Breakfast Today...Fried Duck Eggs :o)

Duck Egg Breakfast

I went back to the awesome Butcherettes' store near me, Lindy & Grundy, and this time they had Duck Eggs!  I've only had them at restaurants before, so was so excited to find that they sold them. I know some Farmer's Markets around here sell it, but have never seen them.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, I just knew that I wanted it :o)  

I stocked up on other stuff from L&G too...2 whole chickens (the type that are under 3 lbs, not the monster 5 lbrs that you find at the grocery), 6 legs/thighs, 2 huge pork chops & a flank steak.  Yes, I will be freezing most of the stuff.  I know it's better fresh, but I get uncomfortable when my freezer gets too empty...lol

http://lindyandgrundy.com/

Raw!

Since I read that the shells were a little harder than chicken ones, I cracked it into a bowl first.  The yolk is such a gorgeous yellow!

Fried Egg

I didn't want to make the egg over-easy because I was afraid that I might break the yolk.  I cooked it in a cast iron skillet with butter at med-hi heat and just seasoned it with salt, pepper & aji-shio then added a little water then covered it, turned off the heat and cooked until it was done.

With Toast for Hubby...

Look how tall the egg yolk is!  I love it!!  I should have picked up bacon at L&G too, but I wasn't planning on making breakfast :o(  I just had deli ham, so fried that up...  I also was low on bread, so hubby had two types of bread...lol  One Japanese & One American.

With Rice for Me...

My favorite way to eat fried egg is with rice & soy sauce!  I cut it up and then mix it all together...yum!

Runny Yolk...

Look how much yolk there is in just one egg!  I know, I'm a pig, I ate 2 eggs...lol  The duck egg yolk had a much richer taste than a chicken egg and the white is also firmer.

Breakfast Yesterday....Ricottta & Blueberry Pancakes

Ricotta & Blueberry Pancakes

I'm not really a breakfast person or even a brunch person.  Maybe it's because I like to sleep in and by the time I wake up and get dressed, it's lunch time;o)  Every so often, we do go out for brunch and found a great restaurant near us called BLD (it stands for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner).  They serve the best Ricotta & Blueberry Pancakes!  This was the first time I had ricotta in pancakes and loved it!  

I got some freshly made ricotta over the weekend, so I decided I wanted to try to make these pancakes.  The problem was that I am TERRIBLE at making pancakes!!  I thought I can go the easy route and buy Bisquick and somehow incorporate the ricotta into it.  Wrong!  I was actually able to find Neal Fraser's (owner of BLD) recipe on the internet and after reading it decided I needed to make it from scratch because I needed to put whipped egg whites in it.  I don't think chefs share their true recipes because these did not turn out like the restaurant's pancakes and even the picture that was posted with the recipe looked more like the ones I ended up making.  After reading the recipe, I decided the freshly made ricotta was too nice to mix in with the pancake batter.  I also was out of baking powder and needed to go to the grocery store again anyway, so I got some of the grocery brand ricotta too.

Neal Fraser's Recipe...

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/ricotta-pancakes-with-blueberries

Dry & Wet Ingredients

Dry:  Flour, Baking Powder & Salt

Wet:  Yolks, Milk, Ricotta, Sugar & Vanilla

Egg White

Egg Whites

I've whipped egg whites with the immersion blender before and it worked fine, but for some reason it was taking forever for it to get stiff this time.  Duh, I was using the wrong attachment!  I needed to change it to the whisk attachment...lol  It worked after that :o)

Batter with Whipped Egg White & Extra Ricotta

In the recipe you mixed in the ricotta smoothly with the batter, but I wanted little pockets of ricotta. I used the grocery store ricotta for the main batter then I added a little bit of the fresh ricotta when I folded in the egg whites. 

Finished batter, nice & fluffy...

Almost ready...

Isn't it funny how they say that you always end up throwing out the first pancake.  They aren't kidding...I guess it's because the heat needs to adjust.  After the batter cooked for a few minutes I added the blueberrys.

Yum!

It looks a little underdone, but it tasted great with a lot of maple syrup:o)  I also topped it with a little bit more of the good ricotta and blueberries.

Fresh Made Ricotta

I promised the cheese man that I would not throw out the leftovers;o)  He said it would be good on toast with a little honey or on crackers with a little bit of olive oil.  It's so good, I like to just eat it plain too!  I will be using it on pasta later...

Grocery Store Ricotta

See the difference, the fresh one has a nicer color and isn't so smooth.  This one looks like vanilla ice cream!