A SEAT AT THE TABLE

Geographically speaking, the South Pasadena kitchen where Craig Strong is cooking this December afternoon is only a few miles from the elaborately outfitted kitchen and Michelin-starred white-tablecloth dining room of the Langham, Huntington Hotel & Spa -- previously Pasadena’s Ritz-Carlton -- where he’s been chef de cuisine for the last eight years. But in other ways, Strong is a world away, the distance more conceptual, even emotional, than geographic.

This is downtime, a rare day off during the holidays, a feast cooked purely for the fun of it to celebrate both the season and the gift of time with friends and family.

“Take a traditional meal and put a twist on it,” is how Strong describes his holiday dinner, a menu centered around an old-fashioned roast duck but marked by a faintly Asian spice route of star anise and cardamom, honey, cinnamon and citrus.

Strong checks on a roasting duck the color of mahogany, then stirs a honey gastrique sauce in the copper pot his friend (and Langham maitre d’) Robert Hartstein carried back from Paris in his luggage years ago. He gives his fiancee (“I can say that now! We got engaged three weeks ago”), Lissa Pallo, pointers on how to tie a bouquet garni to decorate a turnip-potato gratin while he arranges thin slices of fresh ginger around a pan of seared bok choy.

Classical eye

The bouquet of bay leaf and thyme sprigs is a pretty, aesthetic touch more than a flavor signal -- the gratin is subtly laced with star anise. It’s also a cheffy gesture that represents how Strong thinks about food: classically, with an attention to detail and technique that provides the foundation for simple meals at home as well as for the tasting menus (operatic, inspired) he orchestrates at the Dining Room.

Pallo moves off to play with Hartstein’s two small children, 15-month-old Ava and 3 1/2 -year-old Robbie, who has made a fishing rod with a large rubber spatula and kitchen twine. Hartstein fashions an ad hoc bib from a dish towel (Hartstein also trained as a chef) for Ava; his wife, Jennifer, a pediatrician, adds a finishing touch to the dinner table.

Strong begins dicing kumquats in the Hartsteins’ kitchen, flicking the little seeds to the side of the cutting board with the tip of an old chef’s knife.

“I love kumquats; they remind me of when I was a kid,” says Strong, who lived in Camarillo and El Cajon, outside of San Diego, until he was 15. “When we lived in Camarillo, we had kumquat trees, Meyer lemon trees, loquats. There were pomegranates up the street. I’d stuff my shirt with them and then ride away on my bike. The lady hated us.”

Another neighbor grew sugar cane, which he’d trade for his mother’s chocolate chip cookies. Larceny, it seems, only applied to pomegranates.

An early passion

Strong grew up as one of eight kids and learned how to cook at an early age from his mother and grandmother. His mother not only made barter-quality cookies but also baked bread. “She ground the wheat for the bread she’d bake herself,” he says.

Strong’s father was president of a drip irrigation company, so he installed a system in the family vegetable garden, which was Strong’s project. “My older brothers mowed the lawn; I pulled weeds” -- and grew tomatoes and zucchini, the first subjects of his culinary experiments.

In public high school in Salt Lake City, where his family moved when he was 15, Strong took cooking classes (“I’d make chicken cordon bleu and rice pilaf; back then I thought that was pretty cool”) and apprenticed to a pastry chef at a local restaurant. At 19, he went to culinary school, L’Academie de Cuisine near Washington, D.C., and then moved to Philadelphia to work at the Ritz-Carlton.

Back in the kitchen, Strong whips cream into soft peaks, then folds in a ganache of melted chocolate and cardamom-infused cream to make a milk chocolate mousse. He recounts how he made a pie out of the mousse for Thanksgiving, showing Pallo’s 9-year-old niece how to work the simple recipe: equal weights of chocolate, warm cream and whipped cream.

This same proportion works for a luxurious foie gras mousse Strong makes at the Langham. “You take out the chocolate and use foie. A little secret.”

He adds layers of purchased pound cake, chopped chocolate, slices of banana and fresh blueberries and raspberries, alternating layers with the chocolate mousse as one would a trifle. (“At my house, we got to lick the bowl; we still do.”) Sprigs of chocolate mint dot the top.

Another reason Strong likes this recipe is because it’s so adaptable: One night at the Langham, he layered the mousse with delicate chocolate craquantes (pearl-size chocolate-covered rice candies) and perfectly cut squares of his own homemade pound cake, then piped chantilly cream stars on the top, alternating them in concentric circles around fresh berries. Sometimes he makes the mousse in individual cups; other times, it’s one big family-sized bowl.

“I have other chocolate mousse recipes -- you have eggs, you have sabayon -- they’re much more complicated,” Strong says. “I like this better; sometimes simplicity is best.”

Cultural infusion

While he was cooking at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta, where he’d moved after three years at Philadelphia’s Ritz-Carlton, Strong was thinking about Europe. “The chef was trying to get me to go to France, but I couldn’t get a work visa.” Then a chef whom Strong had met while staging in Atlanta called from a restaurant in Barcelona, Spain, owned by the Ritz-Carlton, saying his sous chef had quit and asking Strong to come over and take his spot.

