Chicken, duck, poultry confit

Duck confit may be one of my favorite dishes. Making my own confit has been a mystery for a long time. Now I've tried to cook it myself, this dish seems even better. Well it's not completely true, what we miss here, is the real obese duck with the fat liver and everything. But confit is still a confit !

Use a lot of duck fat that you can find in cans in some delicatessen store.

Ingrédients
Chicken or duck marylands
2 bay leaves
2 thym branch
A lot of salt
Black pepper
On glass of wine (or any alcohol)
A massive amount of duck fat
3 garlic cloves per maryland


The night before
Salt generously the meat, add the pepper. Put eveything in a container, add the bay leaves and the thym, pour the wine.
Wrap the container with a cling-wrap and store it in the fridge to marinate for 24h.

On D day
Remove the meat from the marinade, rinse out under water to remove the salt.
In a large saucepan, put your meat and cover with the duck fat. Everything should soak in the fat, no exception. Add the garlic cloves unpeeled.
Cover the pan and heat to boil then slow down the heat at the minimum for 1h45-2h-2h30. The fat should softly ripple.



To check if the meat is done, push in a knife, the should should be tender enough to fall apart.
Stop the heat, remove the meat from the fat. Pass the fat through a sieve and put it back in cans for your next confit !

Dégustation
It's ready to eat !
The best match is roasted potatos and a green salad.
Bon appétit !

Index

B
Banana cake
Bread rolls


C
Chicken confit
Chocolate cake "à tuer sa mère"
Chocolate custard


S
Sourdough bread
Strawberry tart

Quick bread roll in 2 hours

I found these bread roll recipe here. Very easy to make (no bread dough mixing e.g pétrissage), you don't have to wait too long for them to raise !

Ingrédients:
750 gr all-purpose flour (5 cups)
500 ml warm water (1 cup)
100 ml milk (1/5 cup)
2 tsp salt
1 Tbs honey
15 gr dry yeat


Procédé:
Combine water, milk and yeast in a large bowl.
Add honey and salt.
Add the flour, mix well and quickly.
Cover the bowl with a wet tea towel (cloth !) or a cling wrap.
Leave it rest for 1h30.

Baking:
Preheat the oven at 210°C. Coat with flour the countertop. Spill the dough over it.
Cut in small pieces (or the pieces you want). Coat with flour again.
Wet your oven and bake for 25 min.

Sourdough bread

If you're looking for bread recipes, I recommend this site !

Ingredients:
300 ml water
400 gr bread flour
140 gr rye/wheat/spelt flour
160 gr liquid sourdough
2 tsp salt

Proceeding:

Combine in salad bowl the sourdough and the water.
Add the flours and mix together to get a dough.
Leave aside for 20 min.
Add the salt, mix a bit and then lay down the dough on the counter-top.
Start to knead the dough until you get a nice, firm and elastic dough.
Put it back in the bowl floured and wrap it with a cling wrap.
Let it raise for 5 hours or overnight.



Fold the dough in 4 (to catch the air).
Shape the dough as you want ... put it on a oven plate and cover with a cloth for 3-4 hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 210°C.
At reached temperature, moisten the oven by throwing water in the bottom.
Bake the bread for 30-35-40 min (depending on the loaf' size).

C'est prêt !

Strawberry tart

That was my first attempt of this "pâtissier" style tart and I must admit, this is really good stuff !

Pâte sablée
Ingredients (enough for 2 big tarts):
300 gr soft salted butter
200 gr icing sugar
60 gr almond poweder
2 eggs
500 gr all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt

Combine sugar with almond powder. Add the butter and half the flour. Mix up the dough to obtain a nice ball.
Add everything else and keep on mixing the dough with your hands !
Add some water if needed. Put it in the fridge while you're doing the custard ...

Roll out the pastry with a rolling pin.
Put the pastry in a tart pan. Prick the shell with a fork. Lay down some bakery paper. Add some "weight" on it, to prevent the pastry to raise while cooking.
Cook it empty for 10 min in the oven at 180 °C.


Meanwhile, prepare the "crème patissière".

Ingredients for the custard:
500 ml de milk
4 egg yolk
1 vanilla bean
1 pinch of salt
100 gr sugar (I would put a bit less)
70 gr cornflour

Bring to boil the milk with the split vanilla bean.
Meanwhile, "whiten" (or whip) the yolks and the sugar with a whisk.
Add up the cornflour. Keep on whipping while pouring the other half of milk.
Then put everything back into the saucepan (the one where you were boiling the milk, remember !). Stir very well until the custard thickens.

Cool it down.


Building the tart:
Very easy !
Lay down the custard on the pastry tart.
Then gently put down the strawberries.
You can add some gelatine if you wish getting a starlet effect !

