Duck Breast Sandwich with Coleslaw and Baked Fries
On Baked Maple Donuts
Happy Mardi Gras! We dug up some old traditions and decided to make donuts!
This the first time making baked donuts for both of us. Super dense with a rich maple flavor, these are perfect for dipping in coffee.
On Baked Maple Donuts
Baked maple donut perfect for cold weather sweets
Author: Adapted from The View From Great Island.
Ingredients
For Donuts
- ¼ cup unsalted butter
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg, to taste (I used freshly grated)
- ½ tsp salt
- 2⅔ cups all-purpose flour
For Glaze
- 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
- maple syrup for thinning
Instructions
- Set oven to 350F
- Melt the butter. Beat in the oil, sugar, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla until everything is well mixed.
- Sift in the dry ingredients and mix until just blended. Do not over mix.
- Grease donut pan and spoon batter into a large ziplock baggie, and cut off a ½ inch tip from one corner and pipe the batter into the pan.
- Bake for about 15 minutes until risen and cooked through, you can use a toothpick to check. They will still be pale, so don’t judge by the color.
- Let the doughnuts cool for a couple of minutes before removing them to a cooling rack.
- Make the glaze by slowly adding maple syrup to the sugar to achieve a thick glaze texture. You can always adjust the glaze by adding more sugar or more syrup. Add the extract and stir well.
- While the doughnuts are still slightly warm, dip them into the glace, headfirst, and give them a little twist as you raise them up out of the bowl. Set them, glaze side up, on the rack to dry.
- Enjoy quickly, these beauties are best the day of!
On Thermal Fuses and Fixing Stuff
So, a while back my kitchen aid died while I was making bagels. I also lost a toaster oven making bagels. Both of these sat around for a few months waiting to be fixed. A week ago the ricemaker died. So I thought it was time to get serious about either moving on or getting stuff working again. 
I started with the ricemaker. I’ve got a Zojirushi NS-LAC05XA Micom 3-Cup Rice Cooker and Warmer. It was pretty expensive and I’ve had it for probably about eight years now. I smelled something burning and pulled out the bowl and tried to wipe off the burning stuff from the heating element. I didn’t want to interrupt the cycle, I was making some great smelling saffron rice, but I got an E-02 message and it shut off. E-02 Message means a short. It seems like it means that the thermal fuse blew and is shorting out. I finished the rice on a burner.
It’s an easy fix once you find the fuse. It’s in the little springy thing under the bowl. You’ve got to unplug the rice cooker, unscrew the plastic bottom. Then you’ve got to take the screws off of the heating element, there’s two holding it, and three holding wires to it. Set aside. The springy piece can then be twisted and pulled into the bowl assembly. Then the aluminum cover swivels off. You’ve sort of got to push down and turn at the same time. Underneath is the thermal fuse. It’s a Sefuse SF-152e. I bought a few on ebay. They’re about a dollar each. It’s not really that easy to find shipping from the US. You could probably just put a higher rated one into it, but I dont wanna melt my rice cooker / have it catch on fire if something goes wrong.
I snipped the leads and soldered it on. It’s pretty easy to get back together, although be careful not to shred the wires of the springy part on the sharp edge of the bowl housing. Oh and look at the clips of the side of the springy part to get it back on. It’s a little tricky : you’ve got to put it through one way and hold it and twist 90 degrees. It gets held on by the heating element. It’ll make sense once you’re doing it. Then there’s three wires on the side of the heating element with two screws and two wires on the other one screw side. Everything is color coded and nice on the inside. Whoo. saved $131.00.
The toaster oven is a Breville BOV-650XL compact 4 slice toaster oven it’s even easier to fix. I bought the thermal fuse from radio shack it’s this one. About a dollar. It’s a bit higher death value than the stock fuse, but I tend to push toaster ovens harder than they’re made to take, so I thought go as high as I can. Also, the oven goes to 450 so why wasn’t the fuse around there ? It takes longer to get out all the screws than to replace the part.
It’s the white thing clipped to the side.
You slide back the thermal plastic and snip the dead fuse out then take off the plastic and solder one side, slide on the plastic and solder the other, then replace. The only tricky thing with getting it back together is remembering which feet go in which position. Oh and you might have to pull up before putting on the bottom screws to get the back lined up.
The kitchen aid mixer broke when I was mixing probably too much and too stiff bagel dough. I can’t really blame it. It turned on, but just made some noise and didn’t spin. So a quick search led me to the worm gear. If yours doesn’t turn on, it’s probably the motor bushings. They’re easy to replace too. It’s the screws on the side.
For the Worm Gear, I’d buy the whole assembly, it’s only $7.75 at amazon. It’s the piece that’s supposed to break before you chew up the gears through the rest of the mixer. The annoying part is buying the grease, it’s $25 at amazon. You’ve got to clean out the old and put in the new grease before you reassemble. Pop out the three screws on the back of the motor. Use a screwdriver to pop off the metal rim around the planetary gear mechanism. There are 5 or so screws under there, take them out. Use a pin puncher to smack out the pin that holds it all together. You should now have the main body open. Separate it and start to clean out the grease. Use paper towels, q tips, and an old toothbrush. Even if the toothbrush is new that’s okay, it’s food safe grease anyways.
