another early autumn

Let me start by saying that it was not easy to make a selection from this beautiful cookbook. Everything looks amazing. So, I narrowed it down by making a selection based on the following criteria:

1. Must be an entire menu.

2. Must come from the Fall portion of the cookbook.

3. Must include a technique or ingredient that I've never worked with before.

*Bonus: Ideally include figs!

Well, I found a menu that matched all of my criteria: menu sixteen, another early autumn (pgs. 190-199). This menu includes a few techniques and ingredients I've never worked with. Panna Cotta. Duck. Livers.

Yes, I'll admit that I was a little nervous about the duck and more than a little nervous about the livers...

but looking forward to expanding my culinary know-how!

Next up: making my grocery list. Many of the items we already had on hand but needed to pick up some of the key ingredients...duck, juniper berries, livers, pancetta, fresh baguette, half-and-half, Creme Fraiche, and powdered gelatin.

We went to no less than three different grocery stores to pick up everything we needed. Found the duck breasts at our favorite gourmet foods market, Pastaworks, the livers, pancetta, Creme Fraiche and gelatin came from another local specialty foods market, Zupan's, and the rest from Whole Foods.

I planned this to be our dinner for Sunday night so I started by preparing the duck on Saturday since it called to refrigerate the duck breast roast for "several hours, or overnight" prior to cooking. I have to say that I really liked this technique of tying two duck breasts together to make a little "roast". It was super easy to prepare the spice rub (I subbed ground allspice for the allspice berries in the rub), apply it to the duck and tie it all together in a compact little bundle. After prepping the duck breast, it was on to the Duck Liver. Okay, fine, I didn't find duck livers but the recipe does indicate that you can also use chicken livers so that's what I did. Trimming the livers was...to put it mildly...my least favorite part of preparing this meal. In their raw state they felt like pieces of jello. Needless to say, I tried to finish that task as quickly as possible. The remainder of the prep for the liver spread was quite simple and once everything was mixed together I popped it in the fridge for the night.

Sunday: I made the Panna Cotta early on Sunday morning since it had to chill in the fridge for at least 6 hours. This recipe calls for Creme Fraiche with a recipe to make your own (p. 41). I did take a peek at the recipe and even attempted to gather the ingredients during our trip to the grocery store but could not find non-ultrapasturized heavy whipping cream... Since I didn't know if that was critical to the texture and consistency of the finished product, I scratched that idea and just picked up a container. The headnote at the top of the Panna Cotta recipe says that it's "surprisingly easy to prepare" and I would have to agree.

The baked figs and roasted pepper salad were perfectly simple and, also, extremely easy to prepare.

My final report on the meal:

Liver Toasts: We served these as our first course on crostini. I was not a fan of the metallic, iron-y taste of the liver. We both decided that rubbing the crostini with fresh garlic helped us to enjoy the spread a little bit more!

Roasted Pepper Salad: Simple. Delicate. Lovely.

Double Duck Breast with Baked Figs: The recipe called for 6 duck breasts (to make 3 mini roasts) but since I'm just cooking for Jim and I, I used two, which still left us with lots of leftovers. This turned out really nice. The duck cooked perfectly moist and we both felt that the spice rub was a great compliment to the duck. And the figs. The figs were fantastic. The roasting process intensified their flavor and still left them soft - almost jammy.

Panna Cotta: I was a bit disappointed with how the panna cotta turned out. I had hoped that they would easily turn out from the ramekins into perfectly shaped little molds. But, they didn't really hold their shape at all. Instead, they turned into little puddles. (Maybe I should have prepared them the night before to give them more time in the fridge...) The flavor was good though so it was not a total loss! They were like a silky, milky pudding. The vanilla bean gave it a mild sweetness that paired well with the fresh strawberries I served with them. And, no, I did not take a picture...it just didn't seem worthy of a photo!

I had a fantastic time preparing this entire meal and I can't wait to pick out another recipe!

buon appetito!

Tempa