Toast

Strong Cheese

I never knew. It isn't even actually a recipe, but it turns out to be a specific process called "Fromage Fort", traditional and French. I've been making this multi-purpose cheesy thing for some time, and now I have a name for it-thanks to Jacques Pepin. His great big coffee table book,Traditions and Rituals of a Cook, is not only very pretty, but actually full of good information, recipes, and engaging stories.

M. Pepin's father's process for this appetizer/condiment/supper dish is more picturesque than my own. When J. Pepin was a child, his family did not have a fridge. Perishable food was stored in a "Garde Manger", which, chez Pepin, was essentially a wooden box, kept in the coolest possible spot. The dried out ends of cheeses accumulated there, along with everything else that had to be chilled.

When the urge struck him, Pepin Sr. would sort out the odd bits of leftover cheese of all sorts, and trim off any moldy spots. He cut it all up into a covered container, ladled some hot soup over it, and left it for days to soften. Once it was softened, he'd mash it all up with a little wine and some garlic, pack it into a crock, and it was ready to go- as a topping with crackers, baked in little mini-crocks for a first course, or spread on baguette slices and toasted. You can make a toasted panini thing, layering it with ham between two slices, and cooking it with a press, possibly dipping the sandwich in beaten egg before toasting, for extra fanciness.I especially like to munch my version, plain, with radishes.

I would be far too cowardly for this original method, which, though perhaps more flavorful than the modern version, fills my brain, however unjustly, with images of festering, possibly deadly itty bitty organisms. I note that Pepin Jr. and his wife currently use a food processor, which is also my weapon of choice. This eliminates the necessity for prolonged stewing.

Basically all you have to do is put your assorted leftover cheese bits*- hard and soft, in a food processor with some chopped garlic cloves- a little pepper and a bit of dijon mustard if you like, and process it with enough dry white wine to make a thick paste. The amount of wine you need will vary, depending on the ratio of hard to soft cheese. Pack it in a crock or two, and refrigerate for a day or so to let the flavors settle , and then you are set to go.

You can freeze this stuff, and it keeps quite well in the fridge, too. Toasted, baked, or just spread on a bit of crusty bread, it's a nice thing to have around. And, you know,it's making something out of nothing. Waste Not, Want Not.

Not really a recipe, as you can see. And it is very likely that you have already made something similar. This is the sort of thing that I like to be told about myself, just ordinary kitchen sense really. We can happen upon these ideas from just hanging around a kitchen, or read about them. A friend can tell us something nice that they do with their leftovers, and especially if is simple, it might be of lasting use. I like these sorts of ideas even better than the best of special recipes. Not that there is anything wrong with the latter.

*I would not include an actual parmesan rind, as these are too valuable to be lost in the mix-one dried out parm rind adds so much pizazzz to a pot of minestrone or potato soup.

Election Night Curry

I'm taking a vacation day on Wednesday so that I don't have to wake up for work, since I suspect any effort to go to sleep at a reasonable hour Tuesday night would be doomed. I am so anxious about the election that I can work up a sweat reading the paper, and I have begun to address audible comments to televised news and punditry, with only the cats to hear me.

I in no way presume that anyone is interested in my position on this contest, but lest you think me evasive or coy- I'm happy to tell you that I (enthusiastically) support Barack Obama. I'm not going to talk about the issues here. It isn't that I think it would be somehow wrong to do so, but rather that I am already way too keyed up, and I'm pretty sure the only possible effect of airing my views in any detail would be further angst on my part, and maybe boredom on yours. Apparently there are still a substantial number of undecided voters. The mind boggles. I can't imagine what they want to hear, or what they are waiting for.

In any event, if you are, as I am, planning a Tuesday evening, after voting, wrapped in an afghan in front of the tube, clutching a bowl of some sort of comfort food, and a spoon (or chopsticks), you may have been, as I was, intrigued by the recipe in the Times Magazine last weekend. The article discussed Katsu Curry, a specialty of Go Go Curry restaurants. This Japanese (! curry?) chain now has a few outposts in New York, which are proving popular.

Katsu curry is, "a comfort food, an energy food, a power food, a guilty pleasure," says Miyamori, the proprietor of Go Go.. It is "British Indian food as imagined by excited Japenese and cooked in the United States a hundred years later," per Sam Sifton, who wrote the article. As he commends it for televised football viewing and as it can be served layered in individual, personal bowls, it sounded just the thing to me. And really, the bowl arrangement is best. I've got it spread out a bit here, so you can see all the parts- but layered is nicest- and most efficient for living room consumption
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The dish consists of rice, topped with a fruity pork curry, and further topped with strips of fried, panko encrusted pork chops, a handful of shredded cabbage, and a dribble of Tonkansu "fruit and vegetable" sauce.* Sound yummy? I picked up the S&B Japanese curry powder* and the Tonkatsu sauce* at the Asian grocery in the Strip at lunchtime on Thursday, and I was pretty sure this was going to be the meal in question. I was so certain that I dragged an eclectic bag of groceries to and home from post-work theater-going (August Wilson's last play, "Radio Golf"- and a terrific performance it was, too), just so I could try it out this weekend.

