Discovering unique restaurants in new cities is always fun. We visited Mike and Alice Wachter in Minneapolis/St Paul this summer and they took us to historic Fire station #28 in Linden Hills, MN. Complete with historic displays, artifacts, and architecture, it was a mini-museum-restaurant.
The duck confit tacos came with pickled vegetables in a sweet, s-p-i-c-y mole sauce. A little too much spice for my palate but still delicious. We all sampled it and agreed.
Tastes & Treasures has a recipe from historic Four Peaks Brewery for Duck Cakes with Spicy Nopales Salsa on page 90. Great way to sample duck.
Duck Cakes with Spicy Nopales Salsa
Ingredients for Spicy Nopales Salsa:
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh nopales cactus pads
3 serrano chiles, finely chopped, or to taste
3 tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
4 green onions, white part only, chopped
Juice of 2 limes
Ingredients for Duck Cakes:
2 duck breasts, cooked and shredded
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup roasted corn kernels
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup bread crumbs
3 to 4 teaspoons canola oil
For the salsa, combine the cactus, chiles, tomatoes, cilantro, green onions and lime juice in a bowl and mix well.
For the duck cakes, combine the duck , bell pepers, cilantro corn and eggs in a bowl and mix well. Shape into 3 1/2 inch cakes and sprinkle evenly with the bread crumbs. Fry in the canola oil in a skillet over medium-high heat for 1 1/2 minutes per side. Serve over the salsa.
Note: The duck can be purchased at Asian markets.
