Don't read if you are veganitarian

[Tiresias]

Something like this?


4 years since I bothered doing that, according to the date stamp...

Sort of. Now I think about it mine was, maybe, a Marcella Hazan recipe. The drum stick bones were left on, and it was trussed to retain a sort of fowly shape.

Neat looking work though.

 

[Tiresias]

The closest I've got to proper charcuterie, though, was the duck rillettes as a starter for the same meal. I'd definitely do that again, but maybe not with a whole duck next time, and that duck brick is definitely tempting me.

I make rillettes almost every time I cook a duck or goose. The excess bits from the carcass are more than sufficient to make a couple of ramekins of rillette. I’ve also done them with pheasant, partridge and vension (latter brilliant, pounded quite fine with allspice), but you need some more fat. Freeze nicely too.

Go on, make a duck brick. I’ll find the actual recipe if you want.

 

[AJB Temple]

Yes, I do that sort of thing, including making things like confit of duck leg, and boning out fowl to stuff . Doing things like tunnel boning a leg of lamb and stuffing with apricots, was how I learnt butchery knife skills originally quite a few years ago. I am a full believer that we should not be killing animals unless we are prepared to respect them by eating all of them and minimising waste. So, for example, I do have jars of lard and duck fat in the chiller.

The trouble is my wife is very funny about non-plain foods. This is odd as she will happy eat the German version of spam (made out of jet washed trimmings and reconstituted - though she shuts her ears to this) and cuts all fat off all meat. She will buy, at great expense, very highly spiced Bavarian salami, yet claims not to like spicing, any added salt, or fat in foods that are home made. These salami products are factory made from fatty offcuts, ground at least twice, and usually include various offal that she will not even consider eating in whole form. Even a whole ham (we have a Serrano on the counter now) she will not touch unless I slice it. All offal is off limits (I could live off calves liver frankly) and if I cook, say sweetbreads she will leave them, or pick the kidneys out of a pie. I don't really understand how animal insides can be differentiated in this way as edible / inedible, but many people do and this approach has gained momentum in the last few decades. My BFF eats meat and fish quite happily, but she will not allow any kind of dead animal in her fridge if it is recognisable as an animal component.

Anyway, making salami and sausages and bacon etc is on my agenda. I will wait until after summer.

 

[Tiresias]

My BFF eats meat and fish quite happily, but she will not allow any kind of dead animal in her fridge if it is recognisable as an animal component.

I can’t imagine how anyone could consider these to be controversial if they found them in the ‘fridge.





The pettitoes or crubeens were partly made into hong shao rou or yuan shou.



The rest made into what Fergus Henderson calls trotter gear, and frozen. Wonderful in stews.



The rabbit made a roasted stuffed saddle (grain mustard sauce), Quick confit legs, Vietnamese minced rabbit parcels (can’t remember the name, but lots of dill, mint and coriander, and wrapped up in lettuce leaves) and rillettes. That was when we were in Paris, in a place near the Bastille. There is a brilliant market, Bvd Richard Lenoir on Thursdays for food if I remember, which is where the rabbit came from. And some brilliant young artichokes to go with the saddle – violets de Provence I think.

I don’t think I can be accused of wasting any of the animals involved.

 

[AJB Temple]

Ah, trotters.

Some years ago ex wife and I went on a driving trip and ended up the other side of the pyrenees. We had sublime pigs trotters in an hotel there, north of Barcelona. I enjoyed them so much that two nights later I had them again in a village restaurant. This made me memorably, kaleidoscopically, almost tragically ill. Put me right off for a while. Then I started using them to add richness to stocks (I make a lot of chicken based stock). Cheap as chips so we don't want them popularised.

I've always had it in mind to do the Pierre Kofmann recipe for pigs trotters, but it's a complex recipe and quite challenging as you have to bone the trotter out fully and without waste, whilst keeping the skin intact.

 

[Tiresias]

Ah, trotters.
I've always had it in mind to do the Pierre Kofmann recipe for pigs trotters, but it's a complex recipe and quite challenging as you have to bone the trotter out fully and without waste, whilst keeping the skin intact.

Never done Koffmann’s version, but I’ve made this one.



No pictures, I’m afraid. It’s less of a faff than you might think, but time consuming. And the trotters are very delicate when they first come out of the oven. One of those ones to do when you enjoy the procedure as much as the end result. And you are not in a hurry.

