Pan-Roasted Duck Breasts, Asparagus Coins, Smashed Roasted Marble Potatoes, and Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

As much as I love the holidays, I definitely am better in the kitchen than at decorating.  While I do manage to get my tree up, my "Bella" friends that own Bella Flowers & Gifts in downtown Dublin always come to help me with the finishing touches on the house.  To show my appreciation, I wanted to make sure I had a special meal ready for them when they got here.

I have cooked duck a few times in the past, having made duck a l'orange for a French themed supper club and also a really scary duck Asian pizza that I tried to do with the leftover duck.  It has always been relatively easy to cook which is surprising considering it is a staple on the menu of many fine restaurants.  I suppose with great ingredients like duck you just don't need a lot of cooking technique to make it excellent.  To accompany the duck, I decided to make the asparagus coins and smashed roasted marble potatoes as well as a pineapple upside down cake for dessert.

I started the duck recipe by scoring the fat on the back.  I then grated nutmeg and orange zest on the breasts and drizzled a little balsamic vinegar on each breast and topped it with a sprig of thyme and bay leaf.  Then into the fridge for 6 hours.   It was then cooked over low heat over the stove in a little bit of canola oil (the duck renders a lot of fat) and then in the oven until medium-rare.  I wasn't diligent at taking pictures through the process on this dish but the finished duck is below.

 I started the asparagus coins by making parsley water.  Ok, follow me here...I was skeptical too.  I heated a little canola oil in a pan, added honey and heated until it started to caramelize, and then added bunches of parsley to the pan until they wilted.  I then put the parsley in a bowl of water that was almost frozen from the freezer.

  After pureeing through a blender, and then straining through a sieve, you have about 1/4 cup of parsley water...who knew?  I then steeped some chives in oil to make chive oil (I cheated a bit here, can't really say I did the chive oil recipe from the book) and then sliced the asparagus into "coins."

I then cooked the "coins" in the chive oil for a few minutes and then added some of the parsley water, salt, and pepper. 

 To make the potatoes, I tossed the marble potatoes with oil, salt, and thyme. 

 

After melting a little butter, I added the potatoes to the pan and transferred them to the oven to roast.  After they were finished, I lightly "smashed" them with a little more butter, cloves from the garlic confit in puree of garlic potatoes post, and chives. 

To make the cake, I started by making a schmear for the bottom of the pan of butter, honey, Kahlua, brown sugar, and vanilla and then sprinkled it with a little salt. This is the schmear...

I then overlapped two rings of fresh pineapple around the pan...

The topping was mixed up of flour, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, and vanilla and spread over the top...

After baking the cake in the oven and inverting it onto a serving platter, I was finally ready to serve.  Here are the finished dishes:

Pan-Roasted Duck Breasts:

Asparagus Coins:

Smashed Roasted Marble Potatoes:

Last, but not least...Pineapple Upside-Down Cake:

The duck turned out pretty great and Matt hailed it as my best duck attempt yet.  My favorite was the asparagus coins.  I wasn't sure about this parsley water thing, it seemed like a lot of sugar for a nickle but the flavor really came through.   I am figuring out that I shouldn't question the expert.  I think it was the best asparagus dish I have ever had.  I liked the coin size as it was easy to eat without having to cut bites from the asparagus spears and the coins were tender on the outside but still a little crunchy on the inside. 

The potatoes turned out to be really good as well and this was a really easy dish.  I am always looking for ways to reinvent the potato and this one was a keeper.  It would be great alongside any meat that you would want to serve and lightly smashing the potatoes really incorporated the flavors.  The pineapple upside down cake was pretty good but was my least favorite.  While it made a gorgeous presentation, I expected it to have a lot more "syrup" in the cake once I inverted it.  While it wasn't bad, it more than anything just wasn't what I expected.

For me the hit of the night was my mantle.  It looks a lot more like something out of a magazine than my cooking does.  It's not food but I have to share how great it turned it out...those girls sure are talented!