Giving Thanks for Duck Confit

Some years Thanksgiving involves a big ol' celebration with loads of people, but this has been such a busy autumn for us, with too much out-of-towning, that Himself and I decided on a quiet meal at home alone this time. Since I'm not a traditionalist when it comes to Thanksgiving, I refuse to succumb to the pressure most everyone else feels to have turkey. Himself is just fine with this stance, so instead we celebrated with one of our favorite dishes, duck confit and fingerling potatoes roasted in duck fat. That not only satisfied the desire for something rich and tasty for Thanksgiving, but it also provided the month's self-assigned blog entry on a type of game or exotic meat.

Duck confit and duck fat--where miracles begin!

Rather than roast a whole duck, we opted to break into a cache of duck legs cooked and stored in their own fat, the traditional Gascon way of preserving meat. As with last month's pheasant, we didn't have to contend with buckshot, because we did our hunting in a local French import warehouse that opens its doors to the civilian population a few times a year, usually the weekend before a holiday or special occasion. There we loaded up on confit, cheeses, olives, olive oil and a few other treats. It's great getting to pick up a package of six duck legs for what we'd typically pay to order a modest portion in a restaurant. While the package of confit contained a good deal of fat, we grabbed a jar of duck fat, too, which should keep us in rich, tasty meals long after we've polished off the last of the duck legs.

 Three duck legs on a bed of roasted potatoes: one for Himself, one for me & one to fight over!

Since the duck is cooked during the confit process, it was essentially ready to eat right out of the package--but so much better when we applied some serious heat to it in a ripping hot pan with the melted fat. This not only warmed the meat but gave it a nice, crispy skin to crunch into.

With all that fat and dark meat, we decided on a pair of accompanying dishes that would be healthy companions to the oh-my-gawd richness of the duck and potatoes. So we double-cooked some kale, first boiling it first and then giving it a light sauté with red onion and garlic, and sassing it up with red wine vinegar and some red pepper flakes.

And we tossed slices of oranges and roasted beets with slivers of onion and shallot, olive oil and red wine vinegar to make an amazing salad that just kept getting better and better--and more and more neon!--every time we pulled the leftovers out of the fridge. It was practically dessert, and that was a good thing, because we didn't actually plan a dessert for this meal.

I wish I could regale you with stories of a grand Thanksgiving dessert to cap the meal, but we were so full that we just didn't want one. Pumpkin pie? Frankly, it's never been a favorite around here. Pecan pie? Love it, but it just wasn't in the cards this time. So we went for a few drops each of The Good Stuff, which is both a lovely treat and a fine digestif: extra vecchio balsamico from our last trip to Italy. It's truly amazing how satisfying that can be, how the tang cleanses the mouth and the earthy sweetness satisfies the urge for a dessert finish to the meal.

So I'm thankful:
♦ for the bounty of the farmers' market that provided the seasonal beets, kale and potatoes.
♦ that we didn't feel we had to tie ourselves to tradition and cook someone else's version of the perfect Thanksgiving feast. The tradition we DID embrace this time was the Gascon tradition of preserving duck so that it can be quickly and easily prepared and enjoyed--and I'm thankful for that, too.
♦ for the luxury of the balsamico, which was a treat indeed; and
♦ for Himself, who understands and appreciates my enthusiasm for bucking traditions and doing things differently. This has enabled us to enjoy past Thanksgivings shared with friends as we celebrated the holiday with menus as varied as last year's Croatian feast and the previous year's spread of comfort foods from our home turf of Tennessee.

Later in the evening, too close to bedtime to eat another meal but far away from breakfast not to eat a little something, we settled on a simple dessert to cap off the day, vanilla ice cream with a drizzling of the balsamico. Then with nothing more on our minds at bedtime than mulling over the possibilities for how we wanted to prepare those remaining three duck legs, we purred ourselves to sleep. A nice cassoulet perhaps?...

Avocado Ice Cream

Ever since I discovered how yummy the avocado shakes are at a Vietnamese restaurant back home in Memphis, I've been keen to try another sweet application for avocados.

So this weekend I made avocado ice cream, and I'm pleased to report that it's pretty good stuff. I couldn't lay my hands on any Haas avocados--which have the creamiest texture--so I used the Santa Cruz variety. They have a watery texture, but still, they work just fine. The result is wonderfully creamy, with a light, fresh flavor. Himself complained that the ice cream tastes a bit "green" and "planty," and I know what he means. I think it needs more lemon juice to balance out the intense avocadoness (how's THAT for a new word?). We drizzled a good balsamic vinegar over it (yeah, it looks like chocolate sauce in the photo), and the acid, extra sweetness and added oomph! of the rich balsamic really made the ice cream sing.

