In the introduction to this recipe from The Whole Beast, Fergus Henderson warns:

This is a dish you have to think about a week ahead.

That’s what I was thinking as I unpacked my case of duck legs, so I reserved six of them for this recipe and gathered the ingredients for a brine: two cups of sugar, two and a quarter cups of kosher salt, two bay leaves, and 12 each of whole peppercorns, cloves, and juniper berries.

I added everything to a bucket with four quarts of water, stirred until the salt and sugar were dissolved, added the duck legs, then stored the bucket in the fridge. I used a plate to keep the legs submerged.

After a week I was ready to poach the legs in aromatics (a head of garlic, two peeled and halved onions, two cleaned leeks, two peeled carrots, two stalks of celery, two bay leaves, twelve peppercorns, and a bundle of thyme and parsley) and make the dumplings (two eggs, seven ounces of finely diced wheat bread, two ounces of minced bacon, two thirds of a cup of freshly grated horseradish, and three quarters of a cup of fine yellow cornmeal).

I put the duck and aromatics in a pot and added water to cover, then simmered the legs for about an hour, until they were fork tender.

While the legs simmered, I combined the rest of the ingredients by hand until they formed a sticky dough. My dough was slightly drier than I expected.

According to the recipe, I should have been able top make about a dozen three quarter-inch dumplings; I wound up with fifteen inch and a half dumplings instead.

I transferred some of the cooking liquid from the legs to another pot, brought it to a simmer, added the dumplings, and cooked them for ten minutes.

When the legs were done I set them aside, strained the cooking liquid, brought it to a boil and added two pounds of trimmed green beans, letting them cook for three minutes.

To plate, I spooned some beans into a bowl, topped them with a duck leg, added a few dumplings, and then finished with a ladleful of the cooking liquid.

The brine firmed up the legs a bit, so they weren’t as meltingly tender as a braised version. I though the salt would be the dominant note, but was surprised at the sweetness the brine imparted. As for the dumplings, while the flavor combination – bacon, bread, horseradish – contrasted with the duck, the texture was off. She Who Must Be Obeyed, queen of dumplings, pronounced them “a bit dense, and dry inside.” I can only assume I used too much bread, but I was sure I followed the recipe’s proportions.

Since we had a guest for that meal, I had only two legs left over for dinner this evening. My solution: re-warm the legs in the remaining stock and shred them, render some bacon lardons, quarter the remaining dumplings, and assemble an arugula and shallot salad. I reserved some of the bacon fat to dress the salad (along with a splash of merlot vinegar), and used the rest to crisp the dumplings and make croutons.

Not bad for leftovers. It’s hard to go wrong with bacon, or duck.

This is a vegetarian recipe from David Chang, the chef whose menu once proclaimed “We do not serve vegetarian-friendly items here.” It appears in the March 2011 issue of Food and Wine, in an article about Chang’s trip to a Korean monastery. I was inspired to try it because it looked good, it utilized a new technique, and, lastly, because it was a David Chang recipe.

During his recent lecture at Harvard, Chang described a new technique for making ramen broth. It began with the usual steeping of kombu in water, but then used ground dried shiitake mushrooms to extract the maximum amount of flavor. This recipe began the same way: I simmered a ounce of kombu in 14 cups of water for 30 minutes.

I assembled the rest of my ingredients: three ounces of dried shiitakes (finely ground in a food processor), two cups of flour, three quarters of a cup of water, a half cup of soy sauce, a quarter cup of mirin, six ounces of fresh shiitakes (caps thinly sliced, stems cleaned and reserved), and a pound of Swiss chard (stems finely chopped, leaves roughly chopped).

I mixed the flour and water together in a standing mixer with a dough hook, about ten minutes, until the dough was smooth.

I wrapped the dough in plastic and let it rest for 30 minutes. By this point the kombu had simmered for half an hour, so I discarded it. I added the ground mushrooms (and the reserved stems – not in the original recipe, but why throw out extra mushroom flavor?), brought the mixture to a boil, covered and removed it from the heat, and let it sit for 30 minutes.

I strained the broth and returned it to the pot. I briefly considered flattening and dehydrating the mushroom sludge, but I don’t (yet) own a dehydrator.

While the soup steeped, I rolled out the dough to about an eighth of an inch thick and cut it into uneven strips.

