Duck Eggs Sunny-Side Up with Guanciale and Truffle Vinaigrette

I had the great fortune to attend a wedding this past weekend for my wife's sister Ashley in old Sturbridge Massachusetts. The ceremony was touching and we had a great time without any hangovers or food comas. Her new husband, Andrew, was my source for the duck eggs that I am going to be using in this next post. 

Andrew hooks me up with duck eggs every year once his prized flock at his farm starts to produce in the early spring. I tried them a few years ago and have been hooked ever since. They're obviously bigger than chicken eggs and have a slightly better flavor to my palette, although I wouldn't recommend baking with them. 

This appetizer is Babbo's version of the classic combo of bacon and eggs. It features homemade guanciale that I've been curing over the past month. Guanciale is kind of like an Italian bacon that is made from the jowl, or cheek, of the pig. Mario writes that it has a depth of flavor that is missing from traditional American bacon. 

This marks my first attempt at curing my own meat at home. It's a very Italian practice, delis and restaurants all over Italy always have meat curing and hanging from the ceiling. And it certainly fits the theme of nothing goes to waste. Curing preserves the meat, which was needed at a time when refrigeration was simply non-existent. But, if this goes well, I can totally see myself doing more of it in the future. Many modern restaurants in America are curing their own meat now. It's cheap, you can control what is and isn't in your salumi, and the opportunity to create something unique that no one else is doing is a great motivator to try it out. Plus, it's a great way to utilize those left-over less popular and miscellaneous parts of the animal.  

The hardest part though, like the preserved lemon recipe or making your own wine, is the long wait for the guanciale to be ready. In the recipe liner notes, Mario tells us that he makes fifty pounds of guanciale a week at Babbo. That's a lot considering the size of their kitchen. I'm not going to get that hog wild but I am eager to get started. 

Here are the pork cheeks:

My butcher had a lot of them and for $0.99/pound it's a steal!

To make the cure rub I mix sugar, salt, peppercorns, and thyme in a bowl. 

The jowls get coated very liberally with the rub. 

The jowls are then place in a non-reactive pan, covered with plastic wrap, and refrigerated for seven days. 

After a week the jowls are tied with butchers twine around their middle and are hung in a dry cool place for an additional three weeks. The area that you hang these should not be warmer than 60°. I have a mud room in the back of my house that isn't heated and has a door that I left the screen in to make sure the meat stayed cold enough. I also hung a garbage bag underneath them to catch any potential drippings that may have occurred. I have to thank my wife for being okay with my experiment and having to be greeted by pork every time she came home through the door from work. Once fully cured the jowls are ready to be sliced and used. 

Next on the ingredient list is the truffle vinaigrette that I need to make. It calls for canned truffle which I was able to find on Amazon.com (let's be honest don't they have everything?) by a company called Truffle Hunter. They're affordable and have a perfect pungent truffle aroma once opened. The black truffles and sherry vinegar are mixed in a bowl. 

Extra-virgin olive oil is slowly whisked in to finish the vinaigrette along with salt and pepper to taste. I'm following Mario's wishes and nonchalantly whisking the oil in to create a slightly 'broken' emulsion. 

The rest of the recipe is very easy and straightforward. I sliced the guanciale at work on the meat slicer to get thin, bacon-like pieces. I heat the guanciale in a sauté pan over medium heat until most of the fat has been rendered. When finished cooking, the guanciale is placed on a paper towel and the fat is discarded from the pan. 

In a large bowl, I add frisée, some olive oil, fresh lemon juice, and salt and pepper and make a quick salad. 

Then, using a nonstick pan, I melt butter over high heat until it stops foaming and crack a duck egg, cooking them sunny-side up. They take about four minutes to cook and then are seasoned with salt and pepper. In heat of the moment I forgot to take a picture of this step and I do apologize. 

I got some nice 'peasant' bread at the market that I will slice, cut on the bias, and use as toast points. 

I'm ready to plate. The salad gets plated in the center and topped with a duck egg, the guanciale gets placed around the center, and the truffle vinaigrette gets spooned around the plate. 

Wow. 

What a perfect appetizer. The duck egg was huge and paired perfectly with the truffle and guanciale, while the lemon juice that dressed the frisée cut through the fat in this dish to help balance things out. I mean, come on, homemade bacon, how could you not like it?

I kept this as an appetizer the night that I made this because I wanted to go guanciale-crazy, although there's nothing wrong with serving this for brunch. There's one more recipe in the cookbook the uses guanciale and while it was in my kitchen, I couldn't lose the chance to make that as well. Until next time...