Dining on Duck And Blueberries

 What do you like to eat? Are you a traditionalist? For example, my sisters and mom like traditional Jamaican food. I like to eat Jamaican food styled everything. Well, not everything, but if I make it, it will most times be interesting and delicious. Of course my family would not eat duck. Although I saw duck being eaten in Jamaica which maybe came through the Chinese influence. Greens are the staple ingredients and thyme is the signature herb in most Jamaican dishes. Port is a British influence, which is used mostly in sweet dishes and blueberries substitute for many exotic Jamaican fruits.

 Last night I had a friend, my daughter and her guy over for dinner. The menu started with seared duck breast with blueberry and port sauce. I accompanied the duck breast with sautéed Swiss chard stems in wild rice and butter braised Swiss chard. The starter to an absolutely amazing main course was roasted cherry tomatoes, baby Bocconccini and olives salad dressed in aged balsamic vinegar and olive oil on a mixed baby greens salad. Farmers market has just opened so the micro greens are in season.

The end was a failed creme brule, which I turned into a sauce for fresh mixed fruit. Mango, raspberries and nectarines helped to save my dessert. 

Photo by Sean Weiderick

 

The salad was amazing! Here is the recipe. Try adding other things like roasted shrimp. That would certainly create a complete meal. By the way the recipes serve two. You can double the amounts incrementally to serve more.

The tomato salad is an adaptation from the Barefoot Contessa’s Back To Basics cookbook. 

Roasted Tomatoes, Baby Bocconccini and Olive Salad.

 

Photo by Craig Storey

 8 cherry tomatoes halved - seeds removed.

2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1/4 Cup extra virgin olive oil

3 Cloves garlic - finely grated

1 Teaspoon sugar

1 Good pinch of salt

1 Teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.

1 Sprig of thyme.

1 Pinch lemon zest

8 Baby Bocconccini cheeses - halved

3/4 cups your favorite olives. Halved

6 basil leaves rolled and shred thinly

2 handfuls of micro salad greens washed and dried.

Preheat the oven to 250*. In a bowl, put the grated garlic, sugar, salt, thyme, pepper and vinegar, whisk together. Create an emulsion by adding the olive oil. Add the halved tomatoes to the dressing, mix together then place on to a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake for about two hours. Remove and let the tomatoes stand until warm. In a salad bowl, place the olives and bocconccini, add the tomatoes and toss. Add the basil.

Arrange the micro greens then the tomato salad, making sure that each plate has a good amount of olives, tomatoes and cheese. Serve immediately. This recipe is great for lunch or a starter. Serve with a light new world Chardonnay or rich Chablis.

Later if you have leftovers why not turn it into a sandwich?

Pizza

Everyone loves pizza. I do. When I moved to New York to live with my parents in 1975, I was immersed in a world of pizza, hamburgers, French fries, Italian food, and McDonalds, Chinese food – completely different from what I ate as a child. I grew up in the countryside of Jamaica, in pretty much third world environment where eating out meant to a neighbour for Sunday dinner, and that was very rare. But, I am writing about pizza. I loved and still love New York's pizza, the chewy crust, the rich tomato sauce and cheese, although today I find the salt content exorbitant. I usually preferred cheese pizza. I moved to live in the United Kingdom where I did not find much in the way of pizza. Then, I moved to back to Jamaica with my husband and of course could not find the New York treat that I had come to love. Moving to Vancouver, I found pizza again but the dough did not have the chewy bite that New York pizza had. In Australia, the pizza was very adventurous. I once had a pizza in Sidney that was covered with large shrimps with the shells with heads on. It took me many years to make my own pizza. I started with making bread at first from scratch. I made my first pizza using the recipe from an Italian cookbook I bought when I lived in New York. The dough was ok, not the same as my favorite, though. I tried again and again until I became comfortable with making dough. Now I make the best pizza in my estimation. I do not buy pizza any more. Ordering pizza required spend time searching for the phone book, Google now, pulling out the phone and decide what I wanted from the menu. Of course, if there were something on the pizza I wanted to change, it would cost me more. By the time I have figured out what I wanted, made my choice and paid, several minutes will have already passed. Then I would wait forty minutes or more for the pizza to arrive, sometimes cold. Whenever I lived on the outside of town which took more time to get the pizza in, I would also pay a delivery charge. 

My friend, Joeseph, came over for tutoring one day and I offered to make him and his mom and brother pizza for dinner because he had done so well in school. I made the dough, which took ten minutes from pulling out the flour to the final resting. We then kneaded the dough a second time, rolled out the dough and everyone had what they wanted on their pizza. Joe's mom brought pizza sauce in the can, which was just fine. I never liked pizza sauce, because it caused the topping to fall of, I opted for olive oil, garlic, shallots, cheese, slices of fresh tomatoes, oregano and fresh basil. The pizza party was a great success. The cost was just pennies less than two dollars per slice, and it was as gourmet as it get.

 

Here is my pizza recipe.

For two people:

2 1/2 cups flour. (you may mix half-and-half whole wheat if you want)

One packet dry yeast. Fast rising yeast is fine but the regular yeast is what I use.

¼ cup warm water – keep the water on the cooler side of warm.

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup warm water

Olive oil.

Put the yeast in a small bowl and add a quarter cup of lukewarm water. Leave it five minutes to foam up while you get your other ingredients together. Put the two cups of the flour in a bowl add one teaspoon of salt and a pinch of sugar and mix together. Add the dissolved yeast and another half cup of warm water and mix until you get a soft dough. Turn out onto a flowered surface and lightly knead until a smooth dough is formed. Put into your oiled bowl and let rest for ten minutes or up to one hour. Prepare your toppings - even shrimp in the shell and head on. The pizza will bake in a hot oven, four hundred and fifty degrees for about ten to fifteen minutes. See my example below. You may not want to buy pizza again!