Things are hard for horses and horse people this time of year. I've given up on trying to maintain any real fitness or level of training. It's really all about getting to the ring and back in one piece. With both of your shoes still on.
We had a couple of nice days this week and I thought maybe L and I would have a ride this weekend. A real ride. I can hardly remember the last time we had a real ride!
But it's getting messy.
But my spirits will start to lift in a couple more days anyway. It's going to be March. "Meteorological Spring". The trees are tapped and any day now the sap will start to run in Vermont. The next snow might be the last of the season. It is *really* messy out but it would be very *very* unusual for it to go below 0 again this season. Good reason to celebrate!
There's that and Friday, the 25th of February, I ran my first mile. Ever. It looks like I'm taking up running. I know I know, yes, it's shocking. There's a story there. Maybe I'll tell it sometime.
It was a good way to start the weekend.
One of my most favorite things is duck!
It's easy to pan sear a duck breast. I use a cast iron griddle.
Start by preparing pomegranate syrup. Put some pomegranate juice, maybe a cup, in a saucepan. Add a tablespoon of champagne vinegar. Boil it until it's reduced to a thickened syrup. Along the way add a squeeze of honey to it. Be careful it's going to foam with honey in it and it is hot. When it's thickened and coats a spoon easily put some blackberries in it and take it off the heat.
Preheat an oven to 450.
Heat the cast iron griddle real hot. Score the duck skin with a sharp knife, just open the skin up, cross wise, on about a half inch spacing. Don't use any oil on either the duck breast or the griddle. Give each side a tiny pinch of salt and some cracked pepper. Lay the duck breast on the griddle, skin side down. Turn down the heat if you have to - it's going to make some smoke.
Let the duck breast go that way for about 5 or 5 1/2 minutes.
Turn it over and put it in the oven. Turn the heat down to around 400. There's going to be a lot of duck fat and there's going to be some smoke. Keeping the smoke down while keeping things hot enough can be the biggest challenge in a household kitchen. It's bad enough when you cook something this way for a minute or two but your duck breast is will be in the oven for 6 or 8 minutes. If it gets out of hand just take it from the oven and put it on a cold burner for a minute.
I like a medium rare duck breast and I take it from the oven after 6 minutes and let it rest. If you have a meat thermometer you want your duck breast around 120 to 125 degrees. If you like it done a little more let it go up to 8 minutes. I can't imagine it being in there more than 8 minutes. Of course after you do this a few times you'll have a feel for it and duck breast "plumps up" when you cook it. You might be thinking "I'm going to leave this (thin) little breast in the oven for 6 minutes?!" but you'll be amazed when that think little breast comes out of the oven 2 inches thick.
About a minute and a half before you remove your duck breast from the oven, spoon some of the pomegranate syrup over it and let it glaze.
Let it rest and slice it. I like to serve it on a bed of shredded lettuce with some finely chopped red onions and chili peppers. I spoon the rest of the pomegranate glaze and blackberries over the breast slices. Minnesota Wild Rice is perfect with duck. My wine of choice with duck is pinot noir.
Here. Take a closer look!
Can you come and cook for me?
ReplyDeleteOh I can't think of anything I fix that's hard. I just try to do simple things well!
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