duck confit

Okay, first a nerd-moment:
Whenever I go to write confit, I write config, just out of habit, being that I make love to computers for a living.. So I looked up ‘duck /config’ hoping it would yield something LOL, but only came up with ways to modify an obscure gaming script. meh.
Alright, </nerd-moment>.

Duck Confit:

Parts of the instructions here seem to be written by someone who has done this a thousand times, rather than for the the clueless beginner.. For example it is not stated to rinse the salt off and pat dry, yet other recipes appear quite specific about this. I spent a bit of time online trying to figure this out. Ignoring the orange zest and other flair, the basic instruction in the following video is fairly thorough: http://youtu.be/HyQCJu5TcJ0

Generally I use the term ‘butcher’ to mean ‘making a real mess of..’, so what do you call it when you mess up a perfectly well butchered piece of meat? The legs seemed a bit big – incorporating parts of the duck up to and including parts on the back bone, so I skill-lessly hacked them down to an appropriate looking size, before covering in salt for 36 hours [way longer than instructed] then rinsing and patting dry. They were noticeably dry and kindof tense.

I heated up the duck fat and perhaps left it heating a little long. When I poured it over the meat it immediately started sizzling and popping and changing the colour of the exposed meat. Next it all went into the oven. I’d thrown in the leftovers from my re-butchering then removed and ate them before letting it all cool. Super salty on the exposed bits. Undeniably unhealthy and delicious tasting.

The rest was left to cool then into the fridge.

moules normandes

Once again Anthony, you have me forking out 65 bucks for a bottle of liquor I am going to use an eggcup-full of in your recipe. ..and then lament this fact while guzzling the rest at my leisure.. Like the delicious Armagnac.. Man that stuff was good.

Starting out by sautéing mushrooms and bits of apple seemed an unlikely way to set out on a dish of mussels, but meh.. I had begun to put a dent in the Calvados by this stage and began to wonder about how the recipe calls for 3lb of mussels and I had roughly half that, and how halving the quantity of other ingredients doesn’t really work, for example if the liquid amount is halved it doesn’t fill up the pot to the correct ratio – it is not as if the mussels can be halved in size. I started thinking about how this is analogous to the Goldilocks effect in relation to life on earth, or how water might seem sticky to an ant, due to surface tension that we don’t notice.. I realised this was a digression I wouldn’t really have the space to explore fully when writing up this recipe..

It was around this time that I noticed that the recipe says to sauté the bacon until the fat has rendered, and set the bacon aside, but at no point does it come back to what next to do with the bacon. I ran the recipe past my flatmates who can vouch for this. Presumably this is a zen mechanism, or just to round out the smells in the kitchen. I figured this is all and well but I was going to just hurl the bacon in along with the cream and Calvados anyway. It turned out a pretty good addition.

In conclusion, this was unusual and delicious. But moules are great on their own, or kept as simple as possible. I much prefer moules marinières and moules à la portugaise.

preserved lemons II

Its been almost 2 months, so the lemons are well preserved. The smell – especially of the Cook the Books method – was very rich and lemony. These ones were submerged in liquid, whereas the Les Halles ones were liquid toward the bottom of the jar, fading into dirty snow at the top.

The Les Halles method resulted in a pronounced Coriander and Bay leaf taste in the lemons. Also with the drier conditions the lemon rinds are slightly firmer – the texture of a rind you would find in a chunky marmalade, or a lime pickle.

I guess depending on the purpose both styles would have their place but the plainer ones could be more versatile. Both ways were a success.

I thought a slice would go down well in a Dry Gin Martini, and it worked extremely well. I threw a piece in while mixing the drink, then ran a fresh slither around the rim of the glass before adding as a garnish.

poached pears in red wine

There’s something very romantic about this one and I’ve been looking forward to it since.. Since pears were last in season. One of the magic ingredients is juniper berries and it wasn’t until I put it to the good folk on the foodlovers.co.nz forum – who were very helpful – that I was able to pin down a source.

Again I was excited about upholding my notion of the essence of French cooking by casually tipping a good bottle of red into a pot, but couldn’t help shuddering at the thought of my bad experience with the leeky, winey, soupe au vin.

As each of my flatmates came home I heard them exclaim “Who’s making mulled wine?”. I served up a half pear with a wee bit of the sauce to all in attendance and the reception was very positive mmmmm’s from all.

The flavour combinations are perfect. The cinnamon and star anise work well, but it is a little harder to pinpoint the exact flavour of the juniper berries or pepper corns in this sweet context.

on becoming a celebrity

If I’m going to properly apprentice myself to Mr Bourdain I had better start working on my ego, use more filthy language, and become a celebrity. As a step in the getting famous direction I was interviewed by Jo on the ‘Does This Make My Arts Look Big’ radio show on Planet FM.

I like that I’m introduced on the back of a song called Computer Camp Love, and a bed of what sounds like the Amelie soundtrack.

It is hard listening to oneself without cringing and thinking “Oh my, oh my.. So awkward  ..hearing myself read my own writing.. with really terribly pronounced French in my New Zealand accent.”

