February 26, 2014 New Recipes, Duck and Eggplant Enchiladas and Pickled Cucumbers

February 26, 2014 New Recipes:   Duck and Eggplant Enchiladas and Pickled Cucumbers

Tonight we turned the tough duck meat from the Duck L'Orange of a few nights ago into duck enchiladas.

Yesterday we went to Pro’s Ranch Market and bought a lb. of Queso Fresco ($3.99/lb.), fresh crema ($1.89/lb.), onions ($.50/lb.) and 40 fresh corn tortillas ($1.79), among other items.  We also put all the duck carcass into a stock pot with chopped carrots, onion and celery and simmered it for several hours. 

Tonight we started by chopping up one medium onion  and an eggplant ($.48 at Sprouts) and about six or seven small cloves of garlic from our garden and sauteing them in olive oil in a large skillet.  I picked the duck meat off the carcass and then heated the duck stock.

Suzette then heated about ½ cup of Cervantes Red Chile Sauce (Costco $3.33/bottle) in a sauce pan with about 1 cup of duck stock.  She then ladled scoops of the red chile/duck stock mixture into a small pan and heated it and laid a fresh tortilla in the small pan to soften it and soaked each tortilla in the sauce.

Sauteed duck meat,  eggplant mixture and chili/duck stock sauce and duck stock

Suzette then put the soaked tortillas into a ceramic baking pan until she had covered the bottom of the baking dish with tortillas.  Then she covered the tortillas with a layer of the eggplant mixture and then some crumbled queso fresco, some of the duck meat on each eggplant layer.  We repeated the process again with another layer of sauce soaked tortillas, eggplant mixture, duck meat and cheese. 

duck meat, queso fresco and crema

Finally she covered the second layer with another layer of sauce soaked tortillas and poured the balance of the red chile/duck broth sauce over the tortilla filled baking dish until it came to within about ½ inch of the top of the baking dish and put the baking dish into a 350˚oven to bake until the sauce evaporated and the enchiladas were heated throughout, about 45 minutes. 

the baked enchiladas

While the enchiladas were cooking I peeled and sliced about 2/3 of a cucumber and added Aji Mirin and Rice Vinegar and a Tbsp. of Sweet chili sauce to the cucumbers in a bowl to pickle them.

cucumber pickles

I drank sweetened passion fruit green tea (Talin) and Suzette had water with dinner.   Remember, we are trying to not drink alcohol during the week.   

We loved the texture and flavor of the enchiladas.  They were a little picante, which we overcame with a liberal slathering of fresh crema.  We tried to slice several avocados but they were so old and discolored they were salvageable.  Also, luckily, the duck meat had lost its slightly tough texture that it had had several nights ago.  Boiling the duck for a few hours helped overcome that toughness.

Enchiladas with crema

enchiladas without crema

This is a good example of how manipulating and adapting PPI ingredients into a new format and Cuisine can reinvigorate a relatively unpleasant ingredient into a very pleasing and unusual dish.

Bon Appétit