To avoid disappointment, (I do NOT want to suffer from disappointments of any kind, if at all avoidable, on Tuesday) I thought I'd have a dry run ahead of time, so here you are. A little research revealed that there are also chicken versions of this curry, which was good, because I had ground chicken, and no ground pork. Also, I oven- fried the pork chops, rather than deep frying them, partly out of nutrition guilt, but mostly because I didn't fancy dealing with smoky fat..laziness, more than anything. Also- sue me- I used basmanti rice rather than short-grain Japanese rice, because I like it better- especially with curry. Anyhow, the curry keeps, and I will reheat it and cook it up for election night, making another pork chop to slice up then.

This is really just the thing for the purpose- invigorating to the fingertips, strong and sustaining..it suits me fine- and no doubt would also work for the football viewer. Here are the instructions- as minimally altered by Yrs Truly -based mostly on availability of ingredients:

3 Tbsps butter
1 lb. ground pork, turkey or chicken
s and p
3 Tbsps flour
3 Tbsps S&B Japanese curry powder
peeled onion, quartered
3 cloves garlic, peeled
peeled sliced carrot
2" fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
mango, peeled and coarsly chopped, or a peeled banana and 2 Tbsps sweet mango chutney- such as Major Gray
a green apple, peeled, cored and quartered
2 Tbsps tomato paste
1 Tbsp worchestershire sauce
1 cup chicken broth
6 thin boneless pork chops, pounded
2 beaten eggs
1 cup of Panko breadcrumbs
cooked rice
shredded cabbage
tonkatsu sauce

Curry Sauce: Melt the butter and add the meat. Brown the meat thoroughly, add S and P, then stir in the flour and curry powder. In the meantime, combine everything else, up to, and including the Worcestershire sauce in a food processor, and combine thoroughly. Add to the meat, and cook, stirring for five minutes or so, until sludgy. Add the chicken broth, stir and cook down over a very low heat, for about an hour. You can do this ahead, and reheat it, if you like.

Pork: Preheat the oven to 450. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Beat the eggs, and put the eggs and panko each in a wide shallow bowl. Heat a large saute or frying pan with two tablespoons of peanut oil until almost smoking. Dip each chop into the egg, then coat thoroughly with panko, and, for a good crust, repeat. Set in the hot oil. Brown each chop on both sides, then set on the lined cookie sheet, and place in the preheated oven. Finish cooking in the oven, until cooked through and beautifully browned. Slice chops on the diagonal.

Assemble: Put a nice scoop of rice in each bowl, ladle on some curry sauce, and top with slices of pork and a handful of shredded cabbage. Squirt on some tonkatsu sauce, tasting it first, to make sure you like it. (I do. It kind of tastes like V-8 juice with the color and texture of oyster sauce. In a good way. Really.) Consume, holding the bowl in one hand, and chopsticks, or a spoon in the other. And hope for the best.

* I have pictured these ingredients in an effort to make it easier for you to find them; it always takes me forever to locate a listed ingredient in an Asian shop...though they are labeled in English, it just helps to know what they look like.

Food 2.0

Recently, I received several "Advanced Reader's" copies of food books, which is a delightful side benefit of writing a blog, a not-for-profit enterprise- in my case, anyhow. It makes me feel puffed up and important, giant geek that I am. But even better, I get to see lots of interesting new stuff and add to the strain on the inadequate shelf space in my apartment. Life is good.

When invited to preview, I tell publishers' representatives that while I promise to read their book, I cannot promise to review it. I don't review books often, and may well find I have nothing much to say about a new cookbook. If a book is wonderful, or fun, or incredibly awful, I will talk about it, or just let you know it's out there-in case you didn't. Know, that is.

It is a good thing that I am not a reviewer of food books by trade. While I read cookbooks like novels, and have bought far too many of them myself, I am wordless after a preview of most. If you see a book featured here, there is probably a fair amount of enthusiastic babbling or, well, the opposite. I do favor the former, and generally only go after a bad book if I believe the author both influential and egregiously lazy. This is an unusual case, though, because I think something good is in danger of going under.

Warning: In a few minutes I am going to be ungracious.

Food 2.0 presents food by Charlie Ayers, the original, and former long-time head chef guy at Google. Google, in its role as employer, is famous for the wonderful food served to its high tech workers, so good that it keeps them hanging around working, instead of, say, going home.

The book is published by DK publishing, heretofore associated in my mind with cleverly designed, modern travel books, loaded with attractive and helpful illustrations. Food 2.0 is, however, excessively and ineffectually tarted up design-wise. As a result, one might well fail to notice the really excellent recipes, which are delicious, healthy, and mostly very simple to prepare. This guy is clearly a terrific cook- one of those people with a major flair for combining flavor and texture in sometimes new, but not bizarre ways- original, but not weird. His recipes do not require odd ingredients, and can all be made, without excessive fuss, at home.

