Seared Duck and Chopped Pokemon

What do you do when you want to eat duck but have no idea how to cook one? You could go to a restaurant, but outside of the ultra-expensive Cavey's, I don't know if anyone serves it here in town. So the real option is acquire yourself some duck breasts and consult Lord Google for oracular advice on how to cook them.

Lord Google turned up a recipe for 'Seared Duck Breast with Cherries and Port Sauce.' I don't know anything about Diane Rossen Worthington, but doing this recipe meant I got to drink port, so I approved.

Also it went in the sauce.

Speaking of sauce, we doubled the recipe:

Two duck breasts

Four Tablespoons of Butter

Two Shallots (Half a Cup Chopped)

One Cup Chicken Stock

Sixteen Fresh Pitted Cherries. 

Four Tablespoons Port (we used Sandeman Tawny Port and it was awesome!)

Two Tablespoons Orange Blossom Honey

You get to begin this whole process by beating the crap out of some ducks, which was a novel concept for me, anyway. Natalie had some kind of spiked hammer thing, and I hit the meat until it was even.

After that you score the skin without cutting into the meat. Harrowing, but we pulled it off.

 Ms. Worthington says:

"Melt 1 tablespoon butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle duck with salt and pepper. Add duck, skin side down, to skillet and cook until skin is browned and crisp, about 5 minutes. Turn duck breasts over, reduce heat to medium, and cook until browned and cooked to desired doneness, about 4 minutes longer for small breasts and 8 minutes longer for large breast for medium-rare. Transfer to work surface, tent with foil to keep warm, and let rest 10 minutes."

For us that was two tablespoons of butter, but otherwise the timing was the same.

"Meanwhile, pour off all but 2 tablespoons drippings from skillet. Add shallot to skillet and stir over medium heat 30 seconds. Add broth, cherries, Port, and honey. Increase heat to high and boil until sauce is reduced to glaze, stirring often, about 3 minutes. Whisk in (two) tablespoons cold butter. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper."

After that whole process, you thinly slice the duck, arrange it into some kind of fancy fan on a plate, and spoon on the sauce. You do it right, it looks like this:

I'm going to go ahead and say we did it right, because it tasted awesome!

So, end result was very tasty, but not very experimental beyond not having made duck before.

Enter the Pattypan. Which is not something you call a vegetable. My best guess is it's a plant based Pokemon of some kind. Or was. We caught it in the Simsbury area, took it home, and put it under the knife. As you do.

Lord Google suggests stuffing it like a pepper, but it was decided that this was too much work. So we chopped up two of them and cooked them in a pan with shallots, oregano, salt, and pepper. End result, also pretty fantastic.

 So, there you have it. Fancy duck and chopped Pokemon. Next week, a new restaurant!