The chocolate cake "à tuer sa mère"

Ingredients:
200 gr dark chocolate
200 gr sugar (or less)
200 gr butter (salted is a bit better)
2 Tbs flour
5 eggs


Instructions:
Melt chocolate and butter in a "bain-marie".
While the mixture is melted and onctuous, add a pinch of black pepper, ginger and cinamon.
Add the sugar and stir well.
Add the eggs, one by one, and stir well in between. Each egg should be well incorporated in before you add the other one.
Add the flour.
Stir to get a dough very bright and smooth.

Pour everything in a cake pan.
Bake it in the oven at 180 oC for 20 min.

When cooked, it doesn't seem to be but it's ok, don't panic !
You just need to leave it aside cool down a bit.

You can sprinkle it with icing sugar before serving.

Voilà.

Dégustation:
This cake is successful ! When you bring it out from the oven, it smells so go that the only idea that comes to your mind is to eat it, straight away. But you shouldn't ... or maybe yes, it's up to you !
Once you put a piece in your mouth, you just need to let it melt in your palate. It's round, savory, you can hear purring inside you and you just feel good.
Wanna try ?

Green curry paste

A special tribute for Nick who gave me the recipe. I made a couple of modification and added my own touch.

Ingrédients:

4 green chilies
4 small red chilies
1 lemongrass stalk
1 small onion
3 shallots
9 garlic cloves
1 inch fresh galangal
1 inch fresh ginger
1 bunch of fresh coriander
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp white pepper
8 kaffir lime leaves
1 lime
2 tsp shrimp paste (terasi, belacan)
8 leaves of thai basil
400 ml coconut milk


Preparation:
Put the shrimp paste in a aluminum foil (or in a banana leave) and heat it in the oven for 5 min.
The use of a mortar and a pestle is almost mandatory if you want a full success of this recipe. It's up to you I mean, if you're ready to receive bad critics about the texture and stuff like that, use a robot ! Besides, grinding the spices and the herbs is really fun, smells good and can be a good workout !
At the and you should get a nice and smooth paste.

Start to crush the roots (peeled ginger & galangal), 5 of the kaffir lime leaves, the coriander roots (keep aside the leaves) and the chilies (seedless) in the mortar.

Add all the seeds (coriander, cumin, pepper) and keep on crushing.
Add then the shirmp paste, the lime zest, the lime juice, the garlic clobes and the shallots.

Crush, crush, crush until you get a beautiful paste, bright and smooth.

Cooking:
Cut the onion, fried it in a saucepan with oil.
Add the curry paste and fried it for a couple of minutes.

Add the meat and grill it with the paste.
Squash the lemongrass stalk and combine it in the saucepan.

Pour the coconut milk, cover and put a low heat for 10 min.

Add the leaves (kaffir lime and basil), cover it and cook it for 10 more min.

Add the veggies and/or shrimp/fish and cook it covered for another 10 min.
Then open up the saucepan and cook it for 10 min or more, until the sauce is thick enough for you.
If you leave it cover, you will end up with a liquid sauce. It really depends on your taste and what you're looking for. I reckon that both are really good and worths to be try !


Dégustation
What I like the most in this recipe, is the crushing and squashing moment.
Evertyhing smells so good, emanation and fragrance of the ingredients wake yours senses up !
It's fresh, flowered, spiced up, chilied, simply exquisite !
Yes, I admit, it can also be very very spicy ... but that's what it's good I guess !

Banana cake

Where is the real picture ?... it's coming, be patient .....

Ingredients:

125 gr butter (soft)
200 gr sugar
1 ripe banana (roughly 300 gr)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla sugar (optional)
2 eggs
150 ml milk
225 gr flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
few walnuts
1 pinch cinamon
1 pinch nutmeg
1 pinch ginger
1 pinch white pepper



Proceeding:

Combine all ingredients in a mixer bowl.
Pour down the dough in a cake pan.
Let it cook for 30-35 min in the oven at 180 °C.

Once the cake is cooked, cool it down on a grill.


Dégustation:
This cake can be eaten warm as well.
Serve it warm with an almond ice cream and you'll be just in heaven.
The other thing cool with this cake is that you can replace banane with carrots or zucchini or pumkin ...
It's easy and absolutely fanstatic !

Chocolate custard

These chocolate custards are really easy to make and are better to eat when cold. They taste like old fashion chocolate cream.

Ingredients

500 ml milk
20 gr cornflour (or 2 tbs)
5 tbs bitter cocoa
2 tbs sugar
6 big chocolate squares
1 teaspoon orange bossom water


Proceeding
Heat 400 ml of milk with the chocolate squares. Bring to boil.
Meanwhile. combine 100 ml milk with cornflour, cocoa and sugar. Stir well.
Pour down in the saucepan with the boiled chocolate milk and whip very well until the mixture thicken.
Add "fleur d'oranger", a pinch of salt and pepper.




Fill ramekins with the custard, cover surface of custard with plastic wrap. Cool to fridge temperature.

Wait for at least an hour. They need to be very cold ! If you can't wait, put them in the freezer .. maybe you've just done that !?!....