Ayers has a distinct, neat personality and some very good ideas to impart, but they are not organized in an accessible way for a person who is used to, say, reading books. Perhaps this is an attempt to convey some sort of techie, info-in-bytes kind of feeling, but it is distracting and unattractive, and also, it doesn't work. This is a book, for crying out loud- you can't click on a word for more information. And what is more, there is no index. Even a food magazine, if decent, has an index.

The type-faces and cover photo (of what looks like an dull, ordinary burger-though it is not)- just plain, well, suck. I have no problem with the all-black-and-white interior concept as an idea-it could have been good. But these are boring photos; they are badly composed, as is the type and layout. They make the book look junky, and this guy is not junky- his food is great. It's really too bad. [note: Farmgirl Susan has pointed out (she got an advance copy too) that the final edition will have full color photos. There's a note on the back to that effect, which I didn't notice. I hope that will improve the look of the thing, and maybe that there are some design changes in the offing, too. Couldn't hurt.]

I hope there will be sufficient mass media reviewer interest in the quality of the food, so that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. This is emphatically not a book I would have picked off the rack to have a look at. I may be a bit of a nut about type design, layout, and the book as a physical object, but I think it is not eccentric to call this one plain ol' ugly.

I am a little surprised at how much I apparently care about this sort of thing. I mean, for example, I am very fond of a number of cookbooks of the spiral-bound, standard production variety, and am not at all offended by their design. They are what they are, and likeable for it. But this one- it's pretentious, in its own casual way, and the design detracts from the text. End of cranky rant.

Anyhow, I'm glad to have the book for the interesting ideas and recipes, and here is one I made for a simple stir fry. I used my last frozen duck breast on this , but chicken breast is specified, and of course, would be good, too. This recipe serves one.

1 tsp veg oil
1 cup mixed vegs (diced onion, green beans or sliced sugar snap peas, and carrots in small pieces)
1/2 tsp finely chopped lemongrass
duck breast or chicken breast , cut in thin strips
1 cup raw peeled shrimp
1/2 tsp minced garlic
3 tbsps dark soy sauce
2 tsps rice vinegar
1 tsp light brown or palm sugar
1/2 tsp. asian style dark sesame oil
freshly ground black pepper
2 handsful shredded lettuce

In a wok, heat the oil and stir fry the veg for a couple of minutes. Add the lemongrass and duck, and stir fry until the duck has lost almost all pinkness. Add the shrimp, and fry until pink. Add everything else- except the lettuce, cook for a minute or two, and pour over lettuce. Eat this right away! If you want a heartier meal, add a cup of cooked rice noodles along with the soy and flavorings.

I love the lemongrass flavor. I had some cute yellow carrots- so I used both the yellow and orange for prettiness. This is an especially good casual stir fry, though I'm not sure why it works so well. Clever fellow.

Mothers' Day Digression: Ouef en Gelee (FD #2 1/2)

I admit that this little detour is on the loony side. I was all set to tell you about my duck soup, and the fancy duck breast thing I made, which turned out very well, and was particularly nice with red cabbage. And I will. And then I will get off this duck hobby-horse, I promise.

The thing is, I was side-tracked while leafing through my recently acquired copy of Roald Dahl's Cookbook. In it, there is a picture of, and recipe for a mind-boggling variation on ouefs en gelee., that simple (?) and elegant French classic which I had never, in any form, made myself. You see a big earthenware bowl of brothy-brown flecked aspic scattered with tarragon leaves. Suspended serenely within, well spaced and seemingly not bumped or lumped to one side or the other, are ten (!) perfectly peeled, gently soft-boiled eggs!

Next to the bowl, on the rustic looking table, is a generous platter of buttered toast. I found this set up madly inviting. Could anything be simultaneously simpler and more complicated? One is advised to practice before serving it to guests. I should say so! If you have not tried it yourself, I can tell you that the successful peeling of one soft-boiled egg is no mean feat, and getting it suspended nicely in an appropriate amount of proper aspic is only slightly less crazed. Hence, the far less impressive picture you see before you.

This dish can be made with softly poached eggs, too- and that is easier. Though I am a lover of poached eggs, I promise that the soft-boiled version is noticeably better in this situation- should you find yourself in this situation, which you most likely will not, as you are probably not bonkers. I must admit, the poached egg, done singly, looks fancier and is easier to unmold. Still....

I think that the 10 egg bowl version would be a totally charming Mothers' Day brunch or supper offering. At least for the sort of mother who, like myself, would be wowed by the presentation. it would be so fine, scooping out an egg and some aspic onto my plate- with a big spoon, and nibbling away, with some of that very nice buttered toast. And some strong hot tea. I think I'd have to practice for a year or two to pull that one off, without wasting a few dozen eggs, at least.

Here's where the duck comes in. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might want to review the most recent few of this series of posts. Or not.) If you make a confit, and chill it, surrounded by the (strained) fat in which it was prepared, there will be, on the bottom of your crock, or in my case, plastic container*, a nice layer of jellied duck juice, a/k/a delicious, natural aspic. If you used a traditional stoneware vessel of some sort, the aspic is not much use- you can't get it out until you've used up your confit , when you scoop the fat out to reheat and strain it. By then, being brothy, it is not so fresh, and maybe even dubious safety-wise.

