Last week I drove a couple of hours out into the scablands of Eastern Washington to pick up a whole pork.
“Two hours?!” – You say?
Yes, a rational person may think that driving four hours round trip just for some meat is a bit of a stretch, and I would tend to agree, but this particular rancher raises Mangalitsa / Berkshire cross hogs. For the uninitiated, that means flavor and amazing pork fat that transcends way beyond the Yorkshire cross breeds that one normally finds in the grocery store. The eating quality of pork like this is beyond good, it’s a transcendental experience. So, yeah, I didn’t mind the drive. But this meat, and the meals I will make from it are subjects for another time. What I want to talk about today are duck eggs, or rather the pasta I made with them.
When I arrived at the pickup point to find the meat neatly packaged in boxes and flash frozen, the rancher gave me a dozen duck eggs from his flock as an added gift. Now, I love duck eggs. I don’t see them often in markets and only get them occasionally from the farmers and ranchers I know, so this was a treat. The famous bodybuilder Mike O’Hearn will eat a dozen duck eggs at a time as they are an excellent source of protein, but my first thought when the rancher handed them to me was pasta.
I remember reading somewhere that professional bakers like using duck eggs as they are of a superior quality to regular chicken eggs in certain baked goods. But I do know from experience that they do make excellent pasta dough, and I hadn’t made a good dish of pasta in awhile.
The possibilities were many – raviolis stuffed with goat’s milk ricotta, semolina lasagna noodles layered with meat and cheese, but I settled on a simple pappardelle cut with a ground beef red sauce.
Using semolina flour for chew, I also left them a bit thick for a sense of heft.
What surprised me though is that when I dressed up the leftovers a few days later with some added vegetables, cottage cheese, and mozzarella into a baked casserole, the noodles became even more tender and succulent after an hour in the oven.
Damn, it was hard not to break my portion sizes on this one.
Do you have a duck egg story? Want to give them a try? Let’s go! 🤘
