Cook's Complaints: Duck Confit w/ rhubarb gastrique over mint/coriander israeli couscous, peas, and lentils

What I hate about blogs is that the writer's tend to make their lives sound perfect, or how they were always thrilled with how great they are a something.  I am not a great cook, I'm not even good - I'd like to think working at something daily and striving for a higher level will make you better, but I make the same mistakes over and over.  In the interest of improvement, I think that writing them down will keep me from repeating them.  So this is where I'll complain about the food, and follow that by a brief description by how I prepared it.

The biggest problem here was timing....

1 - I almost had too much time to put this together. I had the gastrique and lentils done early, which is fine. But the lentils were sauteed with the onions too early - they got a bit dry. Same thing with the couscous; it was done early, so I tried to hold it. This is usually what happens when I'm standing around waiting to do things.

2 - Despite me having too much time, I didn't start the confit early enough; sub-cutaneous fat didn't all render out. The skin could have been crispier (my plate had a bone in leg and the thigh skin, Gretchen's had the thigh meat). Thigh and leg didn't easily pull apart a tell tale sign that it wasn't warmed through. Lack of rendered fat didn't let this dish have as much 'duck-y' flavor as it should have. This wasn't a problem with the other leg that was stored in the confit, and it was much better. We had that with a the classic sides of salad and fried fingerlings that were cut into rounds.

3 - Seasoning - Wanted to add coriander to bring out the citrus element of the confit cure. I either added the coriander too early; or didn't add enough. Should have maybe added some to the gastrique?

4 - Temperature - My annoying habit of 'plating' leads to room temp elements - here the lentils suffered.

5- As Gretchen points out, this dish is a crutch, as is my tendency to turn everything into an open-faced sandwich. During the winter CSA season we were constantly eating some kind of root vegetables and grains like this. Right now we're in this no-CSA mode so I've been trying to work on emptying out pantry items, like beans and grains, so this dish accomplished this - but I've fallen into a bit of a rut.

Process:

Gastrique:
- Reduce white wine vinegar, and some honey, roughly equal parts.
- Once slightly reduced add chopped rhubarb and some duck stock
- Simmer until desired consistency, remove from heat.

Couscous:
- Heat oil in pan
- Toast coriander
- Add couscous and toast briefly
- Add duck stock and cook
- When ready for serving, add thawed peas and mint leaves

Lentils
- Simmer lentils in water with piece of a bacon skin and onion until cooked
- Hold in cooking liquid
- Finish by cooking some chopped onion in rendered duck fat. Once onions are soft add lentils warm through.

Duck Confit -
- Cook skin side down in non-stick skillet over medium heat. Fat should render out and skin get very crispy.
- Turn skin side up and warm through in moderate oven.

I won't describe the actual confit process here, there are far better resources for that.  Confit sounds intimidating, but last year I took a charcuterie class taught by Matt Weingarten of Inside Park at St. Barts, and went to a demonstration by Tom Colicchio.  Both did demos that made it look pretty easy so I finally gave it a shot.  Now it's part of my monthly routine - it's really convenient to have a rillette or confit in the fridge for something quick to eat.  It's a thousand-times better than dumping some packaged food into a pan and heating it up.


Also like everyone else, I'd suggest the Grigson and the Ruhlman/Polcyn books when preparing charcuterie; it's no secret that those are great resources.