But, a plastic container is flexible. So you can wiggle the sides, and upend the block of confit-containing fat, and peel of that lovely aspic. If the confit is by this action exposed, you can stick the fat block back in the container, microwave it a little,adjust the confit so it's all encased in the fat, and re-chill for storage. And then you've got some beautiful aspic, enough to do one egg, you see, without resort to gelatin, even. Though I've unmolded this one, it looks a tad goofy. It's kind of too tall, and not so symmetrical. After I did the unmolding, I concluded that it was silly; I should have just made it in a pretty container, and served it still inside, to scoop out with a little spoon. **

Which I will do in the future. It was lovely; the egg (boiled a scant 4 minutes) still soft and runny, but not weirdly liquid, was so nice with the intensely flavored aspic, and I did have buttered toast and tea, too, and it was about as good as I'd imagined.

This is what I did: First, I made the 4 minute egg, chilled it under very cold water to stop it cooking, and peeled it very, very carefully. I made two eggs, and it was a good thing I did, because I ruined the first one peeling it. Then, I spooned a little of the chilled aspic into a small container, big enough to hold the egg, covered. I set the egg on top, then melted the rest of the aspic to liquid in the microwave. I let it cool and poured it over the egg to cover it. There were some fresh tarragon leaves added as I poured- just a few. Then I chilled it, and there you are.

I do understand that if you aren't making a confit, you are not going to go out and get a duck in order to prepare a single egg in aspic. But you can, of course, make an aspic the usual way, with broth and gelatin. You can even make 10 eggs, suspended in a big bowl. If you do, I hope you will tell me about it, email me a photo, and gloat.

If you are looking for a recipe for making aspic from stock and powdered gelatin, you can find quite a few googling around. Here is one that looks credible.

*Clearly, if you are using a plastic container for this, you want one which is heat resistant, microwave safe, and has a really good seal.

**The pretty little spoon in the picture, which says "Muriel" on it, was the proverbial silver spoon with which my mother-in-law was more or less born. In her mouth. As they say. She left me a number of pretty things of this ilk, so it would seem that she liked me. This was not always clear to me during her actual life.

A Spin or Two on a Seasonal Favorite

If you do not live in California or some such all-season growing area, chances are you are still waiting for your local produce to show up. One of the very earliest local goodies to appear around here is spinach. Like that salt-of-the-earth old salt , Popeye, I just loves my spinach.* And the tender baby leaves are so delicious uncooked, that a spinach salad is the first thing that comes to mind when it arrives. I have an old favorite, but I decided to try a couple of new things this year.

One is a spinach and pear salad using the rest of my duck confit. (I haven't forgotten about the duck breasts and the duck soup I promised. Consider this post a semi-related interlude.) The other is an idea I got from reading Karin Welzel's article in the Tribune Review**, about Cafe Zao, a local restaurant I have yet to visit-despite the fact that it is located only a couple of blocks from my workplace, and next door to the Public Theater. As you might guess, this has been mostly a cost issue.

After reading about the place, I've concluded that I need to save up for dinner at Cafe Zao. In the interim, though, I thought would try Chef Toni Pais' recipe for Cold Spinach Soup and Shellfish Salad, which you can find with Karin's article. I was so very not disappointed. Wow. As she points out, the soup can also be used, hot or cold, as a sauce for fish or poultry. Surprisingly, large quantities of pine nuts are involved, and the effect is brilliant. It's so intense, and fresh tasting- really amazing stuff. The seafood salad is also pretty special, and I found that it was well worth looking for the ponzu- a citrus-y vinegar.
It did take me some time to find it- the Lotus Market here is enormous- and not all the sauces have English labels. The ponzu didn't have one, but there was an ingredients list on the back, and it said "Ponzu" on top.

I made the soup according to instructions, but my seafood salad was a shrimp-only affair. Also, I did not do the fancy business with the PVC pipe rings, but put the shrimp salad in a little dish centered in the soup bowl instead. Another serving option might be an ice-cream scoop of the salad in the center of your dish, and the cold soup poured carefully around it. That's how I plate up rice with an estoufee or gumbo, and it works pretty well.

Here is the recipe for the spinach salad. I used toasted walnuts, as well as substituting the confit for the bacon. It was yummy.

I have an attraction to dark green vegetables that is so intense that I suspect it is based in some nutritional deficiency. I made a special bus trip to Whole Foods for dinosaur kale on a snowy day this winter, only to discover they were out of it. I nearly cried. Surely this is not normal? I can tell you that the produce guy looked at me with something between pity and fear when I, uh, ...expressed my dismay.

BTW, if you use the google search function in the left hand column, and search the blog for "spinach", there are few other nice things you might want to try.

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*I was surprised to discover, reading up on the original Popeye comics, that in the days before animation, our man Popeye did not have a spinach habit at all. He was just, well, cranky and violent and not-so-brilliant- in the nicest possible way, of course. He had a generous heart and was always, naturally, devoted to the lovely Ms. Oyl. I highly recommend these early cartoons, they are fascinatin', as he might put it. If he, say, had a blog. Or could read and write. Or was, you know, real. But, as always, I digress.

