fall feast – Eat – Drink

Tis the season to use up those leftovers. Lucky for me, I have this space as a personal, online recipe book.

Our Fall Feast was a bit toned down this year, what with fixing up a 90 year old house and planning how to plant two rolling, hilly acres (plus gully) – chickens and sweatpants, here I come! We cooked up a meager spread: roast local duck, green bean casserole, mashed taters, stuffing, and homemade local pumpkin pie. As usual, a 4 pound duck turned into many, many meals. I got the chance to look back to a few winters ago, and adapted my leftover goose pot pie recipe to this duck and what we had in the fridge. I’ve been working on my pie crimp game, can you tell?

Also, for the first time in 5 years, I didn’t overcook the duck! Thanks, in part, to a new recipe site I discovered, which also served as the catalyst for throwing together what was, for sure, the best fried rice I have ever made at home. The trick, it turns out, is to not skimp on the oil. Surprise, surprise – look at that oil shimmer!

Quick and simple to throw together – the hardest part is needing cold (preferably at least day old) rice. Based off the recipe from Hank Shaw.

Ingredients – added in the order listed

1 large carrot, peeled, small dice
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 large onion (I used yellow, any type will do)
1 tbsp duck fat (substitute high smoke point oil of your choice)
2/3 cup frozen peas (thawed)
2/3 cup leftover duck, shredded/chopped
1 inch ginger chunk, peeled and minced
1 tsp garlic powder
2 cups day old rice (I used Nashiki sushi rice)
2 tbsp canola oil (divided)
2 eggs, whisked
2 tbsp soy sauce (divided) – check label for “wheat” if you are gluten intolerant

To a large fry pan or wok, add carrot and olive oil over medium heat. Stir and cook while you dice up the onion. After a minute or two, with the carrots fragrant, add the diced onion and duck fat. Cook 5-10 minutes until carrots are fork tender and onions are lightly browned. Add thawed (or fresh!) peas, cooking two minutes more. Add duck, but do not stir. Add ginger, garlic powder, and one tbsp of canola oil, then rice, stirring well to coat the rice in oil. You may need to decrease the heat at this point.

Crack two eggs into a bowl and (fork) whisk vigorously until creamy yellow. Move rice mixture to one side of the pan (if your stove is not level like mine, move to the higher side of the pan). Add the remaining 1 tbsp canola oil to the naked side of the pan. Once lightly shimmering, add whisked eggs to the oil. As the eggs start to firm and cook, gently fold them from the sides, creating fluffy sheets of scrambled eggs. Once they are done to your liking, stir all together with the rice mixture. Turn the heat back up to medium, leveling the fried rice in the pan and let cook, undisturbed for 1-2 minutes. Pour 1 tbsp of soy sauce around the edges of the pan and quickly stir to combine. Allow the mixture to sit for one minute and repeat with the remaining soy sauce.

Serve warm as is, or add your favorite additional toppings such as sesame seeds, chili garlic paste, and/or scallions. I bet this would also be great with a side of kimchi.

My personal complaint about restaurant fried rice is always the rice:everything else ratio, but following this ricepe (see what I did there?) flips the ratio and then some. Rejoice, for the egregious amount of oil(s), fiber form the vegetables, and protein in the duck make your body absorb the carbohydrates (glucose) from the rice much more gradually, keeping your energy level and your belly full.

It appears my honeymoon with upside down food is far from over.

I became caught up on the idea that I needed parsnips for our Fall Feast meal. And really, I’m not sure why. I’ve never really liked parsnips that much, but it had to be. My purchasing option for local/organic + online/curbside was by the pound, so a pound of parsnips it was! This led me down the rabbit hole of parsnips recipes when I came across this dazzling gem from Bon Appetit. I used this Smitten Kitchen crust (lazily). The result had me drooling before it was even flipped.

Ingredients – 9″ pie dish, serves 8, 360 calories per serving

Crust:

1.25 c all-purpose flour
0.25 tsp kosher salt
8 tbsp butter (unsalted)
0.25 cup sour cream
2 tsp lemon juice
0.25 c iced water

Filling

1 medium (5 inch long) sweet potato
1 extra large carrot (purple dragon seen here)
2 small parsnips
1 small squash (approx. 12 ounces), Delicata
0.25 c olive oil (or canola oil)
salt, pepper, + garlic powder
0.33 cup sugar
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp rice vinegar (or white whine vinegar)
1 tsp each rosemary + sage
1 small red onion
1 ounce feta
4 tbsp shredded parmesan
0.50 cup shredded mozzarella

Preheat oven to 400°F, with your rack in the bottom 1/3 of the oven.

