How To Make Duck Confit

By Rob, on February 5th, 2011%

A few weeks back my buddy over at The Alcoholian made some duck confit crepes using leftover roast duck that looked absolutely insane. Naturally I needed to follow suite. Since I didn’t have any cooked duck lying around, I went and bought 5 duck legs/thighs and decided to go old school with a salt cure before the confit process.

Needless to say, I now have a quart of the most amazingly ducky meat ever conceived, and these sandwiches were the first thing I made with it. The sweet earthy figs play off the super savory meat in pretty much the best way ever, and Gruyère seals the deal. I should probably back up for a sec though – what exactly IS confit?

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Make Your Own “Lox”

By Rob, on January 21st, 2011%

This was a great experiment that I couldn’t wait to share with everyone. I made another batch of cured salmon but did something a little different this time. I added a few drops of liquid hickory smoke to the curing mixture before applying it to the fish! If I had an outdoor space where I could . . . → Read More: Make Your Own “Lox”

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Curing Salmon – Delicious Gravlax

By Rob, on November 24th, 2010%

This is so easy and delicious that it’s borderline criminal.  If you like salmon, I implore you to try this at your earliest convenience – you may never spend $25+/lb for lox again.  First, a little background.

Curing is a traditional preservation technique whereby, in it’s simplest sense, salt is used to draw moisture out of a given piece of food. This achieves 2 ends.  First, bacteria HATE salt – so right off the bat your food is going to remain untouched for longer.  Secondly though, salt will draw moisture out of the source.  Bacteria also LOVE moisture. Think about how quickly nice wet strawberries mold. Yeah.  So curing makes a salty, dry environment that bacteria say ‘No Thanks” to growing on. FULL POST

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