**I don't subscribe to, the Tribune Review, one of our two local papers. Thus, I was unaware of its really nice food section, which, fortunately for me, can be read on the internet. I met Karin Welzel when she emailed me to talk about peas, and I've been catching up on past articles ever since.

One Frozen Duck: Part II Confit and Cassoulet

I'm going to show you a really easy way to make a duck confit. When Paula Wolfert takes a short cut, you've got to know it's not a cop-out. The woman is nothing if not the queen of patience in service to authenticity. However, if you are not up for even this level of fiddling, you can make my inauthentic but IMHO tasty cassoulet with purchased confit. You'll need two leg/thigh sections for the payoff dish. There are many other nifty uses for a duck confit, too, I hope to get to that soon.

A. Confit

If you were following along with Part I, you've got a little plastic bag in the fridge, with some salted and seasoned duck parts, those being 2 leg and thigh sections, 2 wings, and the neck. You also have 4 cups of rendered duck fat. Possibly this is actually a duck/goose fat blend. You may even be stretching it with olive oil. I hope you have a crock pot, or other slow cooker. The smaller the better, really. The little ones are fabulously cheap, and have many uses, including impromptu fondue pot, overnight oatmeal maker, and so on.

Before you go to bed, plug in the crock pot, and set it on low. Brush most of the bits of seasoning off the duck parts, and put them in the pot. Liquify the fat by heating it in the microwave or otherwise, at a lowish heat so as not to induce bubbling over. Pour over the duck parts, and make sure they are covered completely by fat. If not, add that olive oil..or some lard until they are entirely submerged. Put on the lid, and go to sleep.

In the morning, sprinkle coarse salt on the bottom of a clean container large enough to hold the contents of the crock pot. Use tongs to lift out the very soft duck,
and set it all in the clean container. Pour the liquid fat through a very fine strainer over the duck, again making sure it's all covered with the fat. Let this cool while you get ready for work, or make some coffee and breakfast, or both. When it's cooled down, cover and refrigerate. Was that easy or what?

Later in the day, if you've used a flexible plastic container, you can pop out the confit and fat in a block. There will be a layer of rich duck jelly on the bottom. You can peel this off, and store separately in the fridge, to add depth of flavor to any of the duck dishes I'm going on about. Not to worry if not, though, the salt on the bottom will keep it from going off until you work your way down.

Store the confit in the fridge for at least a week, so the characteristic confit flavor can develop.Now you are ready to use these goodies. It is best, food safety-wise, to thoroughly heat the confit before serving. Mostly, you will want to cook it in its own fat until it's crispy, and delightful. Merci, Ms. Wolfert.

B. Cheater's Cassoulet

1 lb Great Northern beans
some of that dock stock you made in Part I- (or
a quart of good boxed chicken or turkey stock)
an onion with 5 cloves stuck in it
a couple of bay leaves
thyme sprigs
6-7 cloves of garlic
your confit and the fat that clings to it when you remove it from the container
4 garlic sausages- I used the already cooked chicken ones
a pork chop
bread crumbs from a country loaf- about 2 cups
salt
pepper
a 15 oz can of tomatoes
salt
pepper
olive oil

This is seriously unseasonal, I know, but it was cold here last week. I'm eager for the local produce and the farm box to start up, but so far, there's not much to be had. A friend brought me some just-cut asparagus from her garden, which was beyond fabulous- I was so lucky. I was all over cooking and consuming it instantly... but there's not been much yet, since then. In the meantime, if the weather isn't balmy where you live, you might want to give this a try.

Soak your beans over night, in water to cover. In the morning, drain them, put them in a heavy pot, add the stock, and water, if necessary, to cover. Put the pork chop, bay, thyme, onion and garlic in with the beans. Bring to a boil, then turn to a simmer. Salt and pepper to taste, then cook until the beans are very tender. When they are cooked completely, snatch the chop out with some tongs, and set it on a cutting board. Add the can of tomatoes, and continue to simmer the beans. (Don't add the tomatoes until the beans are tender. .The acid in the tomatoes will stop them softening properly.)Preheat the oven to 350F.

While the beans and tomatoes are cooking, shred the confit into a 3 qt covered enameled cast iron or stonewear casserole, preferably one which has a lid. It will have some fat clinging to it. Add a bit more fat, the sausages, sliced, and the pork chop, cut in cubes. Cook, over a low heat, until the confit is browned and crispy, and the rest of the meat has browned edges..Add the beans and their cooked-down liquid to the casserole, and mix it all up well. Cover with a thick layer of the crumbs, and drizzle or spray with olive oil. Bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until there's major bubbling up happening around the edges. the breadcrumbs should be nicely browned now. Consume with some friends and a bit of green salad.

If you like, you can assemble the whole casserole, and keep it in the fridge for a day. If you do that, you should let it come to room temperature for about 1/2 hour, while you preheat the oven. This is very sociable food. There is going to be a a nice duck breast supper soon. Stay tuned.

