a culinary miscellany

Hello all, and a very happy new year! We've just had a lovely 2 weeks wherein my Mum and Dad came and visited us from Yorkshire! They had good weather, and we ate and drank like it was christmas. Now I'm a little sad, they have gone away, and my stomach is looking forward to a week of light, vegetarian food to recover!

Meanwhile, here are some highlights from the last few days:

1: The confit of duck (see previous post) cooked up beautifully!

All I can say is: I must do it again soon; very succulent, very moreish, and probably shortening my life by a day or 2. But as long as it shortens the far end of it, I'm happy with that.

2: Kamakura is a restaurant in Russell, and, although it is a lovely place, we have omitted to go there for nearly 2 years. I can't think why. We took the foot ferry from Paihia, a brief journey guaranteed to make the meal feel like a holiday. The weather was sublime, and the sunset dramatic.

And the food was even better than I remembered; I had a salad of soft-shell crab with asian greens and sesame dressing,

followed by a remarkable shoulder of lamb slow-cooked in duck fat.

And lo! It was even better than the confit of duck! I have to try this at home. Everyone's meal was of an equally good calibre, and we will definitely be back.

3:. We took Mum and Dad to Auckland to stay overnight and than take them to the airport today. This involved a lengthy and lovely lunch at the Crystal Harbour chinese restaurant on the viaduct. Every lunchtime they do Yum Cha, and it was really good, and, as usual, we ordered too much. The evening saw us at Kermadec, also on the viaduct and the meal there was brilliant; The seared tataki yellowfin tuna was just right, and the pork belly was excellent, too.

Mum and dad had a really lovely salmon tartare, and the grilled snapper that LW had and the grilled bluenose cod Dad had were sensational.

And so, back home, where, for want of something a little simpler, LW picked some of the corn-cobs from the veggie garden. Steamed, buttered and salted it was definitely the sweetest corn we've ever had. Even raw it was superb.

Confit of Duck

There may be a theme emerging. Fatty, unctuous meats cooked slowly and often more than once. This is no coincidence. Confit of duck is one of my favourite things in the world of food; the first thing I look for on a restaurant menu, and one of the reasons for which I love the south-west of France so much. (Even if it is a little distance from here...)

And yet, I've never cooked a confit of duck (nor any other meat for that matter), so I thought I'd better start somewhere, and christmas seemed a better place than most. This year, LW and I are going to spend christmas afternoon with our good friends with whom we share soup and sandwiches over the winter months. We're sharing the cooking, and then we shall, in traditional style, eat too much, and snooze...

So to the confit. 2 days ago, I butchered two ducks into portions: 4 legs, 8 pieces of breast and wing.

I then thoroughly seasoned the meat with a dry rub of salt (loads) pepper, thyme, bayleaf and garlic. The pieces were then packed into a baking dish and allowed to marinade for 48 hrs in the fridge.

Today, I batch fried the pieces in a little oil to brown the surfaces of the meat and skin.

Meanwhile, in a low oven (140 degC) I melted my entire collection of duck fat. This was about 1.5 litres of it, including the fat rendered from the pieces whilst I browned them.

Once the browning was done, I packed the pieces as tightly as I could into the baking dish full of melted duck fat (it nearly covered them)

and put the whole lot in said low oven for 2 hours, at which point the meat should be nearly falling off the bone (but not quite). Any portions that were not completely covered by fat need turning 2-3 times during the process.

This is as far as I have gone as I write.

The next stage will be to allow the whole lot to cool, and then pack it into sterile preserving jars until we get hungry. They'll keep like this for months if necessary, but it's unlikely that any will last as long as that due to the seductive power of the canard.

To cook, the meat simply needs cooking very hot in an oven for another 5 minutes until the skin is frispy. The fat can be recycled for another day. Needless to say, none of it goes to waste; it's the best thing in the known universe.

Photos will be posted. Duck will be eaten, and, in related news, we have several ducklings running around the garden, blissfully unaware of their rather tenuous future. Forage, my pretty ones, live lives of reckless joy...