Notes from the kitchen
1 quart of water, 1/4 cup of sugar, some star anise, the chopped peel of 1 pineapple, and 1 month of lazing around in my cabinet.
This is my first time making pineapple vinegar – or any vinegar for that matter – and I’m not using a mother so fingers crossed this first experiment works out. I’ve heard it’s really acidic so I’m hoping it will go well with some fat-boy carnitas this summer for a new play on al pastor. Adapted from Sandor Ellix Katz’s Wild Fermentation.
Best ten dollars I ever spent. That’s what I though after picking up this cheapo Ikea kitchen island the other day on Craigslist. It might be made of balsa wood and bubble gum, but who cares. Counter space is counter space, right??
I got this little fella as a party favor after a dinner party a few months ago. My girlfriend’s cousin had a freezer full of them after one of his friends went duck hunting and I was happy to take one off his hands. After finally deciding to make a Tuesday project out of it, I thawed the bird then salted and let it sit uncovered overnight in the fridge to help the skin crisp up better.
Since I’ve read about chefs experimenting with dry-aging wild game, some for up to 73 days, it was interesting to see the color change after only a day. It’s also somewhat surprising to see how little fat there is – I keep forgetting this ducky was a worker bee who hauled ass down to Cabo every summer.
Since this was my first time working with wild duck, I kept the preparation really simple by roasting in a hot oven with s+p, and a few star anise pods and garlic cloves in the cavity. The meat had a nice steak-like quality to it, nicely perfumed with anise but with none of the gaminess I expected. I did drop the ball though by forgetting to snap a pic after (the picture above is post “dry-age,” pre-450 degree oven).
Next time I plan to try a more assertive sauce like an apple mostarda or something else fruit-based to see how the meat holds up.
Next up: Curing duck breasts for a duck prosciutto and a duck speck.
This was my favorite birthday present. The mack daddy of all butter, Beurre Bordier from Saint-Malo in Brittany. A friend of mine froze a few packs and smuggled them past French customs back to San Francisco. I’m indebted to him forever.
This is truly the holy stuff, disturbingly yellow, flecked with fleur de sel, and a secret I only discovered the week before I left Paris at La Grande Épicerie. Supposedly there are subtle changes to the color and flavor depending on the season. In the summer, it’s a you get a brighter yellow color from the beta-carotene and chlorophyll from the wildflowers and fresh grass that the cows graze on. In the winter, it tends to be slightly sweeter and paler in color.
There are other flavors as well, including a smoked salt, and a seaweed one that pairs particularly well with rye bread and oysters. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cows are massaged with Calvados up in Brittany.
Still trying to decide what to do with the smoked salt butter – caramels perhaps ?
Sounds funky, doesn’t it? Well, that’s kind of the point. I first came across the idea on Ozersky.TV, where Harold Moore of Commerce demoed the technique. I let these puppies cure in kosher salt and sugar (3:2) for a week before letting them hang from cheesecloth in the fridge. The picture above is after a week of air-drying. I’m interested to see how the texture and color change the longer they hang.
Why bother? I think it’s a great introduction to the curing process and the results are so unique – rich, salty, eggy – not unlike bottarga in some ways. It grates like a hard cheese and adds a nice finishing touch to carbonara or any other dish that yearns for yolk.
