Iron Chef June Entry Thread

This is the entry thread for June Iron Chef. Discussion thread located here.
Entries opened on Saturday 5th June, and will close at Midnight on Sunday 20th June.

Please include a minimum of four photos to show you actually cooked the dish; one must include your OCAU username and one must include all the ingredients you used.

Please stick to the OCAU Geek Food forum guidelines located here.

The theme ingredient is duck.

Winner will gain bragging rights over fellow OCAU contestants and the chance to choose the theme for the next Iron Chef comp.

So, "Who's cuisine will reign supreme?"

 

GLoLiTe's Pan Seared Duck Breast with Creamed Swiss Chard, Celeriac Confit and Mushroom Mille Feuille

Duck is used in two forms in this dish, firstly in the duck breast and secondly duck fat to confit the celeriac.

The ingredients in all their glory.



There are 5 main parts to this dish.

1) Confit the celeriac
2) Creaming the swiss chard (stalks of silverbeet)
3) Mushroom puree
4) Sauteed mushrooms for the Mille Feuille filling
5) Pan frying the duck breast

Firstly I sliced the celeriac, into approx 2mm slices.



These slices are cut into rectangles before being being cooked in duck fat at 75 degrees for 30-40 minutes. To the duck fat I added thyme, garlic, salt and pepper. These slices form the layers in the Mille Feuille.

Next was creaming the swiss chard. The stalks are removed from the leaves and the out stringy layers are removed. I then cut into rectangular pieces and cooked in cream, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper.



Whilst the above two elements were cooking, I made a mushroom puree, which is quite simple. Add onion and garlic to oil, cooking for 5 minutes, before adding butter to foam. From here you add the mushrooms and cook for a further few minutes before adding a small amount of chicken stock and simmering until it thickens up. This mixture is then blended for 5 minutes and strained to form the mushroom puree at the base of this dish.

The sauteed mushrooms are also relatively straight forward, pan fry them in hot oil with thyme, before adding some butter. This is then drained.

Lastly the duck breast is cooked.

Having never cooked a duck breast, I read on the net that it is cooked skin side down for 4 minutes to render the fat, before been turned and cooked on the other side for 1 minute. It is then placed in a 200 degree oven for 8 minutes, followed by 6 minutes resting. I followed these instructions exactly. The result.

Rendering the duck fat in the skin.



Slicing the duck after the 6 minutes of rest.



All that was left was to plate up. Ideally I think I could've done this better, but as a first go I was fairly pleased.

Firstly, the mushroom puree is smeared on the bottom (I think I added a bit much). Then the stack is constructed. The bottom layer of celeriac is placed on the plate and the mushrooms added. This is repeated to get the mille feuille stack.

I then piled the swiss chard and spooned some cream around the edge of the plate.

Lastly the duck slices are placed down, leaning on the creamed chard.



Happy with my first entry to OCAU Iron Chef. It was many firsts for me, cooking a duck breast, cooking with duck fat and posting my cooking on OCAU.

I probably won't be able to respond to questions for the next couple of weeks as I am about to head off to South Africa for the World Cup! Come on the Socceroos!

 

Stuffed Duck with Cherries

Just moved to a new house with a gorgeous new kitchen ... everything is nice and white (for now at least).


Ingredients.


Stuffing for the duck - duck liver pate, pistachios, dried cherries.


A duck maryland is frenched, deboned, and then the stuffing mixture spooned into the cavity.


The maryland is then sealed. I then pan fried it to give it some colour and then cooked it in a "confit". A real confit is expensive (all that duck fat costs money!) so I dolloped some duck fat into alfoil, wrapped the marylands in it, and put it into an oven for 2 hours at 90C.


Ingredients for the sauce - 1kg of roasted duck wings, 2 onions, 1 carrot, 2 celery, 1 orange, some cherries, white wine, and a bouquet garni - into a pressure cooker for 1 hour. Duck wings are very cheap - I think I paid $1.50 or $2 for 1kg ... from Prahran Markets! And here is another tip - they are fantastic to use in sauces, because of the high gelatin content. Once you extract all the gelatin in the pressure cooker, the bones go so soft that you can crumble them between your thumb and forefinger.


Here is the sauce reducing after it has been strained. I stopped when it became thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. I then added fresh pitted cherries and allowed the residual heat to warm them through.


