″ pie plate.

Rinse and drain the berries well. Mix the berries with the creme de cassis and 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl and allow to macerate (hang out) while you prepare the rest of the dish.

Put the remaining ingredients (eggs through salt) in the food processor and whir until completely smooth. You may use a blender, but be sure to scrape down the sides frequently. My sister-in-law uses a whisk and does it by hand!

Pour about half of the batter into the prepared pie plate. Gently spoon the berries over the batter, making sure that the different types are evenly distributed. There will be a little juice/liqueur in the bottom — just drizzle that over. Pour the remaining batter over the berries.

Put the nearly-overflowing pie plate in the oven. Cook for about 30 minutes until golden brown on top and the center is JUST set (check it at 25 minutes). Also, I like to rotate the plate about halfway through the cooking time.

Remove and allow to cool on the counter until warm. I cut this one just a hair too soon — notice how the center is still a little loose? Refrigerate any leftovers.

I had two green tomatoes in the fridge. While I **love** fried green tomatoes, well, they are a bit time-consuming. And probably not the heart-healthiest way to prepare a savory side. So as I looked at these two lonely orbs, wondering how I might prepare them, I did a little googling. I found a number of recipes for green tomato pie — but I didn’t have nearly enough tomatoes. I saw a number of recipes for green tomato cake, but none really grabbed me, for multiple reasons.

So I thought to myself, how different is a green tomato from rhubarb, in terms of tartness? Why not give my rhubarb muffin recipe a try, subbing out the rhubarb for tomato? (if it’s a total flop, I’m not wasting alot of ingredients) I like that muffins are already pre-portioned, and, I think muffins last longer than a cut cake.

The CGP proclaimed the muffins a success! He said he wouldn’t have known it was tomato if I hadn’t told him. The bits of green tomato sweeten up in the oven heat and almost melt into the muffin background, similar to the rhubarb. The muffin itself isn’t too sweet, so more of a breakfast choice than a dessert. I have loads of cherry tomatoes that won’t ripen before our first frost — so I bet I can cut those in halves or quarters and whip out some muffins!

Green Tomato and Coconut Muffins
Makes six “Texas-sized” muffins

1 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons butter, melted and slightly cooled
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/4 cup plain, nonfat greek yogurt
1/2 cup chopped green tomato (most of a medium-sized one), heaping
1/2 cup sweetened, shredded coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°. Line the muffin tin with paper liners, OR, grease them well with solid shortening.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a big bowl, whisk together the butter, brown sugar, egg, and lime juice. Add dry ingredients with yogurt to first mixture and stir just until moistened. Stir in tomato, coconut, and walnuts. The batter will be very thick!

Spoon evenly amongst the muffin wells. Bake at 350° for about 30 minutes, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. I would check at 25 minutes and then at 3 to 5 minute intervals thereafter.

So it’s green tomato “season”. You know, the bushes are slowing down (or maybe you’ve got a frost looming) and so you start to harvest the green tomatoes. As for me, I love a fried green tomato. There’s not much to it … it’s your basic three-dredge fry process. So if you have a little patience and are willing to lose some arm hair to oil spatter, well, it can be done.

Fried green tomatoes are an amazing accompaniment to any Southern meal. They are pretty damn good with steak and eggs at breakfast. But for a truly divine experience, you must layer them with bacon and mayonnaise on a sandwich. Truly divine.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Unbleached all-purpose flour
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Ground chipotle (or cayenne)
Celery Seed
Buttermilk (or milk + lime juice)
Panko bread crumbs
Firm, medium-sized green tomatoes – 1 per person

Prepare three dredge stations:

1. Flour seasoned with salt, peppers, and celery seed (use your dampened finger to taste for balance)
2. Buttermilk
3. Panko bread crumbs

Slice the tomatoes about 1/4″ thick.

Pass each slice through the seasoned flour and gently shake off the excess. Pass each through the buttermilk, ensuring all the flour is covered by the buttermilk. Place in the panko, gently pressing the panko into the buttermilk layer and shake off the excess. Gently set each slice aside on a cookie sheet. Put the cookie sheet in the refrigerator for one hour. Don’t skip this step — this allows the panko-buttermilk-flour to adhere to the tomato and stay adhered in the hot oil bubble bath. I do this for my fried oysters, too — no naked oysters. (many thanks to SteveK for the invaluable refrigeration tip!)

Heat an inch or so of neutral oil in a skillet to about 325F to 350F. Fry off four or five slices at a time, ensuring the pan isn’t crowded and that the slices can move freely. Flip when the first side is golden brown. Cook until the second side is equally lusciously golden and remove to a plate lined with paper towels. Salt lightly.

Eat ’em while they are hot. My two favorite ways:

So the summer before last, we planted ONE cherry tomato plant. Just one. The farmer-in-charge refused to do any pruning, so that plant TOOK OVER our tiny garden plot. It’s octopus-like arms grew to a tangle that was 4 feet deep by 8 feet wide. We couldn’t even reach all the fruit, much to the delight of wildlife. I swore NO MORE indeterminate tomato plants ever again!

The following summer (last summer), I planted ONE determinate bush tomato plant. It stayed in its place, we got a few tomatoes, I was happy, except for one thing … these volunteer cherry tomato plants that were sprouting up all over our and our neighbor’s yards! The wildlife had spread seeds far and wide and apparently these tomatoes bred true. So we continued to harvest cherry tomatoes and kept the plants in check when we mowed the grass. No staking — they just grew horizontally.

So this summer, I planted ONE determinate heirloom tomato plant. Again, It stayed in its place, we got a few tomatoes, I was happy, and we’ve STILL got the damn volunteer cherry tomatoes all over the place. We’re getting an even better harvest this year. It’s crazy. And I don’t even LIKE fresh tomatoes!

I love roasted shrimp, so I thought maybe I could use up some of these tomatoes in something not-totally-fresh yet not-fully-cooked. These flavors really do speak to summer, even if I did use the oven instead of the grill.

Roasted Shrimp and Tomatoes with Feta
Serves 3 – 4

12 – 16 ounces dried pasta (I used penne)
2 cups ripe cherry tomatoes
Extra virgin olive oil
Kosher Salt
Fresh ground black pepper
Dried thyme
Crushed red pepper flakes
1 lb peeled, be-headed, de-veined shrimp (I use 21/25 count)
1 shallot lobe, peeled and sliced thinly
4 – 6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

Preheat oven to 375F. If desired, line a large sheet pan with foil to aid in cleanup.

Start your pasta! Water-to-boil plus cook-time should just about equal the oven roasting time (fingers **crossed**).

Cut the tomatoes in half and put on a large sheet pan. Drizzle liberally with olive oil, then sprinkle with kosher salt (lightly), fresh ground pepper and thyme (generously), and some red pepper flakes (to taste). Roast until they start to pop and break down (you probably want to move them around or flip them once or twice). Add the shrimp and shallots, tossing all of it together to coat the shrimp and shallots with the seasoned oil and tomato drippings. Continue roasting. Check the shrimp at about 4 or 5 minutes — they should be turning pink and slightly opaque. Flip them over with tongs and cook an additional 3 to 4 minutes. Pull them when they look NOT QUITE done — there will be some carry-over cooking as they rest on the counter.

Drain your pasta well. Scoop some pasta on a plate, top with some of the roasted shrimp, tomato, and shallot (making sure to get some of the ooey gooey juices too), and then sprinkle with the crumbled feta.

I served it with some simply steamed yellow and green squash, because that’s what they had at the farmstand