Strong was in Barcelona for two years, learning how to cook with olive oil instead of butter (courtesy of his classical culinary training), and learning how to speak Spanish and a smattering of Catalan.

“If I’d use butter and cream with fish, they’d say, ‘What’s that French stuff?’ ” he says. “It taught me how to do different things.”

The duck comes out of the oven and rests for a while on the counter before he cuts it with quick precision. “The thing about all birds is that you want the skin crispy,” says Strong. He says that in Atlanta he’d sear ducks by rotating them constantly in a hot saute pan -- a huge fork stuck into the bird -- like a manual rotisserie. They never went into the oven.

Strong (who finishes his duck in the oven) takes a deep breath. “Your house starts to smell like spices -- the cardamom, the nutmeg, the cinnamon -- if you’re cooking for the holidays, you want to smell spice.”

The gastrique reduced (the amber of the honeyed sauce matches the color of the old copper pan), Strong drops in a nub of butter and the sliced kumquats. “It’s basically duck a l’orange,” he says, stirring. “I wanted a sauce that didn’t have veal stock. We make it once a week at the restaurant, but that’s kind of crazy at home. What you want is a combination of things that are a little exotic but that you can get at Vons.”

While Strong is seeding pomegranates to garnish a simple kabocha squash soup (“Soup!” yells toddler Robbie, who promptly decides to create his own from water, berries and a small mountain of fresh thyme), Pallo comes back into the kitchen to get some of the fruit for the table. An actress whose mother is from Monterey, Mexico, Pallo watches her fiance delicately remove the garnet seeds from their intricate housings. “I grew up on a farm in Fresno; we’d just throw them on the ground,” she says.

Strong sprinkles a few spiced pecans atop the warm soup and pours the finished gastrique -- the kumquats like disks of bright gold -- into a tiny copper pot for serving. “I’m not going to spend the whole day in the kitchen,” says Strong about the short time he has off (the Langham is open throughout the holidays). “When you’re entertaining at home, it’s about the food -- but it’s also about spending time with the people.”

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amy.scattergood@latimes.com

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BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX

Roasted duck with kumquat sauce

Total time: 45 minutes plus 2 hours roasting time for the duck

Servings: 6

Note: Adapted from Craig Strong, chef de cuisine at the Langham, Huntington Hotel & Spa.

1 (4 1/2 pound) duck, washed and dried

Salt

Pepper

2 stalks celery, diced

1 onion, diced

2 cinnamon sticks

2 star anise

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup sherry vinegar

2 cups orange juice

1 tablespoon butter

10 kumquats, each sliced crosswise into 1/8 -inch thick slices

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Prepare the duck: Poke the skin all over the duck with a fork. Season the duck all over with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and one-fourth teaspoon pepper, rubbing the seasoning over the skin.

3. In a small bowl, stir together the celery, onion, cinnamon sticks, star anise and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Stuff the mixture into the cavity of the duck and tie the legs together with the tail to prevent the stuffing from falling out.

4. Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat and add the remaining tablespoon oil. Brown the duck, turning every few minutes to color each side evenly and well, about 20 minutes total.

5. Place the duck and any juices in a baking pan and roast, basting every 15 minutes, until the juices run clear when you prick the thigh, about 2 hours.

6. Remove the duck and set aside to rest 20 to 30 minutes before carving.

7. While the duck is resting, make the kumquat sauce. Place the honey in a 2-quart heavy-bottom saucepan over high heat. Bring the honey to a boil and cook just until it begins to darken and caramelize. Immediately remove the pan from heat and add the vinegar and orange juice, stirring to combine. Cook over medium heat until the liquid is reduced by three-fourths, 20 to 25 minutes. Stir in the butter and kumquat slices and simmer gently for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to allow the flavors to marry. Remove from heat and serve with the duck.

Each of 6 servings: 621 calories; 27 grams protein; 25 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams fiber; 46 grams fat; 15 grams saturated fat; 120 mg. cholesterol; 667 mg. sodium.

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Turnip-potato gratin

Total time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Servings: 12

Note: Adapted from Craig Strong, chef de cuisine at the Langham, Huntington Hotel & Spa.

3 cups heavy cream

2 whole star anise

2 pounds turnips

4 pounds potatoes

1 teaspoon salt, divided

1/4 teaspoon pepper, divided

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a small sauce pan, bring the cream and star anise to a boil, then remove from heat. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

2. While the cream cools, peel the turnips and potatoes and cut each crosswise into slices one-eighth inch thick. Place the sliced turnips and potatoes in separate bowls. Strain and discard the star anise from the cream. Divide the cream evenly, pouring it over the turnips and potatoes, tossing to coat.

3. Butter or grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Arrange one layer of the potatoes in the bottom of the dish, overlapping them slightly (you might not use all of the potatoes; reserve any extra for an additional layer). Season with one-half teaspoon salt and one-eighth teaspoon pepper. Repeat with a layer of turnips and season with the remaining salt and pepper. Continue with an additional layer of potatoes if any are left, but do not season.

