Cassoulet with Duck Confit (and a Vegetarian Option)

Yesterday evening my wife, step-daughter and I went to Buckley's in Belltown to join Auburn club to watch the BCS Bowl. These fans in the SEC teams are "true" fanatics! I was fortunate to attend a football game a couple of months back where Auburn Tigers were playing an unranked team. The capacity of the stadium is about 87,500 and about 70,000 showed up. This was considered a slow game?!?! I never seen so many dedicated spectators in my life! Yesterday evening was no exception where the fans that showed up at Buckley's were very into the game. Since the game was Auburn Tigers versus the Oregon Ducks, I asked my wife if she would like duck for dinner today.  Her replied was only if we win.  During the last 3 seconds of the game, Auburn kicked the winning field goal and my mind was churning what should I cook for dinner?

On the drive home I was thinking of comfort food - cassoulet with duck confit.  I was never much of a bean person until I turned vegan. 
Duck confit is easy to make but can be labor intensive.  The method that I like to use is to use a wet brine first and then sous vide the meat for a minimum of 10 hours. I bought a couple of duck quarters at an Asian food store. Call me cheap but the cost of certain items can be 30-60% cheaper at an Asian grocery store with almost similar qualities.

I soaked the duck quarter in a 5% brine solution and added chopped garlic and fresh rosemary as an aromatic to the brine.  Some people would add brown sugar to the brine to sweeten it slightly. I normally don't use sugar for duck but will almost use it every time to brine turkey for roasting, smoking, or deep frying. 

To avoid bacteria growth I normally put the meat and the brine solution in the refrigerator for about 3 hours. Last night I started around 12:30am knowing that I'll stay until 3:30am finishing work from the office. I figure it was a good motivator to get my work done :)  Around 3:30am I was still wide awake and rinse off the brine from the duck quarters. I then covered them and put them back in the refrigerator. Here is the tricky part. It takes 10 hour to cook the duck confit so I needed to wake up a decent hour to start the sous vide :) 

The next morning when I was half asleep I seasoned it with a "secret" Cajun seasoning. It is one of the best seasoning to use for duck confit among other things.

I then took a duck quarter and place it in an individual foodsaver bag with frozen rendered duck fat about 3 tablespoon. This is required to cook the duck in its own fat to make it a confit.

It was then vacuum packed at the dry setting to get most of the air out using a foodsaver machine.

The method that I use to make the duck confit is using a sous vide supreme machine. It is almost foolproof. I have made duck confit in the past the traditional method in the oven and it doesn't come out as well.  My sous vide supreme is probably one of my top 3 appliances in the kitchen. I set the water bath to 176 degrees to cook the duck.

I placed each of the vacuum packed bags in the rack and dropped it in the water bath, cover it, and then waited 10 hours. 

I got home from work and started the cassoulet! I chopped some aromatics (minus carrots because I ran out)  - onions, celery, and chopped cooked Virginia ham I had in the fridge.

I cooked this mixture with a little olive oil in a pan for 8-10 minutes. This isn't exactly vegan but it smelled really really good :)

I took two canned white beans and drained all the liquid. I then added the beans to the aromatics and the ham. This was then cooked on the stove top for about 12 minutes. Sliced tomatoes and bread crumbs where then added on top and then placed in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

I started to make potatoes while the cassoulet was cooking on the stove top. I love Yukon gold potatoes cooked in rendered duck fat! Again, this is not quite vegan but the taste is amazing!

This is an easy recipe. Just add a couple of tablespoon of duck fan in a pan and then cook the sliced Yukon gold for about 3-4 minutes on each side. Add salt at the end to taste. Can we say yum???

I then sauteed some fresh spinach with olive oil and garlic salt for about 5 minutes on medium heat.

