Menu Suggestions

[lillibet]

This weekend my elder sister is claiming her much-delayed birthday dinner (her birthday is in March) and I am planning to make seared duck breasts with fig butter. But I find I'm feeling mildly uncreative past that point and I turn to my f-list for suggestions: what should I serve with that?

Comments

[dpolicar]

wild rice with almonds and apricots
asparagus
gingered carrots with currants
warm spinach, basil, and arugula salad with hot bacon and lemon dressing

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

Ooh. I was going to suggest an arugula salad too. Yummy.

[bex77]

I poked around online and found these suggestions:

Rice Pilaf
A fresh fruit salad with local berries in season now
Maple glazed carrots
Pear shallot confit

They suggest that duck and its sauces are often heavy on grease (yum...) so you want to balance that with lighter, fruity, less buttery sides.

I hope these get your mind a whirring!

[androidqueen.livejournal.com]

Braised turnips
Asparagus and almonds

Gingered strawberries with vanilla ice cream

[roozle.livejournal.com]

ooh. yum.

[schmoomom.livejournal.com]

First thing I thought of was beet greens. And balsamic strawberries.

[entirelysonja.livejournal.com]

My first thought was a rice pilaf with raisins or dried cranberries.

I'm terrible with vegetables, so I don't have a suggestion there.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

My immediate thought was rice, it's yummy with anything buttery. Duck's kind of rich, esp. with a butter sauce, so I tend think of some lighter, clearer flavors in the side dishes. The suggestions above that involve ginger or lemon sound like a nice balance.

[roozle.livejournal.com]

I have no idea why orange and mint couscous just jumped into my head, and I'm not actually sure how it would play with the duck but sometime soon I'll be making the couscous.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

I really like serving duck with polenta: a nice buttery polenta brings out the richness of the duck and plays up the "comfort food"-ishness of it. (But for me, duck is comfort food, while for others, it's special occasion food...)

[buxom-bey.livejournal.com]

I'm going to add my vote for asparagus, but suggest a preparation that I learned from mizarchivist; lightly sautéed in vermouth and lemon juice.

I also recently took some white eggplant, lightly battered and fried, and paired it with white rice and topped with the left over yasai katsu curry sauce from Wagamama's.

Damn but I have to figure out how to make that sauce. You know, they have a cook book, but the curry sauce is the one thing not in it. Grr, want sauce!