Begin by making the crust. In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut a stick of butter hot-dog ways into four… smaller sticks. Dice these sticks and add to the flour. Use a pastry cutter (or your hands), until the largest chunks of butter are about pea size; make a well in the center. In a separate bowl, whisk together 1/4 c ice water + 1/4 c sour cream. Add 2 tsp lemon juice and dump this mixture into your well. Stir/fold until it just starts to come together. Roll out a sheet of plastic wrap. Use your hand to mash the “dough” into a ball, then flatten into a disk. Wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate.

Meanwhile, maybe your oven is hot (mine was not yet). Rinse and pat dry all your vegetables. Grab a ruler or measuring tape (no joke). Cut carrot, parsnips, and sweet potato into 1/2 inch coins/circles/rounds. Cut the sweet potato last because it is the most likely to oxidize. Toss coins into a bowl. Trim the ends off the delicata, cut lengthwise in half, scoop seeds + goop into the compost. Slice into 1/2 inch thick half moons and toss into bowl. Coat with oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Hopefully this took long enough to let your oven finish heating.

Spread the veg on a baking sheet, in a single layer, not touching (socially distanced veg roast more evenly). Roast ~15 minutes, flip, roast another 10-15 minutes until tender and lightly browned.

These need to cool a bit so you can handle them. After you pull them from the oven (please don’t turn it off like I did), begin to make your caramel. Yes, caramel.

Into a small (no bigger than a quart) sauce pan add 1/3 c sugar and 2 tbsp water. Have your pinch of salt and 1 tbsp vinegar handy. Cook over medium-high heat, swirling occasionally. You may want to stir, but I don’t recommend it. Swirl and succumb.

You’re cooking this bubbling monstrosity until it turns “amber colored”. Don’t walk away. And have your pie tin handy and at least room temp. You may want to put it in the oven for a minute or two if your house is as cold as mine (65°F in the kitchen!).

Now comes the scary part!! To your amber colored, molten hot sugar water, throw in your pinch of salt and gingerly, from afar, the tbsp of vinegar. It will crackle and sputter and bubble and pop. Keep swirling. Quickly add this to your pie dish and and swirl around to coat. My pie tin was too cold and I was too slow so this part was unpleasant. I used a silicone spatula to spread it as best I could, but this caramel will harden in about 45 seconds.

Sprinkle the caramel with the rosemary and sage. Arrange your roasted root vegetables in whatever way is pleasing to you in a single layer. Use the smaller pieces to fill in any gaps. Mash things out of shape if you need to. Heck, even if you just want to.

Cut the red onion in 1/2 inch rounds, and “evenly” spread separated rings on top of the roasted veg. Top this with your three cheese mixture.

Remove the dough from the fridge, roll out into a ~12″ round, lay this on top of the veg/cheese and tuck the edges down into the dish. Stab with a fork, somewhat gingerly, but all over. And then a few more times for good measure.

Bake for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350°F for another 20 minutes. At this point, my tarte tatin was not as browned as I would have liked, so I broiled it on high for about 5-7 minutes. The caramel started bubbling up and over and I decided we were done. Remove from the oven, rest 5 minutes, then flip over onto a large plate.

This actually tastes at least as good as it looks. The vegetables are tender and creamy, the cheese has caramelized, and even after cooling the crust remained flaky and crisp.

If you’ve made it this far, here are some bonus pictures of the mostly local, mostly organic Fall Feast we enjoyed.

We got a muscovy duck from Webbed Foot Pines, which came with all its bits! This meant a duck liver pate appetizer. Then a sort of traditional feast of green bean casserole (my green beans and homemade cream of mushroom soup with chanterelles + hedgehog mushrooms from my dad), creamy mashed potatoes and roasted veg from Tantre Farm, Annie’s mac + cheese, and the most decadent bourbon caramel pecan ice cream pie from Go Ice Cream.

This might be the strangest year yet, but we are making sure to eat well!

Tag: fall feast

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