One Frozen Duck- Part I

I've got to tell you that there's no payoff supper at the end of this post, which is all about preliminaries. I was inspired by the excellent Judith Jones to try my hand at getting the most out of one (defrosted supermarket) frozen duck. In the recipe section of her memoir, there is a plan for this, and another fine scheme for getting more than your money's worth from a leg of lamb.

Mine differs a bit, because I decided to have a go at a duck confit, something I've been thinking about for awhile. There's going to be confit, a giant pot of duck soup, gribenes-(a salty, crunchy garnish for a salad or other use), and a fancy duck breast dinner dish for 2 people. But not today.

You will probably not want to try this if you are looking for a Thirty Minute Meal. If you occasionally enjoy making a demented fuss over food, however, it could be up your alley. Or maybe you like watching another person making a fuss. You're invited too. Before we begin, though, I had better also confess- I am cheating. The confit thing requires more fat than can be harvested from a single duck. So, I'm doing this with one frozen duck...plus, 3 added cups of a mix of rendered goose and duck fat.

Well, you say (in my imagination, I don't actually hear a voice, no worries), "What good is it to go on about getting all that out of one duck, when you're not actually doing it?"

But here's the deal. Once you get about four cups of duck and or goose fat hoarded, you can reuse it, and get all of these goodies from a succession of individual ducks. Because when you are done consuming this stuff, you strain the fat, and freeze it until next time. The fat lasts for a couple of years this way. Duck and/or goose fat is a very special cooking medium, which is dynamite for cooking vegetables- saute or roast, and other things...it is pure white, very mild, and just delicious. So, if you make a confit once, and decide it's not for you, the fat should still not go to waste.

I got my four cups by a combination of methods, including buying 7 oz. of it from d'Artagnan to top it off. You can buy all of it to start with, though that's not going to do the one duck budget any good. You could, I suppose, consider it an investment, and that wouldn't be crazy. A great lot of mine came from a goose I made in a not very successful attempt at a Paula Wolfert recipe. That, the d'Artagnan stuff and the rendered fat from the Duck in Question was sufficient. The bits of duck in the confit slowly exude more fat as well. Some people (Emeril Lagasse for one) combine the duck fat with olive oil. That would be another way to top it up.

If you want to try this with me, here we go:

So, it is necessary to begin by cutting up the duck with a nice sharp knife and a pair of killer poultry shears. I won't pretend this is fun, but it doesn't take long. If you are lucky enough to have the giblets and neck in the bird's cavity, take them out and save them. The neck will go in the confit, the giblets in the soup, and if you don't want to have the liver, cooked in butter and sliced on toast for lunch, please mail it to me. This is a cook's reward of the first order. ( I do realize that a lot of people just don't go for any sort of liver. I'm mystified, but accepting).

First, slice off the breasts with a very sharp knife, leaving the skin intact, and slide them into a freezer bag. These will make a fancy dinner. You could do that straight away, but we are going to do it next week. So they are going in the freezer.

Now, as neatly as you can, remove both leg and thigh sections, and the wings-skin on. Put them in a plastic bag with the neck and some crushed garlic cloves, plenty of coarse salt, freshly ground pepper and some (preferably fresh sprigs of) thyme. Mash the bag around a little to get all the duck parts nicely covered with the seasonings, and refrigerate from 12-36 hours. I'll be dealing with this in a couple of days, but you probably won't hear about it until next week. So you know.

Now peel and cut off every scrap of skin and or fat on the remaining carcass, and set it in a bowl. Put the carcass in a soup pot with the remaining giblets, some carrots, fennel stalks/trimmings, a leek, a parsnip, water to cover, and some salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, skim, and turn down to a burble. This is going to make a yummy duck stock, and there will be nice chunks of meat too, for soup. We'll get to that later, as well. Today, cook it for 3 hours or so, or until it the broth is tasty. Strain it, and put it in the fridge, when cool. Pull the duck meat off the carcass, put in in a freezer bag or storage container thing, and refrigerate or freeze. When the strained stock is completely cool, peel off any fat, and cover. This can also be frozen, of course, if you are not doing the soup soon.

Back to the skin and fat, which is going to be rendered. Cut it all into squares-sharp scissors work best for me- about 1"squares-, put it all in your food processor with 1/4 cup of water, and process it making sure to cover any openings with your hand-it's messy stuff . Pour the sludge into a smallish, heavy pot, over a low heat. Stay home for 3-4 hours, stirring it occasionally. (I did warn you ...you can always read) Eventually, the fat will turn clear and liquid and there will be little golden brown bits floating around. The latter are the gribenes, which you can lift out with a slotted spoon and put on some paper towels to drain. Pat them, salt them, and put them away. Or eat them- they are an evil but dandy snack. Strain the fat through a very fine sieve and/or cheesecloth into a clean container, with the rest of the 4 cups of duck or goose fat, and refrigerate.

The hardest part is done now. If you like, you can just freeze everything and proceed when you feel like it. I'll be back next week, and the pay-off for these efforts will begin.

