With Andrea away for the weekend, I treated myself to a pastrami sandwich at Stachowski's, the artisanal butcher/charcutiere in Georgetown, and brought home some other goodies for the weekend. I got the hot Italian sausage to grill and it crisped up nicely and tasted good. These modern sausages tend to be a little too politically correct, however, and this had too little salt and too little fat. Instead of dripping juices, it was a little dry after grilling.
The duck confit was terrific. I wanted to reproduce the way confit was served on the goose farm I stayed at in Perigord one vacation -- the confit crisped on top of potatoes which had absorbed the fat while roasting. I peeled and diced some baby red potatoes I had into 1/4-in cubes, and browned them in the skillet in some olive oil. Then I put the duck leg/thigh on top and popped it into a 425-degree oven for 15 min. or so. To get the right golden color on the duck, I put it under the broiler for a few minutes to finish. The duck was tender, remained moist and was good-sized.
I also got some delicious hand-crafted mortadella, one of my favorite salumi. This had much more flavor than the mass-produced. It was sliced very thin the way it needs to be and was a great antipasto all weekend. It's a good thing, really, that Stachowski's isn't any closer!
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