coconut risotto with lemongrass ginger chicken balls

We have finally started to get some consistent spring weather here in St. Louis... SUNSHINE! FLIP FLOPS! BEER WITH LEMON FLAVORING! FORGETTING HOW EASILY I BURN! So here is something to welcome the thaw: a trifecta of tropical flavors! Cool, sweet, spicy mango & cucumber salsa, rich, creamy, dreamy coconut risotto and bright lemongrass ginger chicken meatballs.


These all work well together, but can easily be made on their own for other applications. If you make one of these 3 things, you MUST make the coconut risotto. It is absolutely luscious. Like any risotto, it takes a bit of patience and lots of stirring, but wow is it worth your time. Super rich and creamy, and no cheese? Crazy talk. This could easily be made vegan by subbing vegetable stock, which makes me feel less sorry for vegans, because, man, I would eat this over traditional risotto without batting an eye.



The salsa and the balls just scream summer. The salsa would be great on grilled fish or chicken or on shrimp tacos. The balls could be served with a peanut sauce as an appetizer, or on a crisp salad. Mmmmm. Gosh, dear readers, 3 great recipes in 1 post this week. Aren't you lucky? :)

Mango Cucumber Salsa-1 mango, diced
-1/2 cucumber, seeded and diced
-2 green chiles, finely chopped
-2 shallots, finely chopped
-3 Tablespoons chopped cilantro
-juice from 1 lime
-1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
-salt to taste 

Combine all the ingredients. Let marinate for at least 20 minutes before serving.

Coconut Risotto-1 Tablespoon coconut oil
-1 shallot
-1 cup Aborio Rice
-1 15 0z. can whole coconut milk
-2.5 cups duck stock (or chicken stock or vegetable stock)
-salt to taste 

Combine the coconut milk and stock in a sauce pan and place over low heat.
Melt the coconut oil in a separate sauce pan over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook until they are translucent. Add the rice and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes.

Ladle about 3/4 cup of the coconut milk/stock mixture into the pan with the rice. Stir often until the liquid is absorbed by the rice, then add another ladle-ful and repeat. After 3 ladles, you can start adding a bit more liquid, but be sure to keep stirring... not necessarily constant stirring, but lots of stirring.... this is what releases the gluten from the grains of rice and makes it creamy! Test the rice to see when it is cooked to al dente... you may not use all of the liquid (but save it, it will help with re-heating leftovers). Serve hot.

Lemongrass Ginger Chicken Balls-1 lb. ground chicken
-2 Tablespoons lemongrass paste or 1 Tablespoon freshly minced lemongrass
-1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and grated
-3 Tablespoons chopped cilantro
-1/4 teaspoon cumin
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1 egg
-1 cup plain bread crumbs 

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Combine all the ball ingredients in a bowl, using your hands to mix everything really well. Roll into small balls (1 1/2-inch diameter or so) and place in a greased oven-safe dish or on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 20 minutes, turning once. Serve on the coconut risotto or as appetizers.

2013: Year of MORE BALLS Posts:

Don't Judge Me Pizza Kit Balls

Thai Chicken Larb Balls with Creamy Coconut Sauce

St. Louis' Best Balls Installment 4: Wonton King & Pho Long 

Bratwurst Pretzel Balls with Mustard Rarebit

Baked Blue Cheese Fig Balls

Crab Cake Scotch Quail Eggs

Cannellini Ball Sub

Pumpkin Risotto Arancini With Chipotle Cranberry Sauce

2012: Year of the Balls recap

olive oil duck confit for cassoulet

We FINALLY did it. Kelly and I have been talking for years about making a proper cassoulet, and this past weekend our "someday" became reality! Why so long? Cassoulet is a bit intimidating... a traditional French dish, that while a comfort food, takes literally days of preparation. Also, there are lots of different recipes for cassoulet... as stated in Kelly's post about it: "it is not a recipe in France. It is a way to argue between villages." So picking a recipe is challenging. Kelly did most of the work on this, honestly... she researched a bunch of recipes and came up with a hybrid to make it "our own." Check out her excellent post on the final result. Basically, making cassoulet is like putting together a puzzle... beans, sausage, cured pork, duck confit, seasonings...

The cassoulet puzzle pieces.
Photo courtesy of Corey Woodruff.

My main role in this puzzle was making the duck confit. While you can certainly buy duck confit, this has been on my list of things to make forever, and if we were going to wait this long to make cassoulet it had to have as much from-scratch as possible. This paid off big time. Our cassoulet was rich, meaty, flavorful, perfectly cooked... so effing good. The effort showed, and was worth it times 10. 

Making duck confit is arduous in the same sense that making cassoulet is... the difficult parts are finding the ingredients and planning ahead. Actually cooking it is almost effortless. In my research I figured out a couple of things: 1. buying duck fat is expensive, 2. buying individual duck legs is impossible in St. Louis grocery stores, 3. you can confit with olive oil! Number 3 was my favorite revelation... both Micheal Ruhlman and local St. Louis chef Cassy Vires use olive oil to make duck confit. This was a huge relief, as I have the utmost respect for both of them, and their recipes have worked well for me in the past. (see my posts about meeting Ruhlman and making Cassy's "cheat" turducken.)

Picking the duck confit meat off the bones. It's great for your skin! :)
Photo courtesy of Corey Woodruff

With the Olive Oil Salvation, I now only had one obstacle: I could only readily get whole duck. I would have to butcher the duck to get the pieces I could use for confit. I have some experience with cutting up birds (I even DEBONED them for a monster turducken once!), so I just went for it. Don't be intimidated, you guys. You basically just use the bones as guides for where to cut. And guess what? the confit is getting shredded later, so even if you do "butcher" the butchering... it's all good. Breathe deep and start cuttin'. I cut the legs off, including as much of the thigh meat I could, and also cut out the breast meat. This gave me 4 nice-size pieces of meat for the confit, and a whole carcass for making a huge pot of rich duck stock. No waste, all taste!

The cassoulet getting layered.
Photo courtesy of Corey Woodruff

Olive Oil Duck Confit

-2 duck breasts
-2 duck leg/thigh portions
-6 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
-1 teaspoon dried thyme
-2 Tablespoons salt
-2 shallots, sliced
-5 sprigs fresh thyme
-about 4 cups olive oil 

Rub the duck pieces with the garlic, dried thyme and salt. Let sit overnight, up to 2 days.
Rinse the duck off, reserving the garlic cloves. Pat dry and place in a dutch oven with the garlic, shallots and fresh thyme. Cover completely with olive oil. Place in a 225ºF oven and let cook about 3 hours, checking occasionally to make sure the oil is not bubbling and is still covering the meat completely.  

Remove from oven and let cool a bit. Remove the duck pieces and strain the oil. Store the duck and the oil together, for up to a month. Use meat in cassoulet, rillettes, whatever your heart desires.

Duck Confit right out of the oven.

Related posts from the archives (and other blogs):

Kelly's post about our Cassoulet

Making Paella with Barbaric Gulp

Making Pork Steamed Buns with Barbaric Gulp

Making Pretzels with Barbaric Gulp

Wild Duck Stir-fry

Duck Stew with Turnips & Apples

Making BACON!

Cassy Vire's Cheat Turducken