Mindy’s dad is building a shed for us outside of our house so we can have extra storage. It amazes me to see someone who can take a few pieces of wood and make something so functional and brilliant out of it.   His work inspired me this morning to create this dish.

I started by grating fingerling potatoes then cooking them in a cast iron pat with lots of clarified butter, salt, pepper, and tarragon filler. On the stove for a bit at medium-high heat to get a nice crust then into the oven to finish off the potatoes.  I didn’t flip it like I normally did because I wanted to try out a technique my chef at school taught me….it worked. Once it was done I drained the butter off and adjusted the seasonings on it with a little salt and pepper.

(Yes, the contact points on the stove top suck…big deal)

I can make these in my sleep but I wanted something different this time…..something exciting.  To the cookie cutter drawer! Round and nice…

I had a couple leeks, ham, and carrots lying around so I prepared them by cutting the leeks and carrots lengthwise the doing a julienne on the ham.  I sauteed the ham first in duck fat then added the carrots and leeks with a little red wine vinegar, salt, and green peppercorns. At the same time I had two small cast iron pans going with 1 duck egg in each.  Once it was done they received the cookie cutter action.

I removed the vegetable/ham mixture from the pot then deglazed it with red wine and built the sauce with glace de viande. I took the pot off the heat then stirred in some whole butter then sauced the plate.

Potato, leek/carrot/ham, then egg on top.  Ready to go.

Thanks for the shed Bruce!

Eric