I added the soy sauce and mirin to the soup stock and brought it to a boil, then added the chard and shiitake slices and cooked for two minutes. I added the noodles to the soup and cooked for an additional five minutes before serving. Chang recommends garnishing with kimchi and honey, but I was out of kimchi, so I substituted a slash of kimchi consommé and a quick pickle I made of watermelon radish.

For a soup with so few ingredients, this had a remarkable depth of flavor. It came close to matching the smoky undertone of a full-blown ramen stock, yet took only a fraction of the time to make. The chard still had a bit of bite, the pickled radish added salty-seweet crunch, and the noodles were sort and chewy. There was enough soup for two meals, so for the second round I added some shredded pork shoulder (left over from ramen) which almost pushed the soup into overly rich territory.

I plan on making this again, but I also intend to keep the Belm Utility Research Kitchen stocked with a supply of ground dried mushrooms for making quick Asian stock. If I can whip it together in an hour, there’s no need to keep it in the freezer – a good thing, since the Deep Storage Facility is full to capacity.

The first time I spent my own money on fine dining was in August of 1980. My girlfriend was visiting on her birthday weekend and I wanted to do something special for her. Somehow I managed to score a reservation for two in the Crystal Room at Tavern on the Green in Central Park on the weekend of the Democratic National Convention (Carter and Mondale, but I voted for Anderson – remember him?). I had it all planned out; it was going to be a huge surprise.

We took a train to the city, then a cab to the park. I gave the cabbie the address of the restaurant rather than the name so as not to spoil the big reveal when we arrived. We pulled up to the front, I paid the cab, and my girlfriend said “What’s Tavern on the Green?” So much for surprises. The staff immediately made us as a bunch of kids who could be hustled out of the room as quickly as possible to turn the table for a better tipping high-rolling politician. We were seated facing away from the view over the park, our waiter was brusque to the point of being rude, but I was determined to get my money’s worth, choosing to take my time eating.

The only thing I remember about the food was that I had duck, a classic presentation of crispy leg and seared sliced breast. I don’t know how well it was prepared, having to standard of comparison, but I loved the taste. From that point on you could win bets predicting that I’d choose the duck entrée at any restaurant that served it. I finally laid that obsession to rest after my lunch at Bouchon, content in the knowledge that I’d eaten the Platonic ideal caneton á l’orange.

When I was sourcing ingredients for the marathon cooking session in January, I noticed that Restaurant Depot sold duck legs in 20-pound frozen flats. A few weeks ago I bought a box, partially thawed it and portioned out 40 eight-ounce legs. Some immediately became cooking projects, the rest were repackaged in bags of four and returned to the Deep Storage Facility. Six legs were set aside for this recipe from Fergus Henderson’s The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating.

I assembled the duck legs, a peeled and sliced onion, two sliced leeks, 14 medium carrots (chopped into quarter-inch rounds), 8 cloves of peeled garlic, a parsley and rosemary bundle, one jalapeño pepper, two bay leaves, and about two cups of chicken-leek stock.

I browned the legs on both sides in a tablespoon of duck fat.

After setting the legs aside, I cooked the onions, leeks, garlic, and carrots in the rendered fat, then transferred them to a baking dish, adding the jalapeño and herb bundle.

I set the legs on top of the aromatics, then added enough stock to partially cover the legs. After an hour and a half in a 375°F oven the legs were done.

I set the legs aside, strained the stock from the vegetables (which I also set aside), and reduced the stock a bit to concentrate it. I plated the leg over the vegetables and added a few spoonfuls of the sauce and some parsley to garnish.

Some of my more attentive readers might notice the similarities between this recipe and the crisp-braised duck legs I cooked about a month ago. The technique is identical, but the type and ratio of aromatics is different. This version has more carrots and leeks, and adds onions while omitting celery. The resulting sauce is sweeter, which I preferred. Even He Who Will Not Be Ignored noticed the difference, commenting “You should make this version from now on, the carrots are better.”

Who am I to argue? It seems I’m dealing with a case of like father, like son, with He Who asking for duck for dinner. That’s what leftovers are for, and he happily ate this variation served over mashed potatoes with a side of arugula in duck confit jelly vinaigrette.

Duck confit jelly? Yup, a by-product of a second duck project. But that’s another post.

I was looking for something unusual to make for She Who Must Be Obeyed for a Valentine’s Day diner when I saw this recipe in Momofuku. How could I pass it up when it began with this introducton?

Your goal is to completely bone out a whole chicken and end up with two boneless halves, each a breast and leg connected by skin. Hey, if you’re going to go though the trouble to find transglutaminase to make this recipe, I’m thinking that deboning a chicken is right up your fun alley.

