Iron Chef Throwdown!

THE MENU
First Course - Battle Avocado
Beer-battered fried avocados with shrimp, scallop, crab, and snapper ceviche (me)
v.
Seared sea scallop with guacamole salad and jalapeño pesto (Jay)

Second Course - Battle Duck
Coffee-cardamom grilled duck breast in fig-balsamic sauce with pear-onion potato hash and grilled broccolini (me)
v.
Award-winning duck gumbo with fried boudin balls (Jay)

Dessert - Battle Chocolate
Cappuccino fudge cheesecake in chocolate sauce (me)
v.
Duo of bread puddings with sweet cherry sauce and crème anglaise (Jay)

The beer batter needs a little work - it didn't coat as thickly as I'd like. I used 1 cup flour, 1 cup cornmeal, 2 cups Shiner, salt and pepper, and a sprinkle of cayenne, set for two hours.

The fig balsamic sauce was a great success. Equal parts fig preserves and balsamic vinegar simmered on low until reduced by half, then an equal amount of duck stock added and simmered until reduced by half again. Chicken stock would probably be fine for other applications, but the duck stock made a significant difference in flavor.

For the duck breasts I used this recipe with the marinade from this one. The spice notes were a lovely enhancement without overpowering either the fig sauce or the flavor of the duck itself.

I should get Jay's recipe/experiment with jalapeño pesto. It had a nice burn without being overpowering and is tasty on all kinds of things. I mixed it with some mayo to eat on the leftover boudin balls, and it's awesome.

Restaurant Week at Mockingbird Bistro with Mom tonight. First course was a chilled cantaloupe soup with prosciutto and lavender honey drizzled in the bottom of the bowl. The waiter said there were sweet peppers in the soup, which I guess accounts for the lack of overwhelming melon sweetness in the soup itself, so the honey made a nice accent rather than being overpoweringly sweet. I could figure out how to make this.

Peach cupcakes with brown sugar frosting - The cream cheese frosting completely drowns out the taste of the peach in the cupcakes. Maybe a lighter frosting? Maybe just muffins.

Chai cupcakes with honey cinnamon cream cheese frosting - I made these with 2 tbsp of chai tea, which didn't seem to be quite spicy enough in the final mix, so I added a bunch more cardamom, cloves, white pepper and ginger, to excellent effect. The frosting is also nice.

Cold zucchini soup - Next time, use one lemon and one clove of garlic. Two is too much. It also needs a base note, maybe some pine nuts?

Rosemary parmesan focaccia - to keep focaccia dough overnight, flatten it down after the first rise, divide in half, and put each ball in a ziploc to chill until the next day. Bring to room temp before stretching and baking.

Red potato tart with blue cheese and rosemary - Make sure to boil the potatoes until really tender, not just al dente. They don't soften as much in the oven as you think they will. Also, maybe change the custard to be eggier, more quiche-like. It's a little runny as written.

Note for rice and beans - in the future, use pork necks rather than ham hocks for the meat component, as you get more actual meat off the necks at the end.

Summer Dinner Party

Prosciutto-melon skewers: in the future, wrap the melon cubes with ham separately rather than weaving the ham through several cubes on a skewer. It'll be easier to eat that way.
Summer squash soup with mint-parsley pesto
Stuffed baked branzino with lemon-caper sauce, greek salad, rosemary foccacia, green onion and pine nut couscous
Strawberry tiramisu: even though the epicurious comments are full of people whining that the original instructions have too much Cointreau, ignore them. Those commenters are pussies.