Take the pan off the heat to prevent the spinach from overcooking. Ever had overcooked spinach? Think back when you were in elementary school :) 

Since I'm still vegan (95% of the time), I lightly fried fresh tofu in duck fat with a light dusting of flour and salt for about 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

Okay, let's jump back to the duck confit. I took the confit out of the foodsaver bag and pour out all the excess oil and juice for use later. Here is the duck quarter right out of the bag after 10 hours. It's not really aesthically appealing but it is not done yet!

Take more duck fat and added it to the pan.  See the common theme here?  Set it to medium heat and cook the duck quarter for about 10 minutes on each side or until golden brown.  Now this looks a lot more appealing :)

I have made duck confit in the past using a blow torch to sear the outside. I find that searing it on the pan provides a more uniform color. Here is the completed dish. I didn't spend a lot of time on presentation but it tasted yummy nevertheless :)

If I were to do it again, I would make my own bread crumb. I was lazy this evening since I didn't have any stale bread and I was too tired to make it from scratch so I cheated.  Here is the cassoulet close up shot.

Spinach is interesting -- either you love it or hate it.  My step-daughter and I love it and my wife hates it :)

Here is my vegetarian version of the dish for myself with the tofu :)

It is not as pretty but just as wonderful to taste.

Enjoy!!

Cooking on a Himalayan Salt Block!

A couple of years ago my wife and I purchased a Himalayan salt block while on our honeymoon on a wine tasting trip in Napa Valley. We visited Dean & Deluca on our way to the French Laundry for dinner. We were quite intrigue when we saw the salt block and since we were had our car with us we purchased a circular block that was about 9 inch in diameter and about 1.75 inch in thickness.  It weighs about 15-20lbs and thought it might be fun to use this either to serve food or as we discovered tonight it could be used for cooking :) I found a great article about how to use a Himalayan salt block since I never used one before. 

What inspired me to use the salt block this evening was a couple of things.  My wife and I were discussing the next dinner party and thought about using beef as a theme for a vertical wine tasting. I dropped by Uwajimaya (Japanese grocery store) in Bellevue this afternoon and was browsing the meat department for no particular reason. I saw some beautiful Kobe style beef also known as Waygu beef (American Style Kobe Beef). It was well marbled and it was rib styled meat for $22/lb. True Kobe meat is quite expensive and the cows are known to be rubbed with Sake on the skin since they are prized animals in Japan.  We were fortunate to taste a true Kobe piece of steak at The HerbFarm a couple of years ago.  It was quite amazing!! I never seen any beef so marbled in my life! 

This evening I wanted to cook something simple -- Waygu slice of beef and shrimp. I figure I would use volunteer my wife and my step-daughter as guinea pigs. So far they have survived all my cookings and have not ended up in the hospital...yet :)

I heated the salt block directly on the gas stove starting at low heat for 10 minutes, medium heat for 10 minutes and finally high heat for 20 minutes. 

The photo above is the salt block heating on the gas stove before its first use. The photo below is after cooking the beef and shrimp.

The large crack on the salt block is actually more pronounced, lighter color changes, and definitely more pitted. I worry this would break over time!

The Waygu beef was pre-sliced so it made my life easier. I did not season the beef on purpose to see what it would taste like. The shrimp I did flavor with a light dash of Cajun seasoning. 

The first thing I did was lightly oiled the salt block with olive oil. The beef cooked almost instantly after placing it on the block. The optimal cooking time is about 30 secs on the first side and then about 15 secs on the flip side. Any longer then 30 secs total would over cook the beef. The shrimp takes a little longer about 2 minutes on the first side and then 1 minute on the flip side.

We noticed that the seasoned shrimp was perfect! The beef was a bit bland for the first couple of pieces and after that it was incredible. The beef was able to absorb the right amount of salt while cooking. I tried seasoning more beef at a later time but it was too salty when cooked. I think the key is cook a few slices of beef first and then it will start to bring out the salt on the block. We were quite happy with the first experiment!

The salt block was able to hold its heat for a good 20 minutes!  I like to try cooking vegetables and tofu the next time around for the vegan in me :)

Stay tuned for experiment #2!