Cuisses de Canard Braisées avec Vin Blanc et Magrets á la Sel de Mer

Fuuuuck... I warned you that a new age of douchebaggery was coming. It took me too damn fucking long, but here it is. I've been collecting several recipes over the past few weeks, but haven't actually had the time to sit my ass down to type. This duck, however, was prioritary. You see, before this dish, more than 2 years had passed since the last time I cooked duck. Sucks dick, I know, but duck is amazingly hard to find around here.

So I got my filthy paws on a frozen canadian bird. Purists will want to kill me, and with good reason, but the times were desperate. My duck jones had to be satisfied. Also, paying a shitload of money for a lousy bird commands a very pretentious and pedantic dish. Something long, complicated and douche-y sounding. Something French.

This is not exactly a traditional french recipe, but rather a sort of scrapbook of my memories there.

And my memories are kind of hazy about that whole period

Start with a whole 6-lb duck and break it down to pieces. Get your poultry shears and trim the excess skin and fat from around the neck and tail. Starting from the ass, cut your way up to the neck along the outer edge of the breast, then pull away and separate.

Take a very sharp knife and run it down the breastbone, separating the meat from the ribs and leaving as little as possible behind. These are your magrets. Score the skin superficially at 2 cm intervals, salt liberally, wrap in plastic at place in the fridge.

Now cut down the skin in front of the hind quarters all the way o the joint. Dislocate it pulling outward and cut the meat behind. Trim some of the skin and fat from the edges and refrigerate.

Place the carcass in a pot with 1 gallon of water and some aromatics. In this case: 1 onion, 2 carrots, 2 ribs celery, a handfull of black pepper and a bouquet garni of thyme, rosemary and parsley. Boil for 2 hours, strain and discard everything but the duck carcass. Pull and shred the meat from the carcass and reserve for another use (in this case, duck confit for a salad a few days later... more on that eventually). Reserve the remaining broth for another time.


Take 4 cups of the duck broth, cool it down and skim the fat from the surface. Don't be a moron, reserve the fat. It's fucking awesome.

Now let's braise the legs.

MON DIEU! ALERTE DE MOMENT SHELDON!

Braising is the cooking technique where a protein is cooked using both moist and dry heat to obtain a different flavor. It's mostly reserved for tougher pieces of meat, but it can be used on pretty much anything you want. The rationale behind it is that dry heat at the begining of the cooking process will trigger a Maillard reaction (more on that next week) on the surface and create flavor, while the moist heat will dissolve the collagen in the meat and soften it. This particular kind of braising, where dry heat is applied twice to the protein, is exactly how we cook carnitas (pulled pork) here in Mexico, so feel free to try this with pork.

FIN DE MOMENT SHELDON

Start by browning them evenly with a little olive oil, just 5 minutes per side. Now add some chopped onions and thick-sliced potatoes. Add the 4 cups of duck broth and a little over 2 cups of white wine, in this case, a cheap-ass pinot grigio. Place the duck legs on the vegetables and make sure they're covered by the liquid, cover and leave be over a medium-low flame for 2 1/2 hours, until most of the liquid evaporates and the vegetables are sautéed in the rendered duck fat.

Yes, the bottom burned a little, so I discarded those potatoes. But the rest was amazing

Ten minutes before you turn off the duck legs, cook the Magrets. Place them skin-side-down on a cold skillet and turn on the flame on medium high. Forget about them for about 10-15 minutes, they'll cook in their own fat (which, of course, you will reserve afterwards) and the skin will brown beautifully. Turn them over and cook for another 2 minutes. They should still be a little red inside.

To serve, place some of the potatoes and onions on a plate, arange a duck leg on top of them and spoon whatever liquid was left in the pan on top. If you didn't get any, deglace the pan with some more wine, add a little butter dipped in flour and whisk until a sauce forms. Slice the magret crosswise and fan out in front of the legs.

Get ready to have your mind (and body) blown the fuck away.

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Duck Legs Braised in White Wine and Rare Duck Magrets with Sea Salt

1 6lb duck, broken down.
2 large onions
2 large celery ribs
2 large carrots
2 sprigs each of thyme, rosemary and parsley
salt and pepper

Or you can take the pussy way out and get:
2 duck magrets
2 duck hind quarters
4 cups chicken stock

1 bottle dry white wine
1 lb small new potatoes

1. Break down your duck and make a stock out of the carcass and the aromatics. Boil for about 2 1/2 hours, then strain and discard all solids but the meat. Pick the meat from the bones and reserve for another use. Cool the broth and skim away the fat and reserve as well.
2. Salt the magret liberally with sea salt and wrap in plastic wrap. Set aside.
3. Brown the duck legs in a little olive oil until the skin is pale golden (about 5 minutes on each side), then add sime sliced onions, potatoes, 4 cups of stock and 2 to 3 cups of dry white wine. Braise over a medium low flame for about 2 hours, until most of the liquid evaporates.
4. Set the magrets skin side down on a cold skillet, turn on the heat to medium high and leave them the fuck alone for 8 to 10 minutes, then flip (ONLY FUCKING ONCE!) and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes. The meat must be medium done.
5. Deglaze the pan where you cooked the legs with some wine, scraping all the browned bits off, then add some butter dipped in flour and whisk until a sauce forms
6. Plate the legs over a mound of potatoes and spoon the sauce on top. Slice the magrets think and fan out the slices around.
7. Get laid like a rockstar

Nicaraguan Tamales

It's been a long time coming. Not just this blog post, but me reconnecting with my roots. You see, my dad is Nicaraguan. The Nicaraguan Revolution exploded as soon as he left to study medicine here in Mexico, so he decided to stay once he met my mom.

