The Duck Eggs of LTD Farm

Kate NG Sommers / Heavy Table

Breakfast: The meal of champions. As dietitians, TV personalities, and your mother have told us our entire lives, it is, in fact, the most important meal of the day. Until Kellogg’s came around in the late 1800’s with their fancy new “corn flakes,” daily breakfast resembled what most modern folks consider a weekend treat: eggs, toast, and (insert your choice of meat here). Surely at the diner they’ll ask how you like your eggs cooked, but when was the last time you were asked if you had a preference as to what animal produced the eggs in the first place?

Khaiti Kahleck at LTD Farm is living to give you that option. For the past few years, Kahleck has been raising a flock of ducks on her small farm in Osceola, WI. Everything came together for Kahleck after she ate her first duck egg: “It was just so creamy and delicious.” Now she offers her farm’s eggs through a CSA, along with homemade goat milk soaps, free range turkeys, and processed ducklings. LTD duck eggs are available at Seward Co-Op and Mississippi Market’s W 7th St location; to learn more about mix-and-match CSA offerings, visit the Seward Co-Op CSA fair on Saturday, April 24 from 11am-3pm.

Kate NG Sommers / Heavy Table

If you’re used to a good farm raised chicken egg, the flavor of a duck egg isn’t radically different, but the texture is something to be reckoned with. Fried over easy, the over sized yolk is sticky, thick, and gooey beyond compare. One will certainly be enough for your piece of toast for Saturday breakfast and will keep you sated until lunch. Scrambled, go with two, needing nothing but a quick whisk of the fork, a dash of salt, and a non-stick pan coated in butter (local of course). The result is as fluffy as a marshmallow and puts chickens to shame. For dinner, go with a traditional spaghetti carbonara.

Duck Egg Spaghetti Carbonara
Serves 4

1 lb pasta
4 duck eggs, separated
½ lb guanciale cut into ½ in cubes (pancetta or even bacon can be an adequate substitute)
½ c pasta water, reserved
cayenne as needed
chopped Italian flat leaf parsley
1 c freshly grated parmigiano reggiano or comparable local cheese.

Cook the pasta according to package until al dente. Set aside. Meanwhile, in a large saute pan, saute guanciale until chewy, but not quite crisp. Add drained pasta to the pan and toss to coat.  Add the pasta water, egg whites and Parmesan cheese, toss well until coated.

Divide pasta equally between four plates, creating a well in the center.  Place one egg yolk in the center of each dish, and serve immediately.  Garnish with parsley and cayenne pepper according to taste.

Kate NG Sommers / Heavy Table

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