Asparagus and shallot garnish being fried. That is my new copper pan


Duck breast was pan fried then finished in the oven to a perfect medium rare consistency.


Finished and plated. The garnishes are: mache cabbage, beetroot puree formed into a quenelle with an asparagus tip stuck into it, beetroot cut into a cube with some micro-herbs on top, and peeled orange segments.


Plating #2. You can see how clear and glossy the duck-cherry reduction jus is.

 

Thai Red Duck Curry

Well here is my entry!


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All of the lovely ingredients. Only took me a few trips to various shops!


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Dry roasting the coriander, white pepper and cumin.


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Smashing up the dry ingredients with the lemon grass and galangal.


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Smashing up the rest of the ingredients: garlic, rehydrated chillies, shallots, shrimp paste, lime rind and corriander stalks (couldn't get corriander roots).


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Daffy. Scored the skin to get most of the fat out of it for another meal!


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Pulled all of the meat off Daffy!


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Heated some coconut cream in the wok, added a couple of tablespoons of the paste, added the duck, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves, palm sugar, tomatoes, lychees, chillies and coconut milk.


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A wonderfully fragrant Thai Red Duck Curry on a bed of Jasmine rice. The best Red Thai Curry I've ever eaten and will probably have to make mine from now on instead of eating out!

 

Duck and vegetables wrapped in cabbage with seared duck and orange sauce.

Nice fatty juicy duck with the crunch of the cabbage and veges... mmm

Ingredients

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Ingredients that i forgot to put in! - reused containers that carry sesame oil, vegetable oil and soy sauce

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Pre fry in the wok, pictures are limited here since i didn't want to overcook!
so theres the cabbage, carrot, onion, mushrooms, minced duck and the sauce mix.

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Heres the lovely wrap mix all yummy tasting

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Searing off the duck fat and i placed in the oven for a few minutes to finish cooking

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decided to skip some pictures here, i had food all over my hands from that cabbage wrap and ate alot of it in the process

My username....

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Presentation one

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Presentation two

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Thanks for reading

 

Roasted Fennel + Leek Agnolotti in Duck Broth w/ Duck Meatballs and Crispy Duck Skin

"Roasted Fennel and Leek Agnolotti in Duck Broth with Duck Meatballs and Crispy Duck Skin"

Ingredients:
Spring Onion, Fennel, Leek, Chilli, Garlic, Onion, Carrot, Flour, Buk Choy, Eggs, EVOO, Thyme, Bread, Five-Spice, Bay Leaves, Duck. Not pictured - Red Wine, Porcini Mushrooms, Chicken Stock.

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Deboning the duck. Left with skin, meat and bones/sinews.

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This is the confit garlic. Whole bulb of garlic sliced in half horizontally and slow roasted in the fat from the duck. This was added to the broth for eatra depth of flavour.

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The bones were roasted, then put in a pot with the aromats, mushies, stock, wine and loads of thyme.

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This was then clarified with egg whites, strained and filtered down into a beautiful brown sweet broth.

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The meat was minced to be turned into meatballs.

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Added to this were breadcrumbs, egg, and loads of Five-Spice powder.

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It wouldn't be a post from me without a pic of my favourite kitchen helper.

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Finely chopped fennel and leek were slow roasted to bring out the sweetness. The leafy green tips from the fennel were reserved and stirred in before stuffing, for extra flavour.

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Pasta was made in the food processor with the egg yolks left over from clarifying the broth. Rolled out and ready to go!

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Circles cut out of the pasta dough were topped with a generous teaspoon of the leek and fennel mixture.

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These were then shaped into agnolotti.

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And here's a pic of the garnishes: sliced spring (green) onion, red chilli and the crispy fried duck skin. I used the bases of the buk choy to make rosettes on the plates. These were added to the pasta water for the last minute of the cooking time.

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Forgot to get a pic of the meatballs cooking, but you get the general idea.

And now, plating.


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Tasting notes: The sweetness of the fennel in the pasta and the earthiness of the broth worked together incredibly well. Unfortunately, I couldn't taste the raw duck meatball mixture as I was going, so the Five-Spice flavour was a little overpowering. But the chilli and spring onion were so much more than just a garnish, and brang together the dish very well, complementing the flavours contained.
I would say this was my first attempt at fusion cooking, and it turned out pretty well, with both the Chinese flavours and vegetables working together with Italian techniques and style!