This weekend seems to be the weekend for posting about hunks of roasted meats. On Saturday I posted a roasted pork shoulder. I finally got around today to posting about the honey-glazed roast duck that we made from Ed Lee's cookbook back on New Years Day. Pathetic, huh? I have no real excuse for being so delinquent in my posting, except that work is busy and we have been traveling a bit. It is particularly sad given how incredibly excited I was by this meal (both before and while eating). My laziness has nothing to do with how much I liked this duck. I LOVE duck in general and I thought this roast duck had really good flavor. It's no replacement for Peking duck, but it was a nice take on roast duck. My biggest compliant about the duck was that the skin needed to render more. It was still fatty and not at all crispy. It was more... sticky (and a little rubbery). I dunno if our duck was just fattier than the duck that Ed Lee uses - he might use some sort of free range duck with more flavor and less fat. But it was still really good. I loved the bourbon-pickled jalapenos that we served with it - they were the perfect boozy, sweet and spicy accompaniment for the richness of the duck and the sweet flavor of the glaze. Definitely serve the duck with some herbs and thinly sliced cucumbers because that freshness also works to cut through the fattiness of the duck.
Recipe after the jump!
I know I have said this before, but I'm not typically a big potato-eater. I love McDonald's french fries as much as the next person (although I love sweet potato fries more), but mashed potatoes and baked potatoes don't really do it for me. I will eat them from time-to-time if they are part of a dish I order at a restaurant, but that really only happens once a blue moon. Every once in awhile I like to humor Alex (who really is a potato lover) and roast some fingerling potatoes at home. This tends to happen in the fall and early winter when the farmers' markets first start displaying pretty little fingerling potatoes. This year we discovered roast sunchokes and I think they are better than roast potatoes. So these fingerlings might very well be the first potatoes we have made all year...
This recipe was intended to be made with new potatoes, but I decided that I wanted to use fingerlings instead because I think they crisp up better. When I think of new potatoes I tend to think of boiled or steamed new potatoes, rather than roasted new potatoes. And if I am going to do potatoes (roasted or fried), I want them to be crispy. These potatoes weren't as crispy as I would have liked but I thought they had good flavor. Even though the addition of the balsamic vinegar decreased the crispy texture it added a nice mildly sweet flavor. And I loved the salty porky flavor of the country ham. In the future I would add another poblano pepper for additional mild pepper flavor. I might also add some onion for additional sweetness and flavor. Alex thought the potatoes would be improved by the addition of some heat (nothing new there) as a counterbalance to the sweetness of the balsamic, but I'm not sure if I would add red pepper flakes or just serve the potatoes with some hot sauce. These potatoes would make an interesting alternative to home fries for brunch. The cookbook recommends serving any leftover potatoes with poached or fried eggs for breakfast. We tried the potatoes with fried eggs and I think they would work nicely either way.
Recipe after the jump!
