Traditional Duck Dinner

So, here in Rhode Island we’re allowed to see 5 people during this quarantine time.  In the last 2 months I’ve only seen 4 in person, and one of them was my boss when we went into work to make bread for our production team.

I’m making a dinner for one of my friends who has been super helpful and supportive through all of this, and just happens to be one of those four people.  I wanted to do something different, and surprise her, so I’m making an old school roast duck dinner.

But this is the age of quarantine, and not every supply is readily available.  First off, I couldn’t get a whole duck easily.  I knew one store that had it but it was a 40 minute drive away.  Thankfully the Whole Foods in Providence had pre-portioned duck breasts, so instead of roasted duck, I’ll do pan-seared duck breasts.

Spetzle is super easy as it only needs flour, water, milk, and eggs, all staples in my house.  And for our vegetable I alsy went super easy, I’m going to do some honey roasted carrots, and sweet and sour red cabbage.  Both things I grew up eating.  So let’s make a killer upscale-comfort food dinner.

Since the duck is already cut up and I just have the breasts, it needs the least preparation, as opposed to the most if I was going to roast it.  So we can hold off on that until the end.

1:30 pm
The first thing I really need to do is get the cabbage marinating.  Since I’m also going to cook it in the brine it doesn’t have to for long, but it helps to get the flavor right early on, and it’s not going to hurt sitting in the vinegar.

Because of my own paranoia, I take off the first layer of the cabbage leaves, just like I would an onion.  I cut the four sides of, which is actually way too much for just two of us, and anything I don’t use I’ll save for making something else.
I cut up two sides in ¼” wide ribbons, across the cabbage so the strips wouldn’t be too long, and yeah, that was more than enough.  There’s going to be lefotvers.  I can already feel it.

Put it in a bowl, and to this we add 2/3 cup Apple Cider vinegar and 2 TBsp of sugar, and enough water to just barely cover the cabbage. and let it sit.  The rest of the seasoning won’t go in until it’s time to cook.

2:00 pm
Carrots. So, I peeled and sliced them, then let them soak in water for an hour. This was basically a waste of my time. I didn't salt the water, and they're mostly water, so..... yeah, it didn't do anything.

While they were soaking I mixed up ½ cup of honey, ¼ cup of water, 2 tsp of yellow mustard and ¼ tsp of chipotle pepper.  I’m going with Chipotle today, but sometimes I use cayenne instead. It depends on how zippy I want the carrots to be.

So save yourself some trouble and just slice them up and toss them in the sauce.

3:00 pm
Making Spaetzle

This is super simple.  Just mix everything together and add it a bit at a time into boiling water.  I have proper spaetzle maker, but If you don’t, then you can use spoons, some people lay it out and cut strips and push them off the edge of the cutting board in.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 eggs
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 Tablespoon salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

I mixed all the dries together, while I melted the butter in the milk on the stove, just to make the mixing easier.  Then I cooled it back off after mixing in the fridge until it was time for dinner.  Those duck breasts are going to cook pretty quick in the pan so I just want to get everything ready.

3:30 pm, go for a walk.
I prepped a bit farther ahead than I planned, and had some time to kill. I've been walking a lot through this quarantine, in fact mostly every day. I'm up to 3 miles a day now, which takes me between 45 minutes and an hour depending on how hard I push myself.

4:45 pm
Let’s get cooking.

Turn the oven up to 350F for the carrots, and line the sheet pan. I have a Silpat, which I reccomend, but parchment or even tin foil will do.

Now let's get that cabbage into a pot. It's going to need a good long time to simmer and get soft but not mushy. If you don't crank the heat it won't break down too much. It's already got most of it's flavor from soaking in the sweetened vinegar, but now we can add some nutmeg and clove. I go heavy on the clove, personally. But it's something I like. It's just going to sit there and simmer until we serve it.

Also, let's get those carrots into the oven. You can't really overcook them at this point. If you're worried, remember that you can roast them for 2-3 hours to make stock and they're fine.

Yes there's too much sauce, but we'll be ok, it'll thicken a little without caramelizing in the pan. If we sauteed this instead we'd burn the sauce. So don't do that.

With our vegetables cooking, let's make some spaetzle!

Mix the eggs, butter, and milk in. I used a whisk. Don't do that. It's too thick. Most recipes say whisk. Ignore that, use a wodden spoon. Don't be like me.
I spent 5 minutes getting the dough out of the whisk.

The dough will be really thick and heavy. That's the idea. If you don't have a spaetzle dropper, lay it out on a board and cut strips. Then add them to boiling water. However, if you do own a spaetzle dropper, and you don't value your arm hair, put it on top of a pot of boiling water and drop the dough in it. Then move it slowly even though it looks like it isn't working. It is.

It works just fine. I don't understand the physics, but does.

Lastly we need to sear the duck breasts. This is easy, with a hot pan, (like medium-high), season the skin and put it in skin side down to start. Duck is super fatty, this will help render out the fat so when it gets flipped onto the meat side, the pan is already greased up.

I do the the duck and the spaetzle at the same time. I just move between them. Drain the spaetzle from the water, and once the duck is fully cooked, you're done. The carrots and cabbage should already be done before these are and basically just holding.

It's a relatively simple meal, all things considered. I seve the spaetzle with some melted butter, but the rest comes out exactly how it should. There are a lot of movbing parts, but none of it is overly complicated. For the duck seasoning I just used a real light dusting of Montreal Steak Seasoning. It works incredibly well if you don't go overboard with it.

Let me know if you want full separate recipes, I can post those up as well.