Moulard duck leg with lavender, honey, and asian spices along with bourbon maple sweet potato puree. Last week I posted about the duck recipe from Eleven Madison Park’s new cookbook. This weekend, as promised, I cooked more duck. This time, I used a 6lb Moulard duck (from Hudson Valley Duck Farm) and the results were fantastic. The skin crisped nearly to perfection and took on a much deeper color while the meat was more uniformly cooked to the desired temperature.

The sweet potato puree is a modification on the EMP recipe I talked about last week. For this version, I made the obvious addition of BLiS Bourbon Barrel Matured Maple Syrup and they were every bit as good you would expect.

Lamb and sweet potatoes with Madras curry. This is a delicious and very easy fall curry… easy because the curry comes from a jar. This isn’t something I would normally post on this blog, but I have to give credit to Maya Kaimal curries and simmering sauces. Everything I’ve picked up from this vendor so far at Whole Foods has been good. The Madras curry, in particular, is really very good and I appreciate the fact that it’s not loaded with sodium like many other pre-made curry sauces.

Just sauté some onions, brown bite-sized pieces of lamb, then throw in the sauce and sweet potatoes. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are soft but not mushy.

Mangalitsa pork chop with BLiS Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple Syrup glazed sweet potatoes. These Mangalitsa chops from Mosefund Farm might just be the best pork there is.

Steak and potatoes for steakhouse Friday. Actually, this is a Washugyu flat iron steak from Japan Premium Beef and four different varieties of sweet potato. I’ve written about the flat iron from JPB in the past, and the more I eat it the more convinced I am that it’s one of the best pieces of beef you can buy in the city.

Mussels steamed with white wine, vanilla, and red pepper flakes with fried Japanese sweet potatoes. This isn’t much to look at, but wow. I read Sam Sifton’s notes on Vandaag earlier this week with out much interest, but the 6th photo in the little slide show at the top caught my eye. It was an interesting looking clam prep with this caption:

Littleneck clams. But not just! Mr. Kirschen-Clark bathes them in aquavit, and fires them up with Aleppo pepper. Some vanilla intrigues, and parsnip frites provide crunch.

I’m already a huge fan of steaming clams and mussels in alcohol (usually white wine or limoncello) with chiles or other heat. But vanilla intrigues and parsnip frites? Yes please. My version was obviously a bit different, using mussels instead of clams, sweet potatoes instead of parsnips, etc. Also, this was experimental so I didn’t take much care for how things looked—if I was serving this to guests I’d be careful about the size of the dice of sweet potato and dress it up with a colorful herb. I’ll do this again someday soon, get a prettier photo and write up a proper recipe. But for now, this is what I did:

For the potatoes: Cut the sweet potatoes to roughly half inch dice, immediately putting them into cold water with a tablespoon of vinegar added (the Japanese variety of sweet potato are super-starchy and brown almost instantly). Heat on high, then boil for 10 minutes, until the potatoes are easily split with a knife but don’t fall apart. Dry on a paper towel and heat oil in the deep fryer to between 340 and 375. Mix some flour with salt and cayenne and toss the potato cubes in the mixture then shake off the excess. They should be lightly dusted. Throw these in the fryer for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown and no longer expelling water. Dry and salt.

For the mussels: Gently simmer white wine with half of a vanilla bean (I used Tahitian) and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes for 10 minutes or so. Turn up the heat, add the mussels, cover tightly and cook a few minutes until done.

To serve, add a fried sweet potato to every open mussel, then scatter the remaining potatoes on the plate. Try a bite with a juicy mussel and crunchy sweet potato. Definitely serve with grower Champagne!