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A sort of paradox in slow motion, as the roast of the fat and benefic meat (specialists not only restrain from stating that duck fat is bad for your health, on the contrary, they say it’s quite good, which is why our French friends who often eat confit de canard rarely have heart problems, and those who do have those out of love at most), is unraveling before your eyes, with today’s recipe. This is a new episode of the limitless cooking miniseries, generated by the Fairy Romania challenge that I talked to you about here. By the way, the challenge is available to you too; well, in fact it’s especially made available for you. I only bring a few examples, but you are the ones who have to gain if you participate to this game launched by Fairy and hosted by protv.ro. Cook limitless and fearless (try getting out the best in you), post it there and watch what happens next. Follow the recipes I posted here, as they might give you an idea of what is expected of you.
Therefore, today’s recipe began like this: I went to the Obor market, from where I came back home with seven duck legs (about 5 lei each), a few young and fluffy garlic bulbs, some stuff enough to make a salad and plenty of enthusiasm. I’ve decided to revisit the idea of the duck confit, which is a dish made like this: keep the legs overnight with salt, cover them with duck lard and slowly roast them for a few hours (I’m simplifying so you can picture it). Revisiting this idea resulted in giving up the lard, as I considered that the legs I bought had plenty of that. Sometimes, as the French would say if they liked the English language, less is more.
I made small incisions here and there on the duck legs, in the part with the skin. I sprinkled smoked salt flakes, rosemary salt and freshly ground pepper. I split the garlic gloves from the bulb but I didn’t remove their skins, which were also young. I spread them among the duck legs, knowing for sure I will use them after roasting to flavor my sandwiches with the purée in which they transform as they roast. I also put in the cocotte (that is the name of the heavy cast iron pot, with an equally heavy lid) a handful of diced smoked lard and a vanilla pod, I covered it with the lid on and put it in the oven for 3 hours, at 140 degrees Celsius. I removed the lid and roasted the duck legs for another hour, during which they browned nicely. However, in order to get an even crunchier skin, I transferred the legs into a tray, and I put the tray under the hot serpentine of the oven (5-6 minutes at 220 degrees Celsius).
I sieved the lard remaining from the legs and poured it into a 450-gram jar (that was what was left), which I will use on other occasions, such as frying some potatoes or spreading it on bread and sprinkling some smoked paprika on it, who knows? Gooood. Let’s see how it went further on:
I removed the meat from the bones.
I put the pieces of meat over slices of bread, next to the baked garlic that was removed from the skins, together with a roasted pepper (you fry/roast the pepper, peel it and marinate it for at least 6 hours in a mixture of extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, diced garlic, parsley and a bit of sugar), slices of marinated beets (roast the beets, clean them, cut them into fine slices, put them in the fridge with salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil and a few diced strawberries) and a salad made from green salad, cucumber, radish, tomatoes, sunflower seeds roasted with salt and a vinaigrette made from lemon juice and olive oil.
Delicious, if I may add.
As for the pots, meaning the tray and the cocotte, I had nothing to worry about since Fairy Platinum was on duty. Stay healthy.
Special thanks to
Oana Bodnariuc, Authorized Translator
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facebook.com/oana.bodnariuc