Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Duck carnitas

This weekend I spent a little while making duck leg carnitas. Totally yummy!

I then made a delicous salad out of them, with tomatillo salsa. My recipe was adapted from Modern Mex by Scott Linquist. Following is my cooking method:

Melt 1 lb lard on the stovetop in a heavy ovenproof covered skillet to which has been added the following ingredients:

juice of one blood orange (that's what I had on hand)
1 bay leaf
2 cloves garlic
1 cinnamon stick
big pinch black pepper (I didn't have the whole peppercorns it called for)
pinch chinese 5 spice powder (I didn't have allspice berries)
6 whole chile de arbol (it called for 1 but I like things hot)

When lard is melted, throw in the two salted duck legs, cover, and toss in a 300 deg oven for 2 hrs or so. When done, the meat should be tender and pull off the bone. Pull it off the bone and you can eat it right then or let it cool and then saute it in the skillet to brown it.

I did that and then added it to a big salad with avocado, arugula and tomatillo/serrano salsa. Yummy!!

I was getting sick of chicken chicken chicken. Of course, our ancient ancestors would not have eaten just one type of bird all the time, so I am trying to branch out. Next time, free range turkey. I know, so daring! Wow!!

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