I had something similar to Koffmann’s at Martin Wishart’s on The Shore. He had a star at the time. Think he still does. Not sure it had the sweetbreads in the stuffing though. One of those slightly tiresome ‘trios’ of pork that were popular at the time. Certainly was a trotter, stuffed with a force meat. The other parts of the trio were a bit of belly with skin (crackling, mmm) and something I can’t remember.

Took my team there for Christmas lunch once. My treat, so I chose the wine too. A bit costly.
Don’t really go to the starred ones these days. Too poor. And I don’t like the slightly sepulchral atmosphere you get. Certainly took a lot of bonhomie to overcome the restraint in the room that Christmas.

We managed though.

 

[AJB Temple]

Which book is that? Don't recognise the recipe from my book collection. It does not look dissimilar to the Koffman method. The main issue is boning out as it is fiddly and takes me ages (I split the skin on two when I tried it first. Doing say six for a meal for friends is pretty daunting. Hence I have never managed the whole Koffman version.

Pretty much agree about the Michelin starred places. I've had some stunning meals in the past, but I tend to think the star chasers have lost the plot a bit these days and the prices are silly. My mind set is I tend to prefer to spend a bit of money on excellent ingredients and take the time to cook them myself.

Oddly enough just yesterday I was reading a restaurant trade piece where it was suggested that even the three star places do not source the best ingredients any more. It did not mention any names though.

 

[Tiresias]

Which book is that? Don't recognise the recipe from my book collection.

Fergus Henderson, Nose to Tail. 2004 edition. You may have the earlier 1999 version which looks a bit different. Or the American one which I believe has an alternative title.

I’d be surprised if you didn’t have it.

I was talking about this with my partner last night, who reminded me that on more than one occasion I have boned out quail in dinner party quantities. Now that is fiddly.

And, yes, I'm with you on spending the cash on the ingredients. Whenever we go away (hasn't been often the last couple of years) we stay in aparthotels (ghastly phrase, self catering, I suppose), and I do the cooking. Much more fun that way.

 

[AJB Temple]

Damn - not only do I have that book but I have given it to people as presents :lol: To be fair to myself as an excuse for my ignorance, it is has a lot of unusual things in it. I don't cook the recipes as such but I do follow the philosophy

 

[AJB Temple]

Quail. It's a funny thing, when I first got seriously interested in cooking (long ago) I would frequently do rabbit, pigeon, quail and so on. They were readily available. However, supermarkets have destroyed butchery as a skill, as they have reduced 95% of us to buying a very limited range of meat and very little offal.

Quail - damn fiddly to bone out and for some reason even the eggs are fiddly to hard-boil and de-shell. I see duck eggs and goose eggs as more of a rich luxury now.

Doing a few pop up restaurant ideas has also convinced me that tastes have changed, including my own. For example I find a lot of food produced in starred restaurants too salty / too prissy / too rich. I've eaten a lot of tasting menus of x courses (more than three plus appetisers / palate cleansers) and I am SO over that.

Despite this, I still fantasise. For example, Meat me at Home (see web) recently mail-shotted me and they have real deal Japanese Wagyu whole fillets (around 4.5kg), heavily marbled and I know it will be superb. But £750. Supermarket (Waitrose) ordinary and not aged Aberdeen Angus or Hereford is currently about £55 a kg (and 2 years ago was £32 a kg) Not viable for me currently (and maybe never again) but I did think momentarily "actually that's not a bad deal" :lol: I've eaten it several times in Japan and my wife and I found it sublime every time. Very rich so a 6oz portion is plenty.

 

[droogs]

I get duck eggs fairly often and don't think they are particularly expensive compared to chicken and I've just had pip as my sole income for a while. I use them to make egg pasta and they really make a massive difference. Goes v v well with charcuterie and a nice green pesto sauce.

 

[AJB Temple]

Sorry Alan, my post was misleading. I didn't mean rich in the sense of costly, but rather in the taste sense ie tastes nice but I only want a spoonful if any.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Duck eggs are twice the price of hen's eggs around here. I like duck eggs - every way except hard boiled, I don't like the texture of the yolk. Goose eggs are excellent, as well.

 

[droogs]

agree with you on that front Adrian, helps keep serving size sensible