This photo was taken in Seneca Falls by Sylvia MacDonald in 2005. She and one Ted Papperman created the frozen duck after a major snowstorm there in January, 2005. I don't know her- I found the photo on www.fingerlakes1.com, under "photos."

Terrinerama : A Prize

I have an interesting new book all about terrines, and I'm very excited to make some more. You see above a variant I made up myself,..I think it is going to be a fair template for all sorts of vegetable terrines with various flavor combinations. It is light-ish , and makes a pretty good starter, since it doesn't fill you up, but whets the appetite.

I thought that it would be nice to collect some more recipes, so I 'm going to have a little kind-of contest/event here. It has been my experience that I need some sort of occasion or prompting to try things of this sort- but I generally get quite a kick out of my efforts when I do. I hope you will too.

I bought a second copy of the book, which will be given to a randomly selected (names in hat) entrant. You need not be a blogger to participate. If you email me a photo of your own terrine creation (original or attributed), and your recipe, I will post it.

If you've a blog, just send the permalink. If you do either by June 1, you will be eligible for the drawing, and I will do a roundup shortly thereafter, so we can all enjoy and try out each others ideas. I'll post my vegetable terrine template recipe with the others. Please feel free to offer any sort, vegetable, meats, poultry, game, desserts, fruits; all will be appreciated. Any vessel will do as well- I'm looking forward to both original ideas and some classic pates.

The little porcelain terrine you see below came home with me from the Steamer Trading Cookshop in Brighton. I have the dangerous habit of buying fragile objects while traveling, which I them must carry home on my lap, because they can't be safely packed in my luggage.

By my usual standards (giant decorative plates and immense jars, set of tea glasses, etc.) it was a sensible buy- fitting, as it did, in my tote bag, neatly bubble wrapped. In fact, I bought it in part because I felt it was a level-headed purchase. I've been wanting one for some time, so I knew what they cost, and it was the only thing I'd seen in two weeks which was marginally less expensive there than here. (I do have the nice old le creuset flame terrine which belonged to my mother, but it is quite big- only really appropriate for a major project. The new one is small and less daunting. Also, very cute.)

Pretty much everything else on offer looked fine until I reminded myself that merchandise was marked in pounds, not dollars, so that, basically, it was all twice as costly as seemed reasonable. At any rate, I have this nice memento of my trip, and I'm all set to try out a few ideas for terrines and pates. All of you Brits and Europeans should absolutely come to visit , very soon. Bring empty suitcases so you can shop and stuff them full while the dollar flounders and flops. Come on, your savings will pay your plane fare...I'm not kidding.

And do think about making a pate or terrine for our collection.

Addendum: Once again I am convinced that some things are just sort of in the air: The New York Times has a story in the Sunday Magazine section (4/27/08) about terrines, and about this very book, which was written by the French chef, Stephane Reynaud. The NYT article includes two interesting terrine recipes.

Another Addendum: Here's a recipe for the pictured terrine. Do join us, please.

Something Out of (Almost) Nothing: Breast of Lamb Ste. Menehould

So I bought a 2.5 pound breast of lamb in large part because I didn't know what to do with it, and I thought it would be fun to figure something out. Also, it was way cheap, which is always a matter of interest around here. It turns out you can make a generous main course for four from $5.00 worth of lamb breast.

Keep in mind, looking at the photo, that that is boneless meat there-not a couple of ribs on the bone hence, quite a lot of food. You start with it bone-in, and debone it after braising. Yes, I know, the photo is horrid. Now that I have learned to take somewhat better pictures of soup, I must move on to some kind of improved meat showcasing technique. Any clues, anyone? Truly, this is appetizing in person, and is neither black, nor shining with grease. It is crisp on the outside, succulent inside, and holds together well, much though it may appear to be flapping apart.

Making this is a somewhat fussy, time consuming business, but that is okay; in fact it is sometimes just the thing, when a person is in the mood for a bit of fuss. And if the end result is delicious and (still) cheap, it is all good. Certainly there have been times when, in an effort to turn some semi-throwaway item into dinner, I have wound up spending quite a bit on accessory ingredients. Not so here.

I thought I had remembered an interesting recipe for a stuffed lamb breast, and set out to dig it up. While googling and looking through my cookbooks, I found instead this appealing dish- in South Wind Through the Kitchen, a collection of various writers' favorite Elizabeth David articles. This one was a favorite of Simon Hopkinson, a British food writer I hadn't heard of. I adapted the Elizabeth David recipe just slightly, doing the first step in a slow cooker, so I wouldn't feel I had to stay home to mind the oven.

This is what I did:

I put the lamb breast in my slow cooker on the low setting, and added some vegetable broth, a little leftover red wine, a bay leaf, an onion, a carrot, two unpeeled garlic cloves, fennel stalks, salt and pepper, and some water. You wouldn't need much water really, I used a couple of cups, because I have some thoughts about a future Scotch Broth in the back of my mind, and intend to save the cooking liquid. Any aromatic mixture of vegetables and liquids would be fine. I kind of stuck with the canonical western bits and pieces, but I can imagine an Asian version would be nice, and work well with the rest of the recipe. I think I'd use Panko for that, rather than the fresh crumbs.

