Aug 2007
Duck Confit Salad with Walnuts, Pear and Gorgonzola
Over the last few years I’ve developed
a fascination with duck, starting off with an introduction to
Peking Duck by a good friend. We started on a quest to discover the
best duck dish in Sydney. We’ve run through several restaurants in
Chinatown and further a field, the now defunct XO on Crown Street,
where the duck was tea-smoked. It was a wonderful taste and one I’d
like to replicate in a future post once I get the equipment and
time to be able to do it. Also on Crown Street, you can’t go past
the Duck in Plum Sauce and Billy Kwong’s. I’ve gone back a couple
of times now to try it again. I really should buy her book and make
it myself.
I’ve since made a few duck dishes at home, including a pepper crusted duck breast with a fresh blueberry sauce with kipfler potatoes wich was wonderful, however the last attempt was duck confit. I’d never had it before, let alone made it. Wow. Sure it takes two days from start to finish but the results are amazing. Besides, it’s only an hour of actual work.
The walnut, pear and Gorgonzola salad I made with the confit was even better, possibly even a contender for the best duck dish in Sydney, if I do say so myself.
I’ve since made a few duck dishes at home, including a pepper crusted duck breast with a fresh blueberry sauce with kipfler potatoes wich was wonderful, however the last attempt was duck confit. I’d never had it before, let alone made it. Wow. Sure it takes two days from start to finish but the results are amazing. Besides, it’s only an hour of actual work.
The walnut, pear and Gorgonzola salad I made with the confit was even better, possibly even a contender for the best duck dish in Sydney, if I do say so myself.
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Cheese On Toast
I thought I might start off The Red
Whisk, with something that almost can’t get any better and I feel
akin to and not just because it’s simple and tasty either…
Grilled to perfection on a slice of kalamata olive sourdough with thyme and jarlsberg seasoned lightly with a twist of fresh ground black pepper and sea salt it’s about as good as I’ve ever had cheese on toast. The creamy soft and slightly sweet cheese is well balanced with the sourdough and the saltiness of its olives, with the thyme giving it a beautiful yet subtle aroma.
Cheese on toast was one of the first things I was allowed to make unsupervised as a child; albeit not as nice in retrospect as the picture above. My first attempts usually involved a piece of toasted white bread and a plastic-yellow cheese single, grilled until the surface puffed up into a little pillow and all of the actual (ahem) cheese was gooey inside. Of course you could never wait for it to cool down enough and you’d bite into it and get a mouthful of molten cheese so there was always a sense of danger about it all really.
Depending on the shape and how you cut your sourdough you can end up with nice long slices or shorter ones like these, depending on how much you want as your snack. From there, lightly toast the bread on both sides then top with enough jarlsberg to completely cover the bread in a thin layer. Pick some fresh thyme leaves and scatter over the cheese along with some ground black pepper and salt. Grill until the cheese has slightly melted. Wait a moment to cool, unless you live dangerously, slice, and enjoy with a good book.
Optional of course, feel free to add some more flavour under the cheese. Some honey ham to compliment the mild-sweet of the jarlsberg or perhaps some baby spinach to add some green.
Grilled to perfection on a slice of kalamata olive sourdough with thyme and jarlsberg seasoned lightly with a twist of fresh ground black pepper and sea salt it’s about as good as I’ve ever had cheese on toast. The creamy soft and slightly sweet cheese is well balanced with the sourdough and the saltiness of its olives, with the thyme giving it a beautiful yet subtle aroma.
Cheese on toast was one of the first things I was allowed to make unsupervised as a child; albeit not as nice in retrospect as the picture above. My first attempts usually involved a piece of toasted white bread and a plastic-yellow cheese single, grilled until the surface puffed up into a little pillow and all of the actual (ahem) cheese was gooey inside. Of course you could never wait for it to cool down enough and you’d bite into it and get a mouthful of molten cheese so there was always a sense of danger about it all really.
Depending on the shape and how you cut your sourdough you can end up with nice long slices or shorter ones like these, depending on how much you want as your snack. From there, lightly toast the bread on both sides then top with enough jarlsberg to completely cover the bread in a thin layer. Pick some fresh thyme leaves and scatter over the cheese along with some ground black pepper and salt. Grill until the cheese has slightly melted. Wait a moment to cool, unless you live dangerously, slice, and enjoy with a good book.
Optional of course, feel free to add some more flavour under the cheese. Some honey ham to compliment the mild-sweet of the jarlsberg or perhaps some baby spinach to add some green.
Introduction
15 Aug 2007 05:49 PM Cooked in:
Only Just On
Topic
My love of food started when I
realised there was more to food than my Mum’s Monday night chicken
schnitzel with the packet tomato pasta on the side or Wednesday’s
alternate week tacos and burritos or her other four staple dinners
that have since been blocked from memory. Not that her food was bad
or anything it just lacked variety. Nor can I blame her for the
lack of variety either really, being a working mother raising two
teenage boys.
I’ve got a great memories of her valiant efforts in the kitchen, including a couple of attempts at a cake for my 3rd birthday, finally declaring she’s made me a special “Volcano Cake”, complete with red lava icing flowing from the crater in the centre of the sunken chocolate sponge. At 3 years old, I thought I was the luckiest kid on the block.
Not that I haven’t had my own share of dismal failures. Just this week I had to go out and buy breakfast because the crumpets I tried to make from scratch looked somewhat more like an anaemic hockey puck and I have once completely melted a housemates very expensive, gift from his mother, saucepan.
From the lessons my Mum taught me, from both her food failures and her successes (I really did love her sweet-corn fritters and a few other meals she excelled at) I started to explore my own skills and ideas.
I’m by no means a great cook but I do love cooking, besides, the people close to me seem to think I might have at least some talent. So without further a due, I give you The Red Whisk.
I’ve got a great memories of her valiant efforts in the kitchen, including a couple of attempts at a cake for my 3rd birthday, finally declaring she’s made me a special “Volcano Cake”, complete with red lava icing flowing from the crater in the centre of the sunken chocolate sponge. At 3 years old, I thought I was the luckiest kid on the block.
Not that I haven’t had my own share of dismal failures. Just this week I had to go out and buy breakfast because the crumpets I tried to make from scratch looked somewhat more like an anaemic hockey puck and I have once completely melted a housemates very expensive, gift from his mother, saucepan.
From the lessons my Mum taught me, from both her food failures and her successes (I really did love her sweet-corn fritters and a few other meals she excelled at) I started to explore my own skills and ideas.
I’m by no means a great cook but I do love cooking, besides, the people close to me seem to think I might have at least some talent. So without further a due, I give you The Red Whisk.