Duck Confit

The last time I saw Paris . . . I also saw a lot of duck confit.  Buttery, salty, tender, melt-in-your-mouth duck confit.  What is this delicious dish?  It's traditionally a duck quarter (leg and thigh) cooked and stored in its own rendered fat.  Yes, you read that right.  A very rich dinner, duck confit is easier to make at home than you might think.

One of the really tricky tasks for making duck confit is locating enough duck fat (and spending quite a lot of money on it!) to cover your duck quarters.  Thanks to the confit-ing genius Michael Ruhlman, I realized that I could have duck confit anytime by simply using olive oil instead of rendered duck fat in the cooking process.  You'll still need quite a bit of olive oil, but you can purchase it readily at any grocery store.

Plan ahead for making this dish: you'll need to start at least 3 days before you want to eat it.  The waiting time will give you more time to listen to "This Country's Going to War" from the most perfect film to complement a duck dish--the Marx Bros.' Duck Soup (in fact, you'll have time to watch the whole film more than once).  

Ingredients:

--4 duck quarters

--herbes de provence 

--a lotta salt

--about one quart olive oil

Day One:

Place duck quarters in an enamel cast iron pan and heavily salt them.  Sprinkle on herbes de provence with a heavy hand, and then rub in the herbs and salt.  (By the way, you can use any herbs you'd like.  Fresh rosemary and thyme would be great.)  Store covered in the fridge for at least 24 hours.

Day Two:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees F.

Rinse the duck legs in cold water to remove the herbs and salt.  Pat dry.  Repeat with the remaining duck quarters.  Place skin-side-up in the enamel cast iron pan and completely cover with olive oil. 

Bring to a simmer on the stove and then transfer, uncovered, to the oven.  Bake for approximately 10 hours, or until the oil has become clear and the duck legs are resting on the bottom of the pan (different chefs say anywhere between 6-12 hours, but I think 10 hours is just about perfect).

Allow to cool and then transfer--the whole cast iron pan and all--to the refrigerator.  Keep refrigerated in the oil, completely submerged, for at least 24 hours.  Here, the longer the better--you can make these up to 3-4 weeks before you're going to serve them since the oil acts as a preservation method.  But remember, at least 24 hours in the cooled fat before eating.

Day Three:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Remove duck quarters from the fat and scrape off remaining fat (it will have congealed around the meat).  Transfer to a baking dish, skin-side-up, and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or just until the skin is quite crispy.  Remove from oven and serve.  Ohmygod.  It's so delicious, and oh-so-easy.  

Banana Vegan Ice Cream

It's sort of a misnomer, but this "ice cream" is just as creamy and delicious as any made with dairy products.  And it's shockingly simple.  Do you have a large food processor?  Do you have a freezer?  With some day-old bananas, you can create a healthy dessert.  At the risk of sounding scientifically naive, the transformation is like magic!

Now, I added some extra ingredients to mine for a take on "bananas foster," including rum, cinnamon, brown sugar, and toasted pecans.  You can get creative and mix your banana "ice cream" with any number of add-ons.  Some ideas include: Nutella, peanut butter, honey, dark chocolate chips . . .

I always think about the song I'm about to give you in connection to Billy Wilder's 1954 film Sabrina.  In that gem of postwar cinema, Audrey Hepburn sings a quirky version of Spike Jones's already playful "Yes, We Have No Bananas!"

Ingredients:
--4 very ripe bananas, chopped and frozen (overnight)
--2 tsp. ground cinnamon
--1/4 c. dark brown sugar
--2 tbsp. dark rum
--1/2 c. toasted chopped pecans

In a large food processor, combine all ingredients except the pecans (you're going to use those as a topping).  You'll need to pulse for quite awhile--don't worry if the bananas aren't blending immediately.  Depending on how frozen your bananas are, you'll need to pulse on high for about 5-7 minutes.  At first, you'll begin to see the bananas turning into tiny little chunks, and slowly they'll cream together until you have a very smooth dessert.

Serve and top with toasted pecans.

This recipe makes about 4 c. of of vegan banana ice cream.  If you can't finish it all at once, you can refreeze it for later.