2010 Challenge: Picklin' Dixie

Chefs, cooks, and butchers across America have learned again the beautiful craft of charcurterie. The rediscovery of charcuterie has also birthed a renaissance in the fine art of pickling, relishing, and jamming. Terrines, pates, and rillettes fly out of the country's best kitchens, accompanied by little casseroles of mustard, sour cornichons, fruited jellies, and, of course, pickles. The acidity or sweetness, salty or sour flavor of the accompaniments harmoniously contrasts the richness of the charcuterie.

In the last few months alone, I've eaten pate de campagne at August served with no less than six accouterments. Cochon's spicy pork ribs would not be as satisfying were it not for the crunch and tang of the watermelon rind pickles. At La Petite Grocery the housemade boudin and pickles are a wonderful way to ease into a long lunch. Shoot, even the slimy, pale green po-boy pickles have a place in our cuisine.

Plus, if you choose to make pickles at home, the possibilities of pickle pun-filled commentary is an at an all time low.

Pickling

Don't worry about pickling. This is not difficult, and there is very little chance of screwing it up. You are doing little more than placing produce in an acidic and salty soak for three months in a fridge. I'm pretty certain you can handle that.

I followed the instructions in Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie. It calls for you to combine white wine vinegar, water, salt, peppercorns, pickling spice (make it yourself or buy), and dill seeds. Boil this mixture for three minutes, pour it over whatever you want to pickle, and let it sit in the fridge for 3 weeks.

You can pickle most about anything, but I started with some pickling cucumbers and watermelon rind. Into a mason jar goes your soon-to-be pickle of choice, a few sprigs of dill, and the liquid. I chose to cut up the rind and the cucumbers into little disks and cubes, but do whatever you like.

Will it work? Check back in three weeks.

Adventures in Economicalness

This year I hope to be more economical. Not cheap, thrifty, or frugal nor miserly. But economical. Which for me means being smarter with how I cook things. I got the ball rolling by ordering a copy of Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Also for Christmas, Lindsay got me this bad ass meat grinder and sausage stuffer which pairs nicely with this book. I purchased two whole ducks from Whole Foods and had them break the ducks down for me. The bounty from this would provide me with enough legs, breasts, carcasses and fat to do all sorts of learning. Some of which is pictured below.

I reserved one whole breast for later that night to cook. The other breast went into a pyrex with some kosher salt. More kosher salt on top, and into the fridge over night.
I roasted the two duck carcasses and wings for about an hour and added it to some onion, carrot, celery, black peppercorns, leeks, parsley, and a bay leaf to make a duck stock. This simmered on the stove at a low temperatrue for around 3 hours. Strain, cool, and refrigerate.

The duck legs seasoned with koser salt, garlic, black peppercorns, cloves and bay leafs await their sleepover in the fridge.
The next morning I removed the duck breasts from their kosher salt coffin, rinsed them, patted them dry, wrapped them in cheesecloth. Here they are hanging in my basement. Gus and Penny have spent the last few days trying to jump up and eat my duck prosciutto. So far they have been unsuccessful.
After a night in the fridge, the duck legs were also rinsed and placed in a casserole dish. Then one pours enough rendered duck fat to cover them. The duck legs cooked for ten hours in a 180 degree oven until the fat was clear. They then cooled in this container and voila, duck confit.
One night I broiled the duck confit until the skin got very crispy. Placed on top of an arugula salad dressed lightly with salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon, the ducks fattiness was matched by the acidic peppery bite of the salad. Plus, shaved parmesan never hurts.
A few nights later, I cooked the remaining two confited duck legs. This time however, I blanched some cubed potatoes and then fried them in the duck fat. They tasted like perfection. Here are the potatoes in the world's most perfect hot tub.
And here is the finished dish. Duck Confit with a pepper jelly butter emulsion over duck fat fried brabant potatoes with garlic and parsley. Could have used a little aioli for the potatoes, but other than that. Very good.

The duck cost me $28.56 at Whole Foods. Plus another $12 for some duck fat from Langensteins. With the salt and other ingredients lets call it $60. From this I got 10 cups of duck stock (I used some of that stock to make collards recently), two whole meals from the confit, another meal from the reserved breasts, two duck prosciuttos, a quart or so of duck fat (which I am still frying in) and a weekend well-spent.

Read the above again, none of this was hard, little to no special tools or mastery of French is required. Sure it took a while to do all this, but one day every few weeks to spend in your kitchen is a small price to pay for good food. I would say so far being economical tastes delicious.