Fancy Cooking, Ahoy!

I'm tightening up my budget this summer (two conferences, three weddings, and one apartment move, egads), which has led to the realization that I have to start cooking all the fancy things I've been squirreling away for special occasions. So, going into the farmers' market today, I knew I needed two things specifically: thyme and shallots! The rest, well.



Tally:

• A half-pound of pearl oyster mushrooms, $3
  
• Three stalks of green garlic from Wilted Leaf Farms, $2
  
• Three shallots from Onion Creek Farms, $1.50
  
• Almost a half-ounce of thyme from Walnut Creek Farms, $1
  
• From Heritage Hill Farms, half a bag of mizuna and half a bag of baby heirloom romaine lettuce, $4
  
• Three long stalks of rhubarb from Iowa Fresh Produce, Jewell, $3

And my weekly splurge, strawberry rhubarb pie ice cream from Black Cat Old-Fashioned Ice Cream!



I very deliberately avoided buying coffee for myself. I wavered on getting a breakfast empanada, but ultimately didn't. Yay, me! Except for the part where I ate ice cream for breakfast? Ah, well.

Planning

• The thyme and one shallot were destined for some duck (as detailed below)
  
• The mushrooms I decided to mix into paella
  
• The rhubarb will become snacking cake
  
• Another shallot will be part of the dressing I will use for romaine salad
  
• I'm wavering on the mizuna, but it will probably be part of a pasta dish

And for our first fancy dish, Lingonberry-Glazed Duck! I've been subscribed to Try the World for some time now. It's an every-other-month subscription, wherein you receive a box filled with treats and ingredients from various locales. So far, I believe I've received boxes from Paris, Brazil, Japan, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Thailand, and a couple of holiday boxes. The latest box was from Sweden, and I dig it. Try the World has a blog that includes recipes, for folks who need some inspiration. For this box, they had a duck recipe, and it just so happened I had duck in my freezer!

Duck, for the record, is the tastiest animal. Up until last year, I'd only had it in restaurants. (Once, I bought a whole duck from the Purdue Butcher Block, but I ended up giving it to a friend because I didn't have time to do cooking experiments before I moved.) At the fancy HyVee in town, however, they now sell duck breasts! They are a bit expensive (about $8.50 each), but I usually try to pick up a couple every payday. So I defrosted the one I had in the freezer, and picked up another after the market.



Not sure what "Rohan" is supposed to mean in this context, but I'd like to think I eat things the Rohirrim way.

In any case, I did not opt to do the potato pancakes or the salad also suggested in the TTW blog, because watercress? Seriously?

Go to the recipe for specific instructions, but I'll walk through what I did. After I put the duck into the pan for roasting, I chopped up a shallot and a small handful of thyme. (The recipe only called for a half-teaspoon, but I had a whole bunch, so.)





Once the duck was cooked, I assembled the balsamic-lingonberry reduction.



The lingonberry is more preserves than jam, and so pretty.



After the sauce reduced for a while--I tend to use a lower heat than recipes, and cook a few minutes longer--I put the duck back in the sauce and flipped it around a few times, to make sure it was nicely glazed.



Gorgeous, right? I have eaten one already. Possibly I will eat the other one for dinner, or have it for lunch on Monday. We'll see how strong my willpower is. (Not much.) In any case, tomorrow I will regale you with my paella experiment!