duck confit

The Accidental Locavore’s Top Ten For 2011

by Anne Maxfield on December 30, 2011

Accidental Locavore Frank's Meatloaf

In the spirit of year-end round-ups, the Accidental Locavore offers up my top 10 list for 2011. The first half of the list are the posts you liked the best, the second half, my favorites.

  1. My husband Frank’s recipe for his amazing meatloaf. If you haven’t tried it yet, find a night when comfort food is a must-have and give it a try!
  2. Cooking on my Himalayan pink salt block. This makes me a little sad because the tomato season was cut so short this year, I never got to try tomatoes and mozzarella on the chilled salt block. However there are steaks (beef and beefsteak) in my future!
  3. The recipe for short ribs cooked in beer. Whether you do them in the oven or slow cooker, these are delicious and easy! If you’re one of the people who got a slow cooker for Christmas, break it in with this recipe.
  4. The Accidental Locavore’s virtual “throw-down” with Daniel Boulud. My first attempt at making merguez and the results?
  5. Pork chops with scalloped potatoes. From the “Cook-Along” series, this is a recipe best saved for February. Why? It’s a “hearty winter dish” and after a month or so, New Year’s resolutions are pretty much forgotten, right?

And the Locavore’s personal favorites?

  1. Accidental Locavore Duck Confit Shepherd's PieDuck confit shepherd’s pie. This is so delicious, a little healthy (kale) and a great excuse to make another batch of duck confit. Got a problem with that?
  2. Tomatoes as water balloons. These pet peeves from farmers at the Greenmarkets, made me realize how we all could brush-up on our farmer’s market etiquette. Pay attention all you corn shuckers out there!
  3. What happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene (this was written before the October blizzard). It’s important for all of us to understand how badly the farmers were affected and to do whatever we can to support them. Join a CSA, buy local and shop Greenmarkets or farm stands.
  4. On a more ironic note, Whole Foods 5-step program for chicken and other meats. While the Locavore supports sustainability and humanely-raised animals, how many toys my chicken had growing up can’t possibly affect the flavor of the end product. And if anyone out there can tell the difference between a #1 chicken and a #5, please let me know!
  5. And because it’s one of my favorite stories that was just waiting for the proper time to be told, the tale of the WafflePro 800.

Do you have a favorite that I might have forgotten? Here’s to a happy,  healthy and prosperous 2012!

 

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Accidental Locavore: One Man’s Comfort Food is Another’s Confit

by Anne Maxfield on December 16, 2011

Accidental Locavore Duck Confit with Polenta

Silken legs turning into succulent thighs. A Rockette? No, how about the duck confit the Accidental Locavore made the other night? This was so good that once I started crisping them up, I started tasting them and once I started tasting them…

The secret? Sous-vide. If you’re not familiar with sous-vide, it’s a way of cooking something for a long time in simmering water. Think sophisticated boil-in-a-bag, but oh, so much better!

To start: the Locavore prepared a couple of duck legs with a dry rub and let them sit overnight in the fridge. The next day, after a quick peek at Thomas Keller’s Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide, I rinsed them thoroughly, patted them dry and put them in a vacuum bag with a nice coating of duck fat. Vacuum sealed them and put them in a water bath in my slow cooker. Eight hours later, tender to the touch, they were done.

The next night for dinner, I crisped up my duck leg (nibbling all the while). While that was cooking, I made some polenta with some local stone ground corn meal. To add a note of bitterness to the meal and maybe a bit of healthy eating, the Locavore steamed some broccolini (wanted broccoli rabe, but there was none to be found in three local markets, what’s up with that?) and after the duck was nicely crisped, tossed the broccolini  in the pan with the remaining fat and some sliced garlic for a couple of minutes.

The result? Amazing! There was the lusciousness of the duck against the great texture of the polenta, with the slight bite of the broccolini. Cooking it sous-vide really brought the texture of the confit to another level. The last batch I made was good, but didn’t have the melt-in-your-mouth scrumptiousness of this one. Another advantage? It didn’t take nearly as much duck fat as the traditional way and when it was done and cooled, the fat and the jelly part (needed for rillettes, stay tuned) separated cleanly.

What’s next? Certainly more duck confit! But now the Accidental Locavore is really curious to play with some more food sous-vide. Anyone out there have any sous-vide favorites?

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Duck Confit Shepherd’s Pie for the Charcutepalooza October Challenge

by Anne Maxfield on October 14, 2011

Accidental Locavore Duck Confit Shepherds Pie

What makes the difference between a pot pie and a shepherd’s pie*? And why should we care? Ever since the Accidental Locavore got a set of small gratin pans, I’ve been entranced with the idea of individual gratins, Parmesans, pies etc. It works on the same principal as wrapping something in parchment: everyone gets a cute little dish with yummy food in front of them.