4. Pour the cream from the bowls over the vegetables and cover the dish with foil. Bake, covered, for 45 minutes.

5. Remove the foil cover and continue baking until the top layer of vegetables is browned, 15 to 25 minutes. Remove and cool slightly before serving.

Each serving: 331 calories; 4 grams protein; 31 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams fiber; 22 grams fat; 14 grams saturated fat; 82 mg. cholesterol; 263 mg. sodium.

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Kabocha squash soup with pomegranate seeds and spicy candied pecans

Total time: 40 minutes

Servings: 6 to 8

Note: Adapted from Craig Strong, chef de cuisine, the Langham, Huntington Hotel & Spa. This recipe requires the use of a candy thermometer (or a thermometer reaching 265 degrees).

1 tablespoon butter

1 onion, finely diced

1 (2 1/2 pound) kabocha squash, peeled, cleaned and diced into 3/4 -inch pieces

3 cups chicken broth

2 cups heavy cream

Salt

Pepper

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1 cup pecan halves

1/8 teaspoon espelette or cayenne pepper, or to taste

1/2 cup pomegranate seeds

1. Heat a 4-quart sauce pan or small pot over low heat. Add the butter and onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent, 3 to 5 minutes.

2. Stir in the squash, broth and cream, and season with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and one-fourth teaspoon pepper. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook, loosely covered, until the squash is tender, about 20 minutes.

3. Puree the soup in a blender, or using an immersion blender, and pass through a strainer to remove any remaining solids. You should have about 9 cups soup. Set aside in a warm place until ready to serve.

4. While the soup is cooking, candy the pecans. Place the sugar and water in a small saucepan, stirring to moisten all of the sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat and cook, evaporating the water and cooking the sugar, until a thermometer inserted in the liquid reads 265 degrees (hard ball stage for sugar), 10 to 12 minutes. Immediately remove from heat.

5. Add the pecans and pepper powder to the sugar and stir with a wooden spoon until cool. The sugar will crystallize (or seize) as it cools, forming a cloudy hard coating around the nuts; this is fine.

6. When the nuts have cooled, heat a clean, medium pan over moderate heat. Stir in the crystallized nuts and stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar coating on each nut caramelizes. Remove from heat and allow the caramelized nuts to cool on a sheet of parchment paper.

7. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve garnished with a small handful of spiced candied pecans and a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds.

Each of 8 servings: 411 calories; 5 grams protein; 28 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams fiber; 33 grams fat; 16 grams saturated fat; 85 mg. cholesterol; 609 mg. sodium.

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Chocolate cardamom mousse with pound cake and raspberries

Total time: 35 minutes, plus cooling and chilling times

Servings: 12 to 16

Note: Adapted from Craig Strong, chef de cuisine at the Langham, Huntington Hotel & Spa. The fruit listed below can be replaced with the fruit of your choice. Assemble the mousse no more than three hours before serving so the mousse does not over-thicken and the fruit does not discolor.

4 cups heavy cream, divided

1 tablespoon cardamom seeds

1 pound milk chocolate, chopped

1 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 pound cake, sliced into 1/2 -inch slices and crusts removed

1 pint raspberries

1 pint blueberries

1 banana, peeled and sliced crosswise into 1/4 -inch slices

1. In a medium, heavy-bottom saucepan, bring 2 cups of cream to a boil with the cardamom seeds. Remove from heat, cover the top of the pan with plastic wrap and allow to steep for 10 minutes. Remove the plastic and bring the cream to a boil again. Remove from heat and strain the seeds.

2. Place the milk chocolate in a medium bowl. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and stir gently to combine, melting the chocolate and incorporating with the cream. Cool the mixture to room temperature (it is important that the chocolate be at room temperature before continuing with the recipe; the chocolate can be neither too hot nor too cold).

3. When the melted chocolate has come to room temperature, whip the remaining 2 cups of heavy cream to soft peaks (be careful not to over-beat). Gently fold one-third of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the remaining two-thirds to form a mousse. The mousse will be very loose at this point; it will thicken as the assembled dessert chills.

4. Gently fold the chopped bittersweet chocolate into the mousse and set aside.

5. Assemble the dessert: Place one-third of the mousse in the bottom of a trifle dish or decorative bowl. Top the mousse with a layer of sliced pound cake (4 to 5 slices). Add one-third each of the raspberries, blueberries and sliced banana.

6. Repeat with a second layer of mousse, topped with the remaining pound cake and another third of the fruit. Top with the final third of the mousse, decorating the top of the mousse with the remaining fruit.

7. Place the mousse, uncovered, in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours to thicken and chill. To serve, scoop the mousse into bowls.Each of 16 servings: 543 calories; 6 grams protein; 47 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams fiber; 39 grams fat; 21 grams saturated fat; 105 mg. cholesterol; 162 mg. sodium.