Duck egg omelette

This started with a conversation with Dave Gilbert (he of many culinary adventures documented elsewhere in this blog and at Dave Gilbert's Blog.) On a phone call he said, "we need to meet, I have something tasty for you." I didn't need much further encouragement.

We met up for dinner at Cretia's in Dallas, and headed off afterwards for a pint or 2 at the Amsterdam bar. All in all a good evening. At the end of the evening he hunted in the back of his car for the taste treat - and what a treat it was. 1/2 dozen very fresh duck eggs in a pink styrofoam box. The box isn't my color, and the eggs weren't "duck egg blue".

Duck eggs are a bit larger than hen eggs, and the yolks is disproportionally large - at least compared to hen eggs. So they are rather richer and seem to have a more eggy, definite flavor.

So, when Madame saw them in the fridge yesterday, she asked, "What will we do with these?" The obvious answer seemed to be a duck egg omellette , a small salad and some simple fried potatoes. Madame and fried food - now that's a tough sell. But well cooked, properly seasoned and the deal was done. It helped that I had them started before she got home!

The omelettes were tricky - no real recipe needed, but the duck eggs seemed not to hold together quite as well as hen eggs, so it was hard to get a nicely rolled omelette. Still cooking it without colour was easy, and we melted just a little Raclette cheese inside before folding it onto the plate.

Salad was simple - some leaf lettuce, avocado, halved cherry tomatoes and a home made vinaigrette - 1 part sherry vinegar, 1 part very good olive oil, 3 parts peanut (or other neutral) oil. Peanut oil is what I had handy, and it has (to me) less of a flavour that fights with the olive oil. Salt, pepper, shake and it takes almost the same amount of time to use a home made vinaigrette as it does to open a bottle, scrape the crud off the sides, sniff it to make sure it is still OK, trying to remember when you bought it, looking at expiry date and realizing it was 2008...

Potatoes - easy too. Make 1/2 inch cubes of 2 lbs peeled yukon gold potatoes. Heat 1/2 cup (yes that is a lot, I know) of olive oil (not extra virgin) until shimmering hot. Dump the potatoes in and let fry for at least 5 minutes before touching them. Keeping the heat high. That way they don't stick - and no I didn't use a non-stick pan. Toss the potatoes to cook on all sides. When nearly done, make the omelettes. Serve the omelletes on the same plate as the salad, salt the potatoes and put on the plate too.

A crisp Sancerre or Pinot Grigio goes well with this. The eggs are so rich that you want some dryness/acidity in the wine to cut through it.

Dave probably wants pictures. Sadly I forgot to take any :-(