Get it all clean and put the new worm gear back into place. Reassemble as you disassembled in reverse. By the way, if you’re like me, you’ll buy another spare worm gear for the next time you break it. Happy fixing, good luck. 
Fowl Valentine’s Day
We’ve made a tradition of staying in on Valentine’s Day, avoiding the crowds and lousy pre fixe menus and using the day as an excuse to splurge on food we ordinarily wouldn’t buy. This year we spotted a few pounds of duck breast at Wild Purveyors and decided to keep it simple with a recipe that left ample time to enjoy a couple ChefSteps chocolate soufflés.
I used the cook time and temp that Polyscience recommended for the duck breast. Once we pulled it from the bath, Ed crosscut the thick fat layer and seared it on high for a few minutes rendering out some of the fat. We tossed the dried sour cherries in the duck fat with a bit of balsamic and used that as a glaze for sliced duck. Please note: a little goes a long way with the cherry glaze, but sure not to go overboard and mask the great flavor in texture of the duck. We also plated the dish with a few leaves of baby arugula and a sprinkle of goat cheese for added depth.
The duck was great, but the real star of the night were the soufflés we made from a favorite ChefSteps recipes. I recommend that you if you haven’t tried these, you make them immediately (again and again and again). Some of the commenters seemed to take issue with the amount of salt used in the original recipe, but I’m sticking with the experts on this one and vouch for the original ingredients.
Fowl Valentine's Day
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
A simple preparation that lets the natural flavor and texture of the duck breast shine. The sour cherry glaze provides a great contrast to the tender duck. A decadent meal for a night in.
Author: Disturbing the Peas
Recipe type: Entree
Serves: 2 servings
Ingredients
- 1 duck breast
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch pepper
- 2 tbls dried sour cherries
- 2 tbls balsamic vinegar
- 1 tblsp goat cheese
- 1 handful baby arugula
Instructions
- Set immersion circulator to 57C
- Once water bath is up to temperature, salt and pepper duck breast, seal in a vaccuum bag, and cook for 45 minutes
- After duck breast has been submerged for 45
- In the dripping from the turkey breast, combine cherries and balsmic and reduce slightly
- Slice breast into ¼" slices, top with cherry glaze and sprinkle with goat cheese
- Garnish with arugula and fresh bread
On Juicer Pulp Muffins
Ed’s birthday finishes off the month January — just about the time my new years resolutions start to crumble and I’m trying to hold onto the last few strands of my dignified self by pouring over Goop recipes. Knowing in my heart that this is the year I will become Gwyneth, I did what every good girlfriend should do and bought him the present I’ve always wanted — a juicer. I made some concessions and ordered a very masculine black, only to find that my subconscious had gotten the better of me. So we are now the proud owners of a regal white Champion!
The struggle between Camp Blender and Camp Juicer is real. Not wanting to be disloyal to the years of service of the Vitamix, I’ve spent a long time preaching against all the measly yield and all the loss that juicers represent. When it comes down to it though, sometimes you just want the juice and straining fruit pulp through a sieve is a bitch.
The first test was an old favorite I’ve only had the pleasure of making in the centrifuge…so very slowly. Turns out Camp Juicer is just as great! Great yield and fairly easy to clean, but still a nagging amount of discarded waste. The waste lacked a lot of flavor, but I know that Gwyneth would NEVER throw away that pulp, so I did a bit of searching and found a few recipes for Juicer Pulp Muffins.
I’m a big fan of any recipe I make in the food processor, but ours is pretty hefty so you may have to break it up into batches. Recipe below is adapted from Plan to Eat’s Mighty Juicer Pulp Muffins.
Juicer Pulp Muffins
Author: Adapted from Plan to Eat
Recipe type: Breakfast
Ingredients
- 1 Banana
- 2 Cups Juicer Pulp
- ½ cup(s) Applesauce
- ¼ Cup maple syrup
- ¼ cup coconut sugar
- ½ cup(s) Yogurt
- 6 Eggs
- 1.5 cup(s) Whole wheat flour
- 1.5 cup(s) Rolled oats
- ¼ cup(s) Mixed Nuts (I used TJ’s Omega Trek Mix)
- 2 teaspoon(s) Baking powder
- 2 teaspoon(s) Baking soda
- 1 teaspoon(s) Nutmeg
- 2 teaspoon(s) Cinnamon
Instructions
- Warm oven to 350
- Mix all ingredients in a food processor
- Spoon into buttered muffin tins about half full
- Bake 17 minutes or until ready
- Let cool for a few minutes before removing from the pan
Notes
I’ve made a few batches of these at this point, and they seem to hold up well with any number of juice pulps. Great and moist without any added oils, the recipe is really easy and makes enough for a good weeks worth of breakfast for two. Note: they’re even better topped with a bit of coffee butter…post on that to come.
On Blue Potatoes and 62C Poached Eggs
Hearty Breakfasts and more.
Meet Maggie & Ed
