Cooking At Home Part 1

So I've been cooking some stuff at home the past couple of weeks and figured I'd pass a little on. I find that a lot of the things I make at home have been stuff I've done in the restaurants I've worked in, sometimes tweaking them along the way. I don't really go by recipes as much as just adding a little here and there, going by what I know is right and my palate.

Recently Andi and I bought a crock pot. It's great for being able to cook things that take awhile to breakdown or if you just don't have a lot of time. We had some duck legs in the freezer, so I decided to confit them. I put them on the bottom of the pot and then added:

Half an orange, cut into 3rds

Half an onion, large julienne

Couple of smashed garlic cloves

One sprig of rosemary

Couple of sprigs of thyme

Couple of bay leaves

A man pinch of black peppercorns(Man pinch is a term I learned from my old chef Todd Winer. It's not a handful and it's not a pinch. It's somewhere in between!!)

I added enough vegetable oil to cover, turned it on high, and let it go untouched for 6 hours. The legs will come out super tender!! You can then hard sear them in a pan(medium-high heat, touch of oil) to get them a little crispy or eat them as is with a little salt. The same process above can also be applied in an oven which is how we do it in a kitchen. Just put them in your oven covered with foil on low(say 250 degrees) and let it go for about the same amount of time. The oil can be reused for more duck legs later or....I took some of it, tossed it with quartered red bliss potatoes, wedges of Honeycrisp apples, whole shallots, some pulled fresh sage, salt, and cracked black pepper and roasted them in the oven. Goes great with the duck!

My mom came back from Idaho where she was visiting a friend who had a ton of red onions. She gave me some so I decided to pickle them. Using two large red onions(and I mean large!) I julianned them and placed them in a bowl with a lid I could seal. I then added:

A couple of bay leaves

A couple of sprigs of tarragon

3-4 dried red chiles, breaking one or two open and sprinkling in the seeds

A man pinch of juniper berries

5-6 whole cloves

1 medium red beet, raw, peeled, and quartered(for color)

I heated up 2 cups of rice vinegar with about 1/4 cup sugar. Once the sugar is dissolved, pour the hot mixture over the onions, cover, and let sit in the fridge for about a week. Stir them maybe twice. The more they sit, the more flavor they will have and the vinegar will start to mellow. They are great with a pate, sliced salumi or on a sandwich. I'm doing them at work on a burger with mozzarella cheese, pickled onions, wasabi ketchup, and avocado.