DUCK, CHERRY AND MARSALA SAUSAGE served with WILD AND BROWN RICE SALAD and GARDEN GREENS with ORANGES and CHERRIES

Duck, Cherry and Marsala Sausage

When cooking sausage, I find it best to pierce it a few times with a cake tester so that it doesn’t burst out of the casing. You could drop it in boiling water or broth for a minute or two, and then brown it on the grill or in a pan on the stove, which works well on sausages with a high fat content. Or you could just cook it over a low heat either on the stove or on the grill, turning occasionally until browned and cooked just through, about 20 minutes or so. With this sausage I tried it both ways, and the straight to the pan method was fine. You can cook it by itself, or with a pile of sliced onions, however you like.

Wild and Brown Rice Salad, for 4

¾ c brown rice mixed with ¼ c wild rice, or 1 c Trader Joe’s Brown Rice Medley

½ c chopped celery

¼ c minced shallot or red onion

1 T minced parsley and 1 T minced lovage, or 2 T minced parsley

½ c chopped pecans

¼ c Sherry Vinegar

2 tsp Dijon Mustard

1 T dark honey

¾ c olive oil

Salt and pepper

Cook rice according to package directions, until cooked through but not soft. Cool.

Whisk mustard and honey into Sherry vinegar and then whisk in olive oil to make dressing.

Toss rice with celery, shallot, parsley, lovage, pecans and dressing.

Salt and pepper to taste

Garden Greens Salad

Mixed garden greens-lettuce, arugula, frisee, whatever you have

1 orange

a few tablespoons of olive oil, plain or orange

about a dozen fresh cherries, pitted

kosher salt and pepper

Wash and spin dry greens.

Peel orange with knife and cut out sections. Add with cherries to greens.

Squeeze juice from the orange pit onto the greens.

Toss with olive oil and a little bit of salt and pepper.

OTHER SIDES TO GO WITH DUCK, CHERRY, AND MARSALA SAUSAGE include 

Potatoes Sliced and Baked with Sorrel
Wash and chop a handful of sorrel per person. If you don't have sorrel, you can use leaf lettuce or arugula tossed in lemon juice. Heat a bit of oil in a pan, add sorrel and cook for a minute or two until the sorrel changes color but not so long that it breaks down too much.
Thinly slice 1/4 onion per person and saute in oil until softened and lightly browned.
Wash, peel and slice a few potatoes and put a layer of them in an oiled baking pan.
Top with the sorrel, along with a tsp of fresh thyme leaves per person, and some salt and pepper. Cover with a layer of potatoes. If you're not being healthy, pour in some cream to just below the top of the potatoes, and top with dots of butter. If you are being healthy, pour in some milk or buttermilk (buttermilk will clump up when cooked, but that's ok), and top with olive oil. Salt and pepper top.
Cover and bake at 375 until potatoes just start to soften, remove cover and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated, and the top layer of potatoes are glossy.

Pierogi and Onions

One time I made pierogi and they ended up the size of a plate, so these are frozen pierogi which have been dropped in boiling water for a few minutes, and then browned in the pan along with the sausages and onions. 

COLCANNON with BROWNED BUTTER

Colcannon is often made with ham or bacon and cabbage or other greens that have been sautéed in butter, and then mixed into mashed potatoes, with a well of melted butter on top. But leftover Corned Beef and Cabbage is so flavorful against the mild mashed potatoes, and with browned butter to boot you may agree with me that the Colcannon you have for lunch the next day is really the reason to make Corned Beef and Cabbage.

So here’s the strategy, formula, and technique. The proportions are more or less, give or take. Make what you need:

Make your browned butter: In a large pot, slowly melt 1 – 2 T butter per serving and cook over low heat until solids brown, but not burned, and have a nice nutty smell. Pour into a small bowl, but don’t clean the pot as you’ll be using it for your potatoes (that’s why you want a large pot and not a small saucepan).

Cook your potatoes: You’ll need some freshly mashed potatoes for this, so bake, microwave, or boil however many potatoes you’ll need, one or two per serving. I prefer to bake or microwave them. When they’re soft, rice, sieve, or mash potatoes into the brown butter pot. Add some warmed milk (or buttermilk, whey, half and half, or cream) and a very small amount of butter. I like to keep it light on the fat and salt, to balance the high fat and salt in the corned beef and browned butter. Pepper potatoes. Keep warm

Warm leftover corned beef in microwave or oven. Shred it by pressing slices along the grain with the side of a knife. Chop shreds into ½” – 1” pieces.  

Warm leftover cabbage and onions.

Per serving stir a few tablespoons of warm corned beef , a few tablespoons of warm cabbage and a teaspoon or so of minced parsley into mashed potatoes, reserving some to be served on the side. Make sure this potato mixture is good and hot.

To serve, mound piping hot potatoes into a bowl and place warm corned beef, warm cabbage, and minced parsley around the edges. Make a well in the center of the potatoes and fill with browned butter.