Today a started cooking Duck Posole for Sunday night’s open house. I washed and covered four lb. of posole with water and simmered it on the stove at the lowest heat for five hours to force out as much lime as I could because I was going to cook the posole in duck broth.
It took about two hours to butcher to remove all the meat from the two ducks because there were several interruptions such as ordering Christmas gifts and buying 100 shares of Nvidia stock.
I put the Duck meat in a freezer bag in the meat drawer of the fridge and the two carcasses into a stock pot filled with water. I started heating the stock and posole at around 10:00 in the morning and cooked both all day until Suzette came home.
At 11:00 I went shopping for Christmas gifts in Uptown. I went to the Apple store, Williams Sonoma, and Trader Joe’s where I bought chocolate for my chocolate baked pudding, some sea salt with truffles, and 9 bottles of wine and a bottle of cognac and a bottle of Bushmill’s Irish Whiskey.
On the way home at 1:00 p.m. I stopped at the new Le Madeleine and bought two baguettes. The restaurant was really large and filled with diners eating lunch. It is wonderful to have a new French bakery in town. I hope to go there soon for lunch.
When I got home I sectioned and bagged the baguettes.
Suzette came home at 3:00 and after I checked the market finish and was relieved to see I had a slight gain on a slightly down day I rode 5 miles south and back. When I got back and changed clothes Suzette helped me pour off the water in the posole pot and pour the duck broth into the posole pot. I then re-filled the duck broth pot and put it back on the stove to cook another batch of Duck stock.
Suzette then suggested that I dice the duck meat.
I had no plan for dinner but when Suzette saw how much meat there was she suggested sautéing a duck breast for dinner and serving it on some of the black beans she had put into our bean pot and was slowly cooking on the stove, to which I immediately agreed. Suzette researched recipes on the internet and found a recipe for a blueberry sauce using apple juice and sugar, so she made a sauce with 1 ½ pints of blue berries, ½ cup of sugar and an 8 oz. jar of Quince syrup she made from this year’s crop of Quince.
Suzette then dusted the duck breast and a piece of duck liver with herbs d’ Provence and sautéed lardettes made by slicing slices of thick cut Kirtland applewood Smoked bacon in a skillet. When the lardettes were fried to golden brown Suzette removed the lardettes and added 1 T. of olive oil to the skillet and sautéed the duck breast and liver for a couple of minutes to sear them. She also steamed flowerets of broccoli. I the sliced the duck breast and the liver and Suzette constructed our plates by laying about 1/3 cup of black beans in the bottom of a pasta bowl, laying the slices of breast and liver on the beans. Shen then spooned blueberry sauce over the duck slices, lay flowerets of steamed broccoli beside the duck and finally garnished the dish with the bacon lardettes.
I was so impressed with her menu that I decided to try the new bottle of 2015 Kirtland Chateauneuf Du Pape I recently bought at Costco. I was intrigued by the prospect that Costco had a private label Chateauneuf Du Pape and at $17.99 it was less expensive than most.
It had a very clean taste and opened up after about an hour and tasted better, which is the opposite from a cheap wine. I did not think it had the kind of awe inspiring taste of the Wellington Mohrhardt Ridge Cab I drank yesterday or a Chateau Beaucastel, which are both much more expensive bottles of wine, but it was a very clean tasting wine that developed a bit of character as it opened up.
Here is a review I completely agree with by someone who seems very knowledgeable, who is also willing to give Costco every consideration based on its effort to bring good French wines into the American market.
The Kirkland Chateauneuf might be the wine I look forward to the most every year at Costco. It’s not because it’s typically the best wine. In fact, last year was a bit of a bust. The reason I look forward to tasting these wines is because I think it’s awesome that Kirkland offers a wine like this (same can be said for the Brunello and Pauillac Bordeaux).
They just seem so nichy compared to the sea of Napa Cabs. But people love them. I do. And I think it’s awesome that Costco brings us these wines at such phenomenal prices. The Chateauneuf for instance is only $19.99. When we review a wine like this at such a favorable price point, it’s hard to criticize too much (last year was an exception).
2015 Kirkland Chateauneuf du PapeSo let’s move on and see what we have this year. I’ve tasted it right out of the bottle and after an hour decant to give it every shot possible. And I think it’s ok this year, maybe a slight step up from last year, but again, not a 90 pointer in my book. It’s thin, kind of like a Chateauneuf light if you will. Maybe like a very good Cotes du Rhone Villages bottle.
The nose changed on me a bit, first a little earth and spice but then after a bit I got loads of fruit punch. The wine is light in color and medium bodied; flavors are predominantly red fruit, cherry, a bit more of that fruit punch, with a slight pepper toward the finish. It wraps up a little quick. Not a whole lot more note-wise to say on this one. It’s pretty mediocre, rather simple.
This reviewer had given prior year’s Kirtland’s Chateauneuf Du Pape over 90 point ratings, so maybe next year it will be better.
Bon Appetit
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