Thursday, June 22, 2006

Duck redux

Well, as I was saying, I made duck confit last month. After four weeks, it was time to try it out. So I heated an iron skillet in the oven at 450 degrees and put four legs in there to crisp up. Then I put them aside, drained off some of the fat that had melted off the legs, and put in two bunches of chopped arugula with half a chopped sweet onion. Let the heat of the pan cook it, and finished it with a little sherry vinegar. (Not an original idea -- a riff on one from Alton Brown.) The bitter/sour of the greens were a great offset to the richness of the duck. And the duck -- ohmygawd. I could eat that every day! Beside the word "savory" in the dictionary is a picture of that duck. I am SO pleased with how that turned out. Juicy, seasonings just right, my mouth waters again to think on it. Drank a 1999 Milestone Merlot from Columbia Winery. Not something we'd been fond of last year when we tasted it before, but an extra year really softened it up and it was a great match. Still dancing around the chaos in the kitchen and the rest of the condo, but another day of touch-up painting and I can pretty much move everything back into the kitchen and go back to normal life in there. However --- now I don't have a bedroom for a couple of days because the paint we're using in there requires three coats+ to cover (it's a dark wine red). So the chaos continues for a while longer. Our painter just called me in to see the master bath, it's now rose pink and it's beautiful. Before it was sort of the color of a flesh-colored crayon. Now -- it pops.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I'm a Hungarian boy from a little city, next to Budapest. Even I couldn't read your lines, but I'd like it tomorrow.:(
If you would like to speak with a student, who is in his 5th yrs of a University...
Happy friday for you.
ps.: sorry for my English.