Braised Duck Legs

Ha! So, I have discovered I cannot tease my readers (thanks, Y!) with photos of delectable food without any background as to how it came to be. I would like to fill you in.

First of all, duck legs are surprisingly affordable. I would recommend buying them whenever they show up at the supermarket (if you are lucky enough to have a butcher, then buy them whenever you want). They are also arguably the most delicious part of the most delicious bird. Ever since I was a child, and my friend's mother said, "I've made duck for dinner, I hope you like it," not only have I loved it, I have viewed duck as the premo-super-luxo-meat. It is rich and fatty and dark and moist and there's really nothing quite like it (not beef, not turkey, not pork - all of which can dry out and frequently need sauces to bring them back to life).

I learned in this exercise what braising was - cooking big pieces of meat slowly in liquid. I referred to Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food to learn how to braise, although I left out the olives and leeks in her braising sauce, as I wasn't sure how much I would like olives with my duck. Instead, I seared the duck legs skin side down for a moment, before adding broth and wine to the pan, and sticking it in a 425 ° oven for half an hour. Turn the legs skin side up again, remove liquid if the skin is not exposed, and then keep in the oven, lowered to 350°, for another hour. At the end of it, you will have, as witnessed, deeply browned duck with a glorious braising sauce. One is not supposed to eat poultry skin (have you ever noticed how they always include the question, "Do you eat chicken skin?" in those "How Healthy Are You?" or "What is your Body's Age?" quizzes?), but I defy you to miss out on the golden skin of these duck legs.

Favo(u)rite Ingredients

We were the happy recipients of no fewer than six cookbooks this past Christmas, and while I have read several of them back to back, it was high time I gave some of these recipes a go.

This lovely book fascinates me. I have seen single subject cookbooks (meat, dessert, chocolate, cheese), but never a book organized around someone's favorite ingredients. To have that kind of chef-ly authority is impressive and a move like this, audacious. I kept thinking, Who are you, and how come you're so awesome that you can arrange whole chapters around cherries, or olive oil, or tomatoes?

I thought on my favorite ingredient, and wondered if I lacked imagination when the first one that came to mind was salt. Salt salt salt.

Then it would have to be olive oil, lemon, and garlic. How very mediterranean of me.

What are your favorite ingredients?

One of Skye's favo(u)rite ingredients is asparagus. Given the time of year that it is, bouquets of bright green asparagus are abundant at our local grocery store, and it seemed like a perfect time to try a new recipe.

The recipe is a bacon-based soup with rice - you fry up bacon and onions, add water and rice until the rice is almost ready, throw in sliced asparagus until it goes an even brighter green, and drizzle with olive oil.



If you're wondering why my version ended up entirely purple...it's because I used a wild rice we've been throwing in almost everything - the grains are almost black, and release a beautiful purple stain into the water. But it does make for odd-looking food. I served this to my mother on her first trip to SF, and I said to her, "Dinner's purple. But it's delicious."

Top of the World

Looking down on creation.
And down a great big waterfall.

My New Toy

I finally ordered it. Muchos frozen (and not-so-frozen) adventures to come.