Everything was Ducky in Jimmy's Back Room

Over the weekend, I had the enviable honor of being a judge for Duck-Off 2013, a Food Systems Network NYC fundraiser held at Jimmy’s No.43, in the East Village. FSNYC is a membership-based non-profit that works to change our food system in a way that will allow universal access to nourishing, affordable food. It’s a subject I feel strongly about. I’m lucky to be able to shop at the greenmarket and eat the best, most nutritious foods daily, and I want everyone to be able to do that.

Since FSNYC raises its entire operating budget on its own, the organization has to get creative; this event was a perfect example of how it does that.

So the idea was that contestants had to wow us with their creative preparation of some beautiful ducks generously donated by Matt Igoe of Hudson Valley Duck Farm.

There were too many great entries to list, so I’m highlighting a few of my favorites here. Keep an eye on FSNYC’s webpage and Facebook page for full recipes, which will be posted soon.

Winners Andrew Gumpel, left, and Micah Mowrey

Micah Mowrey and Andrew Gumpel from Gramercy Tavern walked away with the judges’ first place award for their impeccably constructed Duck Pastrami with Sunchoke’s & Aji Dulce Pepper Jam. It was a little like awarding first to LeBron James amid a cast of NCAA hopefuls, though, so you’ll just have to go to Gramercy Tavern to learn more about what these talented young chefs can do.

Jamie Saurman's duck legs doing their thing.

All the judges loved the flavor combinations of Jamie Saurman’s Cumin-Coriander Duck Leg Confit. It’s no wonder, since his inspiration was his wife Hemali, whose family in Mumbai has been mixing small-batch spices for 75 years.  Using his favorite slow-cooking method, Jamie flavored his duck legs with curry leaves, freshly ground cumin seeds and a turbo-charged coriander powder to highlight the natural savory flavor of the duck. Then he used rendered duck fat and bacon fat to confit his Hudson Valley Farm duck legs in a 250-degree oven.

Hemali, spice muse, and Jamie

 “I love to submerge things in their own fat, or borrow even tastier fat from other sources and slowly cook them,” says Jamie, a Johnson & Wales grad who is preparing to open his own restaurant and brewery in Brooklyn. (The intriguing part of his business plan: DIY beer brewing for restaurant guests.)

 It was the combination of the shredded confit, green mung beans (cooked in a pressure cooker with garlic, cinnamon sticks and bay leaves), fresh pomegranate seeds and crispy lentil papadum that made the dish so alluring. As judges, our only quibble with this delicious dish was that it was hard to scoop up these disparate and truly complementary flavors into one bite amid the scrum of the duck-off. Jamie placed second, after the Gramercy team.

Duck Confit Tart and proud maker, Laura Luciano.

Everyone knew that besides the Gramercy guys, the contender to beat was Laura Luciano, winner of the recent cassoulet cook-off at Jimmy’s No. 43 and a scarily talented cook and blogger from the East End of Long Island.

The confit's close-up.

Sure enough, her Duck Confit Tart did well, taking third place from the judges for its beautiful and complex combination of pâte brisée, brie, and a very duck-y confit mixture. She made and baked her tart shell the night before. The first layer onto the pastry was a slathering of triple-cream brie, which Laura puréed in a food processor with the rind on. For the duck layer, Laura brined and then confit-ed her duck legs in duck fat, roughly chopped them and mixed them with caramelized onions (deglazed with vermouth and cognac) and some fennel and Bosc pears that had been roasted with thyme. She also threw in some garlic confit salvaged from the duck confit-ing process.

 French-Mex? Duck Burrito Pie

Adrian “The Cook-off King of Queens” Ashby describes his Duck Burrito Pie as a cross between a Mexican burrito and an English shepherd’s pie; to me it evoked the tortilla casseroles and tamale pies of my Southern California childhood. Adrian didn't place in the competition in part because judges felt that in a duck-off, the duck had to be front and center, not one note among many.

Still, the dish was appealing and addictive, the way a great chicken pot pie or bowl of mac & cheese is. The layered casserole starts with wall-to-wall overlapping tortillas on the bottom, then a layer of room temperature shredded cheese to act as a binder. Rice (any kind will do, says Adrian) and sofrito form the next strata. Adrian makes his sofrito by sautéing garlic, onion, green peppers, cilantro, and tomato paste in olive oil over medium heat until the onions are transparent.  Other layers involve beans, jalapeno, and the duck meat, which he shredded and seasoned. I couldn’t keep track of the exact ordering of all these layers, but they repeat and add up to something that would be great around a campfire or to feed to a hungry horde of teenagers.

I can’t end the post without a shout-out to Jimmy Carbone, whose generosity is as wide as his craft beer list at Jimmy’s No. 43. He’s a huge supporter of sustainable farming and local purveyors, who always know they have a room for their events in his handy and well-used Back Room—thanks, Jimmy!

Cassoulet All the Way

Who says cassoulet can't include pizza toppings?

I love the contrarian and agrarian bent of Jimmy's No. 43's annual Cassoulet Cookoff, which unspooled yesterday afternoon amid an avalanche of delectable bean and pork stews.  While the general post-holiday zeitgeist is centered on exercise and diet apps (and maybe even the actual doing of exercise) the irrepressible Jimmy Carbone takes the opposite tack, massaging winter blues away with a healthy dose of beer and cassoulet.  Thus, even though it was unseasonably balmy, the annual cookoff went forward at Carbone's boisterous East Village pub/restaurant.

Jimmy, as I've written before, is a tireless planner of events and doer of good, in this case donating all proceeds from the event (over $2,000) to Grow NYC and in particular to its very cool Youthmarket Farmstand Project.