I'm going to tweak this recipe and keep working to devise an ice cream that will become a summer staple (I've just spotted another recipe that calls for coconut cream--sounds like a worthy experiment). With the huge fuerte avocado tree we have in our backyard that will soon begin pelting us with its bounty, we'll be able to make it often, without paying $2 per avocado. And the fuerte is creamier and more flavorful than the Santa Cruz. We may not miss the Haas at all...

Heirloom Heaven

Tomato-Basil-Balsamic Sorbet: I've gotta find a shorter name for it!

I’m loving myself again after momentarily hating myself.

The first time I ever heard of heirloom tomatoes, I made jokes about finding wrinkly, old, dried out veggies stashed in grandma’s attic (my grandmother kept EVERYTHING, so that was a possibility). But with the first enticing bite, I knew they were something extraordinary with which I was destined to become good friends. They typically set me back about $7 or $8 a pound, so for reasons of both economics and sheer pleasure, I refuse to ever let one go bad.
By yesterday, however, I had let several go seriously soft (I never refrigerate them, since the extreme cold damages both flavor and texture.). So after I kicked my own tush around the house for a few minutes for being a lazy, wasteful git, I decided to try making sorbet with those too-soft-for-anything-else specimens of culinary indulgence.

I’ve seen plenty of tomato sorbet recipes and always thought they sounded interesting, so this was a great opportunity to give tomato sorbet a try. Technically, the tomato is a fruit, right? So it stands to reason—to me, anyway—that a really well developed, fresh one would have great dessert potential.

With the heirlooms, I knew there would be loads more flavor, so I wanted to build my recipe carefully and take maximum advantage of them. I dug up a basic sorbet recipe and then—as I always do—changed it entirely. Mainly I look to recipes as a starting point, just to get the basic ratios right. Then I climb into my cockpit, toss the recipe over the side and start executing all sorts of mid-air acrobatics. It’s great fun playing in the kitchen, isn’t it?

For a sorbet, I knew it would be essential to use only really really ripe tomatoes—and never hothouse. I needed a few extras to complete the full two pounds, so I grabbed a couple of tomatoes a friend with an organic garden had given me. They had that intensity of flavor that improves whatever they’re near. I made up the simple syrup, and while it cooled, I peeled the tomatoes, which handle beautifully when they’re this ripe, and put them through the food mill.

I’m convinced that this was one of the factors in the sorbet turning out so well. The mill doesn’t thrash everything to death the way a blender or food processor does, and it expresses maximum pulp and juice without letting the seeds pass through. I also strained every last bit of juice that remained after the peeling and seeding, and even squeegeed the juice from the cutting board—I wanted it all.

Then I chopped the fresh basil finely, so there would be no strands catching on the mixing arm of the ice cream maker. And I used a really high-quality balsamic vinegar. Not the extra vecchio traditionale I’d spent a mortgage payment on in Modena, but something almost as exceptional. It was sweet, smooth and complex, without the tonsil-seizing aggressiveness of the cheap (and fake) stuff. And I added the barest pinch of salt, something I never see in sorbet recipes. It’s a great flavor balancer, so I figured, why not give it a try?

The resulting sorbet is something I’m exceptionally proud of. It has a wonderfully complex flavor, the most sophisticated thing I’ve ever conjured up on my own. Complex but not kitchen-sink busy. The natural sweetness of those overripe tomatoes, along with the sweetness of the balsamic, rein in the one-dimensional sweetness of the sugar. In spite of all that sweetness, it’s not too sweet. And in spite of there being both tomatoes and balsamic vinegar in the sorbet, it isn’t terribly acidic. The flavors are well balanced, and the sorbet has a nice harmony on the tongue.

Plenty of tomato sorbet recipes call for basil and perhaps balsamic, but I think four things helped me produce a really great sorbet: using heirloom tomatoes, including a primo balsamic, adding that hint of salt and gently milling the tomatoes.

Maybe extreme cold is damaging to a fresh tomato, but when I took that same tomato and made sorbet from it, something wonderful happened. Because of the cold? In spite of the cold? I’m trying not to overanalyze it. I want to simply enjoy it.