Back -way fucking back- when I was a kid, there was a community of nicaraguan ex-pats in my hometown that got together every December 8th to Celebrate the Immaculate Conception, which is Nicaragua's biggest national holiday. People would gather to pray and then pig the fuck out while drinking rum and beer, and singing traditional folk songs.

That's us, on the Ometepe, about 100lbs ago

I was 8 the first time we traveled to Nicaragua. Prior to that, my dad filled my young brain with tales of a wondrous land of excitement and all that bullshit. The country itself is tiny, and back in the 80s it was still ravaged by war, in accordance with all the fucktarded latin stereotypes you can find in a Stallone movie.

The Expendables... such potential... such a waste

But amidst all the poverty, all the tragedy, I found the most amazing thing. EVERYONE SMILES, constantly. There's no TV to fuck your brain, so everyone reads. There's a poetry supplement on the local newspaper in Managua every weekend that's about half the total volume of the whole paper. Everything is an excuse to celebrate, to gather, to talk. Music booms everywhere, and nobody's shy of dancing and showing you how.

Also, Miss Nicaragua (blue headband)...

AND THE FOOD! Holy fuckballs! There's aztec, mayan and inca mixed with spanish, french and african. Mostly from Ivory Coast, I later learned. The whole experience is surreal. Walking down the street you'll find fruit stands, juice stands, hundreds of traditional confections and fried stuff that can rival a walk down a chinese market.

I eventually learned to cook pretty much everything I've eaten on my travels, except Nacatamales. Up until a few months ago, they were my Great White Buffalo. You see, Nicaragua's 50,193 sq mi are divided into 17 Departments, each of which has its own completelly different recipe for them. They're also a metric shit-ton worth of work, which is why they're mostly saved for lazy weekend breakfasts.

These are Leonese Nacatamales. I suggest you take a day to prepare all the fillings and another day to make the batter and build. Your mise-en-place is vital here, because you'll be working with raw meat in large quantities. Start by prepping your fillings. We have bird chiles, potatoes, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, peppermint, capers, olives, raisins and prunes. Also, soak about 3 cups of rice in eough water to cover it completey and 2 Tbsps of achiote paste overnight.

As for the meat, nacatamales are always filled with pork. Get yourself 2.5 lbs of pork spare ribs and 5 lbs of  pork tenderloin, cut the meat in evenly-sized chunks, then marinate them in a mixture of 3 cups sour orange juice and 3 oz of achiote paste overnight.

Remember that time, waaaay back, when we used a lot of banana leaves? Well, here we go again. Only this time, you need to soften them over a flame. This makes them more manageable and also brings out a different layer of flavor. I suggest you get your ass down to this first.

Now juice enough sour (Seville) oranges to get about a gallon of juice. Blend 4 cups of juice with 3 oz of achiote paste, 2 large onions (2 cups), 5 or 6 tomatoes (3 cups) and 2 or 3 large anaheim chiles. Add to the rest of the juice and set aside

Boil and mash 4 lbs of starchy potatoes, then mix with about a cup of the previous mixture to color. Set aside.

This is corn masa. You've heard of it, I know. Get yourself 9 lbs. Add about 1/2 of the remaining orange juice mixture and 2 lbs pork lard. Mix by hand, tear your fucking rotator cuff while doing so and add the mashed potatoes. You may need to add more liquid untill you achieve the desired texture... which can only be explained by these pics. Season everything with kosher salt and move on.

Oh, the porcine goodness....

 

Since my guess is that banana leaves are hard to come by wherever you are, ready some aluminum foil. Now place a large banana leaf on your foil and add about 1/2 a cup of masa. Top with a little bit of everything and roll. Tuck the outer edges underneath and then wrap the whole thing in foil as neatly and tightly as possible. It must be waterproof.

The fact that there is a nonagenarian nicaraguan grandmother calmly and solemnly overseeing the whole operation speaks of its autheticity

Repeat about 72 times.

Boil for about 2 hours, then allow about 15 minutes to cool outside the boiling water before unwrapping. Alternatively, you can freeze them like this and just boil them for 3 hours straight out of the freezer.

Serve with some french bread and butter and a really strong cup of coffee for breakfast, or a really cold beer for any other time.

Printer Friendly Version: Nacatamales
Yields 68-70 servings

9lbs masa
4lbs mashed potatoes
2 lbs pork lard, melted
1 gallon sour orange juice
3 bars (90z) achiote paste
3 cups uncooked rice

2.5 lbs pork spare ribs, cut in chunks
5 lbs por tenderloin, cut in chunks

6 potatoes
6 onions
6 green bell peppers
12 (or so) large tomatoes
1 large jar olives
1 small jar capers
Raisins
Prunes
Peppermint
Bird chiles

Banana leaves
Aluminum foil
Kosher salt

1. Marinate the pork separately overnight in some achiote paste dissolved in some sour orange juice
2. Soak the rice overnight in enough water to cover it by 1/2 inch and 3 Tbsps achiote paste
3. Blend 4 cups OJ with 2 large onions, 5 large tomatoes and 2 or 3 large anaheim chiles. Mix with the rest of the juice and set aside
4. Roast the banana leaves over a flame
5. Cut the rest of the vegetables in thick matchsticks and set aside
6. Mix the masa, lard and mashed potatoes in a big-ass tub and add enough orange juice mixture until it has the consistency of toothpaste. Season with kosher salt.
7. Lay a large piece of foil before you, top with a banana leaf, then laddle 1/2 cup of masa on top.
8. Layer the fillings anyway you want inside.
9. Roll tightly with the banana leaf, then the foil.
10. Boil for about 2 hours, then set aside to cool slightly
11. Un-wrap, peel, serve and be FUCKING AWESOME