Post-holiday menus
It's January and the holiday decorations are finally coming down. However, while tucking away our modest festive decorations won't take long, getting back to a normal diet will. Who knew that a steady diet of panettone, peppermint Jo-Jo's, and duck would make soup and salad pale in comparison?
The CSA delivery from Beneficial Farms has restarted after the holiday and we have gotten a fresh infusion of vegetables and fruits to fill up the refrigerator. Now I just have to think about what to do with them. In retrospect, I put an awful lot of energy to the food between Christmas and New Years and let's just say a lot of it involved oil of some stripe and cheese. I made a duck breast in fig sauce for Christmas dinner with a fennel-apple soup to start and a side of bok choy which provided a slightly bitter and crunchy couterpoint to the luxurious duck.
The duck couldn't have been easier probably because I choose to cook duck breast instead of a whole duck. Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything promised a lot of fat and not much duck if I cooked a whole bird. Fowl that actually fly like duck have large chest cavities that make them look very impressive but they don't have a lot of meat on them. Anyhoo, the sauce was a sweet savory mix with rosemary from the front yard. I opted to cook the duck a moment longer than suggested because I have not mastered the line between raw and pink. However, it miraculously remained moist.
Okay, now that the Dickensian feasts are out of the way, what do I make so that my pants fit again. I have multiple root vegetables and lots of asian greens. I see stir fries in my future and, now that winter has decided to return to New Mexico, soup. Fortifying soup, good for what ails you, for example January.
For your cooking pleasure
Duck Breast with Fig Sauce
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/duck-breast-with-fig-sauce