Close to a dozen professional and amateur chefs showed up with steaming pots of cassoulet, and the variety and imagination on display were dazzling. The beans alone could have staffed a whole legume runway show. There were giant cream-colored butter beans winking from a delicious Iberian cassoulet featuring Asturian cider and Spanish blood sausage; Cayuga pinto beans with pulled pork, porter beer and fresh mozzarella; Great Northern beans from Matt, a home cook who riffed on Julia Child's recipe with lamb shoulder, goat, and Toulouse and garlic sausages; black-eyed beans camouflaged among burnt brisket ends from Mighty Quinn's Barbecue; a black bean cassoulet, and in the winning cassoulet, flageolet beans.

The winner: Laura Luciano.

Laura Luciano, a gifted amateur chef from Long Island who blogs at Out East Foodie, swept both the People's Choice and the judge's top spot (yours truly was a member of the second group), proving, as emcee and himself a producer of food "take-down" events Matt Timms, said, "that the judges are as smart as the people."

Luciano's two-to-three day cassoulet whispering process makes it clear why hers tasted so deep and transporting, as if French monks had been chanting over it for weeks. She braised pork butt on the stove with celery onion, carrots and bay leaf, added duck stock and cognac, and finished the braise in the oven.  Luciano pureed all the aromatics from her braise and added the mixture to her simmering flageolet beans, along with pancetta and duck sausage. Oh, and she confited her own duck and made her own duck sausage for the first time in her life, too, adding a layer duck fat to her beans as they cooked. Luciano credited much of the deliciousness of her dish to plenty of duck fat, though the fact that she took zero short-cuts mattered just as much. To top it all off, she added finely ground duck cracklings and minced micro carrot and parsley greens to her bread crumbs--all of it toasted, of course, in duck fat.

The judges' scorecard.

As we mulled over our top picks, several judges pointed out that a few of our favorites tasted great but weren't true cassoulets, such as the Iberian cassoulet and a delicious vegetarian cassoulet with parsnips created by Rich Pinto (so appropriately named that he was destined to place at least), a former Jimmy's No. 43 chef who still works the restaurant's catered and special events.  No problem, we just created a new category for them: "the best non-cassoulet cassoulets."

Back home, this discussion sent me to my Oxford Companion to Food, in which the late, great Alan Davidson wrote that the haricot bean is the most important ingredient in cassoulet, although Old World beans must have predated them (haricots did not arrive in France from the New World via Spain until the 16th century). Beyond that, though, there a fair amount of variety in French cassoulet meat types. Although pork and pork products predominate, cassoulet can include leg of mutton, duck,  goose or even confit d'oie (goose liver).

Despite its tradition-bound image, there are innovators in France: Davidson finds reference in Larousse Gastronomique to a cassoulet made with salt cod. Hear that, those of you planning your  bid for the sixth annual cassoulet cookoff title?

Mama O Makes Pa Jun

Trees offset barbecue carbon emissions.

Over the weekend, I braved sweltering temperatures to check out meat, beer and all-things-local impressario Jimmy Carbone's second annual "Kimchipalooza and Cook Out NYC," kind of a backyard barbecue for thrill seekers. Jimmy is the gregarious owner of Jimmy's No. 43 in the East Village, a locavore haven he uses as the launching pad for any number of ideas, projects, and festivals.

At this particular Jimmy creation, there was barbecue galore from restaurants around the city, mucho Six Point,  plus numerous hawkers of fiery hot sauces and small-batch condiments. Visitors voted  for their favorite hot dog (winner, best topping: personal caterer and chef Josetth Gordon, for her piquant celery slaw with currants) and there were judged competitions, too.

Looming large at the event was that Korean addition to the haute fast food cannon, kimchi, the beloved national pickle made of fermented napa cabbage and lots of chili pepper. The lure of kimchi drew me to the both of Mama O's Premium Kimchi, right in the center of the action, where Mama herself was hard at work, frying up one of my favorite dishes, pa jun, savory pancakes that are often filled with seafood or meat. 

Who knew that like Americans, Koreans use pancake mix, too? Mama uses a cup of pa jun mix (available at Korean grocers), into which she stirs a cup to a cup-and-a-half of water, a cup of chopped kimchi (excess liquid squeezed out), 2 ounces of ground pork and chopped fresh scallions.  A little vegetable oil and a non-stick pan (the latter is a must, says Mama), and you've got pa jun. 

The adorable Mama and Papa Oh, Myong Ja and Max.

Not only is Mama Oh, or Myong Ja, the inspiration for a whole line of artisanal kimchi, now sold in Whole Foods and several other stores in Brooklyn and Manhattan, she's also a retired operations analyst at the World Bank. Her assistant that day was Papa Oh, a.k.a. Max, former president of the Korean Dry Cleaner's Association.

It was their son Kheedim (meaning "reverence," and "respect") in ancient Korean, who decided to start a line of kimchis based on Mama's recipes. He now makes six different varieties, including an unusual baby bok choy kimchi (great idea!), as well one made with hunks of daikon radish, and another line without fish or shellfish (the standard variety usually contains shrimp paste and fish sauce), which Kheedim calls "kosha kimchi, because I can't afford a rabbi." Kheedim has in fact stopped using shrimp paste in all his kimchi because shellfish allergies are so prevalent and potentially lethal.

His newest product, just unveiled at Kimchipalooza, is a kimchi paste, which allows even neophytes to make perfect kimchi by slicing up a whole cabbage, putting it through an overnight salt water brine, a drain and press, then adding scallions, cilantro, the kimchi paste and water--my next home experiment!

Mama's was also featured in the day's winner for "Food High": Bar Bruno's taco of grilled marinated hanger steak in a corn tortilla topped with Mama O's spicy kimchi, pico de gallo and grated radish. 

As the web address of Mama O's proclaims, "kimchi rules"!