Heavenly Orange Sauce

 

Our trip to Paris was a feast for the senses! One of the highlights of the week was participating in a French Market Class at La Cuisine Paris. 

We started out at the Marché Maubert, the oldest street market in Paris.  Our group was to survey the offerings of the day, and give some suggestions to Chef Eric as to what we wanted to prepare for lunch. Talk about overwhelming!! You only have to look at our photos of the wonderful offerings to appreciate how spectacular the food choices were.

 

We finally agreed on a menu that included duck breast, orange sauce and a host of sumptuous vegetables, cheeses and saucisson, that we would figure out what to do with when we got back to the kitchen of the cooking school. This would probably be a good time to point out that the one small snag during our trip involved Andrea breaking her foot. Being a person of "true grit", this did not slow her down. So with the help of her dauntless and resourceful friends (Bev and Kris, of course!), we carried on with our explorations of Paris, making many delightful discoveries along the way,thanks to our slightly adjusted agenda.

Our final menu included:

Squash soup with fresh herbs

Fennel and orange salad with a citrus vinagrette

Potatoes cooked in duck fat

Roasted Market Vegetables

Magret de Canard with Orange Sauce

Raspberry Financiers

(with cream and butter in just about everything! )

We loved this handy funnel which was equipped with a dispenser that measured out equivalent amounts of soup. It was so neat, that we bought one at E. Dehillerin, the famous Paris cookware store. They sell everything that the professional or home chef could ever want. It is an experience just walking through the store! We were given the most delightful service here that we had during our whole trip.

The recipes that we prepared during our class were very simple, and very flexible, so to speak, so we will try here to share the recipe for the Magret de Canard and the Heavenly Orange Sauce, strictly from memory.

Magret de Canard

3 duck breasts

Ground black pepper 

Fleur de sel

Make deep incisions in the fat layer of the duck, being mindful not to cut into the meat. Tidy up the fat around the sides of the duck, by simply running your thumb along where the flesh meats the fat.  Season with salt and pepper. In a heated skillet, cook with the fat side down for 4-5 minutes, turn and cook the other side, until well coloured and slightly crisp. Remove from skillet and pour off excess fat. Reserve the fat to cook the potatoes in. Let the duck breast rest while preparing the sauce.

Heavenly Orange Sauce

1/4 cup white sugar

juice of 2 oranges

knob of butter

1/2 cups cream

Pinch of salt

Start with a hot skillet and turn down to medium when the sugar mixture starts to bubble. Add sugar to the skillet, along with the orange juice, and cook slowly until the sugar syrup has turned to a golden, amber colour.  Do not stir this mixture, just swirl the pan gently, or the sugar will crystallize. This could take 5-10 minutes. Add the knob of butter, then add cream. At this point, you can stir the mixture gently, and continue to cook slowly until the sauce is reduced. Add a pinch of salt.  It will be like caramel when it is finished.

To serve, drizzle it over the thinly sliced duck breast.

Almond Financier with Raspberries

Financiers are little almond cookies baked in tiny molds that resemble gold bars- hence the name, financier!

150 g butter

100 g icing sugar

50 g flour

120 g ground almonds

3 egg whites

pinch of salt 

Preheat oven to 200°C. In a small pot, heat the butter until it becomes a light gold colour and has a nutty aroma (beurre noisette). Set aside to cool.

In a bowl, mix together the sugar, flour, salt and ground almonds. Stirring constantly with a spatula, add the egg whites, one by one. add the cooled buerre noisette, and whisk until the mixture is smooth and even. Spoon into a pastry bag and let rest for 15 minutes. This mixture can remain in the refrigerator for 5 days, if you do not wish to bake them all at once.

Grease the molds with butter. Pipe the mixture into the molds and bake for 10 minutes (being creative, our group decided to place 1/2 of a raspberry on top of each financier before baking- it was a brilliant idea!) TUrn off the heat and let sit in the oven for 5 minutes before removing. This is a perfect small dessert, or served with tea or coffee as an afternoon refreshment!