Once the meat was very, very tender, I drained and saved the broth, and slid the bones out. This should be easy-if it is difficult, you need to cook the meat some more. I then left the meat to cool in the fridge- weighted, as suggested, with a small cutting board, topped with the handy dandy ten ton base of my Thai mortar and pestle.

The next day, I sliced the meat into strips 2" wide, cut slightly on the bias. I spread each with a little dijon mustard and a beaten egg, coated them with freshly made breadcrumbs, and set them on a wire rack in a baking dish to dry a little, and set up, while preheating the oven to 350F.

They cook for 20 minutes, so they will be hot all through. A drizzle of butter or some olive oil spray on top, and then they go under thebroiler, close to the flame. They must be watched closely, and turned when they begin to sizzle and brown.

These went very well with a sharp coleslaw and some garlicky mashed potatoes. Belatedly, it occured to me that these would be great with tkemali, the sour plum sauce. They are rich, and something sharp sets them off well. Per S.H., "It is as sophisticated, if not much, much more so-than many little plates of neatly trimmed loins of lamb, cut into perfect pink slices and daubed with shiny brown reductions." It may also remind you of the deviled trotters I was on about. Very similar preparation, for another very gelatinously good bit of not-so- costly meat. Some who find pig's feet an off-putting idea, may take more kindly to this dish.

Scotch broth to follow- but definitely not right away. I love lamb, but there can be too much of a good thing. I'll give it a couple of days.

Toast and the Truffled Eggs

I had been reading about truffles in a book by Elizabeth Luard, and it is possible that I may have been doing a bit of moaning about how sad it was that a funghi fancier such as yours truly was unlikely to ever get a chance to taste truffles, or try cooking with one. That can be the only explanation for my having received a half ounce of canned black truffle in a tiny little glass jar, on the occasion of my birthday.

Not my usual sort of thing, fancy-pants stuff, and all that. But sometimes a person gets a bee in her bonnet. I was definitely thrilled with my treat. I think the little jar is, itself, adorable, and if you look closely you will see that there is a small black puddle inside. The jar lists "truffle juice", as an ingredient. For some reason, I find this fetching.

From the start I was (ungraciously and silently) worried that this was not a fresh truffle of certain origin, as it is clear that Ms. L. feels that just about everything that is extraordinary about truffles is dependant on these two factors. But hey, I never expected to have any sort of truffle, after all. Anyway, I was all set to go once I found this Paula Wolfert recipe in The Cooking of Southwest France. The truffles it calls for can be fresh or canned, and it involves slow-scrambled eggs, a personal favorite.

The characteristic Paula Wolfert fiddliness was exactly what I was looking for-I wanted to fuss a bit over my one-time truffle, yet not to drown it in extras; after all, I was wondering what it tasted like. Not to mention that she's such a stickler that if she says a canned truffle is okay here-well, I'll just generally believe her.

This is quite a rich prepartion, what with the butter and cream and so forth. But it is meant to be served in small portions, in little ramekins, as a starter. So- not so much. And this amount, made with 5 eggs, should serve three. This is what you need:

a black truffle-fresh or canned PW doesn't specify weight-I went with most of the can one small truffle, plus a bit more
5 very nice eggs
3-4 tbsps unsalted butter
pinch of favorite sea salt
1-2 tbsps heavy cream
white pepper

About an hour before serving, slice half of the truffle thinly, and the rest into teensy cubes. Break the eggs into a fine wire sieve over a bowl. Crush the yolks by gently pushing them against the sieve with the back of a wooden spoon. Let them drip through, it takes about an hour. I know, I know. But this sort of thing is fun sometimes, no? You needn't be entirely O.C. to enjoy it.

Butter the inside of the top of a teeny double boiler (I have a pint-sized flea market one, the lid is chipped, but the insides are perfect- it was just right). Set over the bottom, which should be half full of just simmering water. Add the eggs and half the butter, and stir with a wooden or silicon spatula. Cook, stirring constantly, one to two minutes.Add the salt and pepper, and stir until barely thickened. 6-7 minutes or so, keeping heat very low, gradually adding the rest of the butter. Keep scraping the sides and bottom. When the eggs begin to hold together, stir in the diced truffle and cream. Cook 1 minute more, and scoop into ramekins. Garnish with the slivered truffle. Serve asap. Probably, you shouldn't stop to take a photo.

In any event, it was delicious, because I love this kind of eggs. But I could barely taste the truffle-despite the high ratio of truffle to egg. I think I would have enjoyed it more with some sauteed wild mushroom, minced and mixed in,in place of the truffle, which was, frankly, a dud. So I guess Elizabeth Luard was right . Probably whichever sort of canned truffle PW had in mind was a different animal entirely. I suppose I'll try sliding the rest, in slivers, under the skin of my soon-to-be-roasted chicken, and see if it has any noticeable effect. Someday, I would love to try me a fresh truffle. Maybe there is some Truffle Merchants' Association to sponsor a research grant? Somehow, I suspect they don't have to do much advertising.