Pretty cool though.

[EDIT: Click here for a direct link to the audio]

tomato salad

Finally a big handful of the tomatoes were ripe enough to throw this together.

Tomatoes, shallots and basil tossed in a vinaigrette and sprinkled with parsley. The take-away technique from today is setting the tomatoes and the shallots in separate colanders, sprinkling with salt, and leaving them for 30 minutes, before squeezing off excess juice.

For the shallots this really mellowed them out. I am yet to come to terms with discarding the tomato seeds and all that pulpy juice, but the end result is delicious nonetheless.

preserved lemons

A couple of weeks ago I attended and enjoyed a coastal Moroccan workshop at Cook The Books, where amongst all sorts of other mouth watering dishes we learned a similar lemon preserving method – I’m sure there is a variation for each kitchen in each tiny village in Morocco and elsewhere.

In terms of Les Halles Cookbook I’m confused as to which main dish this complements. Ive flicked back and forth through the book looking for a recipe where this is suggested as an accompaniment.. Has anyone out there read the book thoroughly enough to point me in the right direction on this? Davy I’m thinking of you here..

The Bourdain approach (without repeating the already short recipe verbatim) is to halve then segment – without separating – the lemons, mix loads of salt with peppercorns, bay leaf and the juice of several lemons then lay down salt mixture, then lemons, salt mixture.. until Mason Jars are full and seal.

The workshop method is to cut the lemons in a more immediately attractive fashion(above), fill with salt, then pack along with dry salt, into jars, coming back 3-4 days later to pour lemon juice over the softened mixture, fill to the top and reseal.
Since I don’t have any mason jars, both have been subject to glass jars. They’ve all been stewing away in a dark cupboard for 2 weeks. The Bourdain lemons are sitting in what resembles dirty snow, while the others are suspended in a yellowey brine. They will sit for a couple more weeks before I can comment on how tasty they may be.

asparagus & haricots verts salad

More blanching!

Im no stranger to asparagus when it is in season, usually sauteed or steamed, but this is the best I have ever prepared. Rapid boiling followed by rapid cooling is clearly a winning method. Gone is the crunchy, squeeky-on-the-teeth feeling, reaching more toward the consistency of tinned asparagus, without being mushy or slimy. Maybe ‘lightly tinned’ might be a good way of describing it.. or what about just ‘cooked perfectly’?

Peeling and segmenting the oranges in an attractive fashion was a wee bit time consuming, but not the dressing. Again simplicity wins with juice of a lemon, olive oil, salt, and white pepper. Only recently have I found white pepper, and when I did, it was on a supermarket shelf in an ordinary suburban supermarket. Does this mean it is an out of fashion ingredient used by old wives in their bean salads? Who could say. I can see how, if I had used white pepper here I could have avoided freckling the dish with black dots.

With ease of preparation, great looks on the table, and a suitably fancy french name, Asparagus and Haricots Verts Salad will be joining the table with those from other pages that have been repeated and have become part of my repertoire. The lemon in the dressing, and the segments of orange lend a refreshing citrussy – my flatmate Jo says “it tastes really ’70s” – flavour, offset by the salt and pepper and oil. Mmm mmm!

tomates

The recipe for the particularly French sounding ‘tomato salad’ specifies heirloom tomatoes. Anthony Bourdain goes so far as to say

“..if you cant get a good tomato, don’t make the damn dish”.

In the introduction section on “scoring the good stuff” he proclaims that “Nothing illustrates the chronic, delusionally determined drive toward mediocrity better than the tomato”, citing Italian restaurants that serve cardboard-like tomatoes out of season, before going into some detail on the benefits of acquainting oneself with local slow-food movements. Anthony is reluctant to subscribe to the notion of saving the world through sustainability or whatever perceived ambitions of the movement, but puts forth that the food really is better, so why not encourage your local grower, market, artisanal goat cheese maker, etc..
I reckon slow, local, independent produce really is better, AND what better place to make a difference than at the kitchen table. Two things that come to mind when thinking on this subject and that have really inspired me, are Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’, and the doucmentary ‘The Real Dirt on Farmer John’. You can watch the entire thing on youtube, but I recommend sitting back and watching it in better quality if you can find it.

I have 21 heirloom tomato plants growing in the back yard  – all descendants of a single tomato from last years harvest.. this guy:

Today’s project is to begin netting over this years crop before they start to ripen, fueling copious servings of Anthony Bourdain’s tomato salad and sparing none for the birds.

blueberries with lime sugar

Once the lime zest confit is made, this is real low hanging fruit. The first recipe in the book to take under an hour.. it took about 5 minutes. I didnt have any sour cream or crème fraîche to go with them but they were delicious as is. Super simple and very limey, sweet, minty, zingy blueberries.

Interesting that this is such a simple dessert, yet the accompanying photo in the book is a modification of the method. It clearly has chiffonaded lime zest (from the previous recipe) and appears to have been sprinkled with a crust of sugar before serving.

I’ll be making this one again before blueberry season is out.