Food and friends
An old friend was coming over for dinner, so I consulted my copy of Larousse Gastronomique—the veritable bible of cooking, which weighs about a ton and magically turned up in my local Oxfam shop—and chose a true classic: duck a l’orange, and to follow, dark chocolate parfait with caramelised walnuts.This also warranted a rare trip to the artisan butcher on the other side of Les Halles, which I've walked past a lot but never been into.
A 1970s dinner party staple, duck a l’orange is simple enough—slices of duck served in a sauce of reduced orange liqueur, orange juice and the juices from the meat, at the last moment slices of orange and julienne of orange peel are added and its ready to serve. It has somewhat fallen out of favour, but the general principle of pairing duck with fruity sauces has endured, cherries and blackberries work particularly well.
The idea for parfait sprang from an abundance of eggs and left over crème fraiche that I needed to find a use for. It’s a lot like ice cream, but to call it ice cream is to do it a great disservice—it’s incredibly light, much more like a mousse. Plain cream is often added to the sabayon base (foamed egg yolks and sweet wine), but the slightly tart crème fraiche pairs brilliantly with the bitterness of dark chocolate to make a sort of ambiguously sweet dessert, which in turn goes well with the sugary, brittle caramelised walnuts.
Recipes for both dishes are on the way, including a luscious video of parfait making!