Farmers Market Christmas Eve Dinner – Duck & Winter Vegetables

We generally don’t eat meat, sometimes a bit of fish, but decided to do something special for Christmas. We ventured to St Lawrence market and returned with duck breast and various winter vegetables. I was also surprised to find cherries (obviously not local)! The menu below serves 2 people (although 2 usually non-meat eating people, so you may wish to adjust the vegetable – duck ratio to suit your taste). I’ve tried to list the dishes in the order you should prepare them – start with the beets, and prepare the other 2 vegetable dishes while they’re roasting. You can keep them all warming in a low heat oven while you make the duck and wine reduction.

Cherries made our Christmas meal special!]

Roast Beets

•       2-3 lbs beets
•       olive oil
•       salt and pepper

1.     Heat oven to 400 F.

2.     Peel and trim beets. Cut to desired size (quarter if small beets, slice if larger).

3.     In an oven safe dish, mix beets with some olive oil. Salt and pepper beets and cover with tin foil.

4.     Roast for approximately 45 minutes. Remove foil and finish roasting, approximately another 10 minutes. Beets are done when they are soft when a fork is inserted into them. They should be sweet to taste.

Mustard Green Beans

•       1 lb green beans
•       1 shallot, finely diced
•       2 tbsp butter
•       2 tsp mustard (preferably Dijon – we got ours from Kozlik’s in the market)
•       1 tbsp white wine vinegar
•       1 lemon wedge (to squeeze juice over beans)

Stop here in the market!

1.     Bring water to a boil in saucepan large enough to hold beans. Cook for 3-5 minutes or until beans are softened. Remove from heat.

2.     Melt butter in skillet over low heat.

3.     Add shallot, cook for several minutes or until translucent.

4.     Remove from heat and stir in mustard and vinegar. Add beans and toss to combine.

5.     Finish with salt and pepper and lemon wedge to your taste.

Pureed Celeriac Root

Celery root looks scary. It isn't. 

•       1 celery root
•       3 tbsp goat cheese
•       ¼ cup heavy cream (lukewarm)
•       1 bay leaf

1.     Peel and remove ends of celery root. Chop into squares.

2.     Bring water to a boil in a pot. Add celery root and bay leaf and reduce heat to medium and cook until soft, resembling cooked potato.

3.     Strain water. Add goat cheese and cream and puree in a food processor or hand blender.

Duck & Cherry Pinot Noir Reduction

•       1 large duck breast
•       1 cup Pinot Noir (250 ml, or roughly 1/3 of a wine bottle)
•       1 cup cherries, pitted and halved
•       olive oil
•       salt and pepper

Score the duck comme ca

1.     To make the sauce, heat a saucepan over medium heat and bring Pinot Noir to a boil. Decrease heat to low and simmer until the wine is reduced by half (15-20 minutes). Set aside.

2.     Score the duck breast skin in a cris-cross pattern. Rub salt and pepper on skin. Place skin side down in a fry pan over medium-high heat, with a bit of olive oil (duck will produce it’s own fat while cooking, so use oil sparingly).

3.     Cook until crisp and browned, several minutes.

4.     Flip sides and cook until medium rare. There should be fat accumulating in the pan now.

5.     Remove duck from pan, but keep the fat. Now cook the cherries in the fat for a few minutes over low heat. Add the cherries and fat to the Pinot Noir reduction and stir over low heat.

6.     Slice the duck into 1½ inch pieces to serve.

To assemble the plates, place the celeriac puree in the centre of the plate and arrange the sliced duck breast on top, then finish with the wine reduction. Serve the beans and beets on the side.

Cherries, cooking in duck fat

The wine pairing for this meal is a no brainer – pinot noir! Apart from the fact that I put pinot in the meal, it’s a natural fit with duck. The earth yet fruity wine is a nice compliment to medium meats (duck, roast salmon, etc), and the acidity is high enough to balance out the fatty duck. It’s important to have high acid wines with fatty foods because they cleanse the palate between bites. Likewise, it’s important to have high fat foods with high acid wines because the wine will overpower something low fat. We had some stinky cheese for dessert (Stilton among others, which apparently is a British Christmas tradition), so the wine was a good fit with dessert as well.

The completed meal

Happy holiday cooking and baking!