For the October Charcutepalooza challenge, we were tasked with making confits, rilettes or galantines. Now, the Accidental Locavore doesn’t need much arm-twisting to poach (almost anything) in fat for a long period of time. Our friends and cohorts at D’Artagnan soon had me outfitted with eight massive Moulard duck legs and a corresponding amount of duck fat. I really want to give a shout-out to them. Not only do they make a terrific (local) product, but everyone there is so immensely helpful! If you should need an excuse to order something from them the cassoulet kit is scrumptious…bonus, it feeds twelve of your hungriest friends.

After the confit was made, the Locavore decided to turn it into what should have been a great fall dish; duck confit shephard’s pie. Only problem, the weather had reverted back to summer, but we Charcutepalooza folk are made of stronger stuff. A quick invite to some of our favorite tasters, and it was time to transform duck confit into shepherd’s pie. The beauty of it is that you just have to construct the layers, assemble it and pop it into the oven to warm (for the recipe: click here). My version starts with a layer of kale, sautéed in duck fat and garlic, then a layer of shredded duck meat from the confit, topped with mashed corolla or Yukon Gold potatoes, finished with grated cheese (last night a great aged Gruyere from Murray’s) and garnished with a duck skin crackling. Because my husband had commented the last time that it would be better with some peas mixed in, I added peas to the mashed potatoes on two of the servings. As you can see, a nice artery-clogging dish (that’s why the kale, it’s a super-food).

The verdict? What’s not to like? Frank was very pleased with the addition of the peas, however “to make it perfect, the mashed potatoes needed to be creamier”. Caught me on that one, didn’t have my usual fridge full of heavy cream, crème fraiche or sour cream, so tossed some Greek yogurt in to enrich the potatoes…oops. Our friends really liked it and except for the Accidental Locavore (who had been busy earlier, making sure all the components, like the duck cracklings, tasted great), there were clean, cute, little gratin pans all around.

With some of the remaining confit, I’m going to make rilettes. The ones they serve at Artisanal are a particular favorite, so if they’re reading, or someone knows the recipe, please share! What’s your favorite way to serve or eat, duck confit?

*Shepherd’s pie has a mashed potato topping, pot pie has a traditional pie crust

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Cassoulet, the French Take on Pork and Beans, Only so Much Better!

by Anne Maxfield on January 31, 2011

Accidental Locavore Cassoulet

Cassoulet is a classic French dish of either duck or goose confit, sausages, and beans. It’s a great example of a simple dish, riffs on pork and beans taken to another level. The Accidental Locavore recently got an offer from D’Artagnan for 20% off their cassoulet kit. Since my parents were supposed to be coming for the weekend, it looked like a good weekend cooking project, not to mention a terrific January dinner, so why not? In between snow storms, a huge, really huge, box arrived from D’Artagnan. In it, beautifully packaged, was everything you need to put together a cassoulet dinner. Part of what makes making cassoulet difficult (in this country anyway), is assembling all the ingredients, but now that was all done, and all that was needed was a hungry audience. A very hungry audience. For in my ordering excitement, I never read the fine print, and had no idea that this cassoulet kit, actually fed twelve people!

Unfortunately, my parents have been snowed in in Boston for the past, let’s say, month, so I decided to round up a bunch of the best eaters I know and have a cassoulet party here in the city. D’Artagnan really makes it easy, the only thing I needed to buy was a carrot. You soak the beans the night before, cook them for an hour with a couple of onions, the aforementioned carrot, and a bouquet garni, and then move into constructing the cassoulet. A layer of beans goes in the bottom of a very large casserole, followed by the duck confit, some sliced garlic sausage, pork ventreche (fatback French style), and some duck sausage. Top with the rest of the beans, and pour over a mix of duck demi-glace diluted in water, cover and cook for about 2 hours in a low oven. You can’t imagine how good it smelled.

So my hungry friends schlepped through the remnants of yet another snow storm, and devoured the cassoulet, the braised leeks, a lovely spinach salad my friend Holly brought, and many bottles of wine. For desert Laura made a warm apple tart, and Robin brought an amazing chocolate cake. It was a fun dinner, a delicious meal, and the perfect thing for a snowy January night. I’d order another one from D’Artagnan in a heartbeat, it’s a great way to entertain.

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Cook-Along: Recipe for Duck Confit With Brussels Sprouts

January 14, 2011

This week’s cook-along recipe is for duck confit with Brussels sprouts adapted from Bouchon by Thomas Keller. Because of some over enthusiastic shopping on Gilt Groupe in the Accidental Locavore’s refrigerator were a lot of local Hudson Valley duck legs confit. You can make your own, or get them from Hudson Valley Fois Gras, or [...]

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Cook-Along With the Accidental Locavore: How it Works

January 10, 2011
Thumbnail image for Cook-Along With the Accidental Locavore: How it Works

What’s a cook-along? For the Accidental Locavore it’s a chance to use some of the many cookbooks I’ve collected over the years. Most of them have in fact been opened, but probably the majority have never been cooked from. So this year, inspired by French Fridays with Dorrie, I’ve decided once a week, to break [...]

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