I didn’t know I had a “fun alley,” but I do know my way around a chicken. A friend once commented “You don’t so much carve a chicken as dissect it.” Although I had never boned out an entire bird, I figured I wouldn’t have any trouble the first time. All I needed was a chicken and a sharp boning knife.

I cut the wing tips at the first joint and removed the wishbone. After popping the leg joints, I made an incision, er, sliced along the line of the breastbone from front to back. Following the line of the ribcage, I peeled back the meat until I reached the backbone, where I made a second front-to-back incision. The entire side came off in one piece.

Repeating the cuts on the other side resulted in two halves and a carcass (which, along with the wing bits went into the freezer for future stock making).

To debone the legs, I made an L-shaped cut along the tops of the bones, separated the meat with the tip of my knife, and cut the bottom of the leg through the tendons to free the leg and thigh bones. The only bones remaining on the two halves were the first wing bone, which would remain for decorative purposes.

After setting each half on plastic wrap, I separated the tenderloins from the breasts and placed them on the thighs where the bone was removed. I seasoned each half with salt and pepper, then sprinkled on half a teaspoon of transglutaminase.

I folded the breast over the thigh, then gathered the skin around the bundle to form a “brick” shape. When the skin was tucked under itself, I pulled the plastic around the bundle, using it to tighten the wrapped chicken. I placed both bundles in a square baking pan, weighed the bricks down with another pan, and put them in the fridge for twenty four hours.

To cook, I set a cast iron skillet over high heat, unwrapped and dried the chicken halves, and browned them in canola oil.

The chicken roasted in a 400°F oven for half an hour, then I basted it on the stovetop with butter (an entire stick!), garlic, and thyme for about two minutes.

I cut each brick into four pieces and served them with the butter sauce, sugar snap peas, and preserved lemon risotto.

I’d like to tell you that the chicken was the best I’ve ever tasted, but I can tell you it comes close. The real advantage of this technique is creating a uniform shape that cooks evenly: the breast and thigh meat were equally done and perfectly moist. The butter sauce was all the accompaniment needed, anything else would have obscured the chicken flavor.

It may seem like a lot of work, but this dish is pretty easy to make. Yo should consider giving it a try, it might be right up your fun alley.

It took some convincing to get me to make my own kimchi, but I knew if I ever wanted to have bo ssäm that it would be a necessary ingredient. However, once we had consumed the pork shoulder in a locust-like frenzy, I still had a lot of kimchi left over. I puréed some of it to use in a Fuji apple salad, but that still left a substantial amount to deal with. I couldn’t let it ferment for much longer – I didn’t want to experience truly stanky kimchi – so I searched though Momofuku for another application. The combination of kimchi and oysters had worked surprisingly well in the bo ssäm, so kimchi consommé for oysters seemd like a logical next step. I’d get to use the last of my supply, and learn a new technique – gelatin clarification – all in one go.

I gathered my ingredients: a half cup of puréed kimchi, one and a half cups of hot water, two sheets of gelatin, a tablespoon of rice vinegar, and a teaspoon of sugar.

I added the gelatin and water to a freezer-proof container and stirred to dissolve.

I added the kimchi, vinegar, sugar, and some freshly ground black pepper, and stirred to combine. I was satisfied with the level of kimchi heat, so I covered the container and put in it the freezer. Where it sat for two months while holidays, life, and sickness (good title for the next Arcade Fire record) got in the way.

I promised She Who Must Be Obeyed a belated Valentine’s day dinner last weekend, and thought some oysters with the consommé would be a good first course. To prepare, I unmolded the frozen kimchi-gelatin block from its container and placed it in a cheesecloth-lined fine mesh strainer set over a bowl. I returned this collection setup to the fridge.

After twenty four hours I wound up with a bowl full of clear liquid (seen at the top of this post) and a rubbery puck of kimchi, which I discarded. The gelatin had formed a matrix that trapped all of the particulates, allowing only the liquid component to seep through. This same technique can be used to create a consommé from any liquid, something I’l be sure to try soon.

I popped open six Island Creek oysters, set them in a bowl of ice, and spooned the consommé into the shells until they were full to the brim.

The heat and sweetness from the consommé were a perfect balance to the briny oysters. She Who and I agreed this was a fine alternative to more typical oyster garnishes. Unfortunately, the liquid will only keep for about a week, so we may have to force ourselves to eat more oysters. That, or I’ll have to make more kimchi. Or both.