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Food Thread: Duck...Duck...Dalit!

I love roast duck!

But I will often roast one not for the meat or skin, which is delicious, but for the pint or more of gorgeous, delicious, stupidly-expensive-if-purchased duck fat!

And that is what allowed me to stumble onto the easiest and least smoky way to roast duck. I discovered that a low-temperature roast for a long time will render most of the extra fat from the bird, while not smoking me out of the kitchen. And the resulting fat is beautiful and clear, not dark and roasted. Now, dark roasted duck fat is not a bad thing. In fact it is delicious. But I prefer the low temp rendered fat because it is far more versatile.

I roast at 225 or 250 degrees for a while, and turn up the temperature a bit if it is going too slowly. Only when most of the fat is rendered and poured off the roasting pan will I increase the heat to 425 degrees or so to give the duck its beautiful golden-brown roasted color. There is tons of fat on the duck, so it is difficult to dry it out even with a couple of hours of roasting.

And why am I thinking about duck? Because it is Thanksgiving season, and I much prefer duck (or pork roast) to turkey, which is boring.

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This selfish and spoiled b*tch has lived in America since the age of four. She is well-off and modestly famous because of the riches that American Exceptionalism has created. But she is a case study in the theory that you can't take the third-world out of a third-worlder!

CBS Cooking Show Host Padma Lakshmi: 'Apple Pie Isn't American' is just a nasty and oh-so-typical lashing out at America by the people who have benefited from its magnificence.

Sorry Padma, but nobody gives a shit what you think of America and American cooking. This is more your style,[NSFW] and a more appropriate use of your talents.

[Hat Tip: Lizzy]

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A Chef's Secret Ingredient for Thanksgiving Dressing
Hot Dog Buns! And I approve! I will often buy hot dog or hamburger buns, and almost never use them all. So they get tossed into the freezer until they get so completely freezer-burned that they are unrecognizable as food.

One little quibble: it's "stuffing," not dressing. And don't listen to Bluebell...she was dropped on her head as a child, and that is the glitch caused by the injury.

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Obviously the drink of choice with dinner isn't Bourbon. That's for breakfast!

Seriously...does anyone drink hard liquor with dinner? The only time I do it intentionally is...um...never. Well, actually, once. At a good restaurant in D.C. whose wine list was so stupidly expensive that I drank Martinis instead of wine.

But last night, at a birthday dinner for a relative, I poured myself a large Bourbon, and simply didn't get around to finishing it before we sat down for dinner.

And all was good and simple and fine! I finished the last ounce or so with a very nice meal. Yes, I moved on to wine, because there was a very good Zinfandel being poured, and I am not a complete fool!

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Chicken Vesuvio is a pretty standard recipe, but that is not a criticism. In fact, it is a delicious and easy way to make chicken thighs. It is also almost infinitely modifiable, so whatever you have in the refrigerator can go into the pan without fear of catastrophe.

But, as usual, the recipe writer is full of sh*t. "Bake in preheated oven until an instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest portion of chicken registers 175°F, 16 to 18 minutes." Really? 16-18 minutes? The nonsense precision of that sentence makes me want to smack the writer with a cast-iron pan.

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I just got a bunch of dried chilies yesterday, and I am quite excited to make...wait for it...CHILI. And it's not that dried chili powder is bad. I have some excellent stuff. But there is nothing quite like making it from scratch. I think I will also chop the meat by hand...the texture of rough-chopped beef chili is sublime.

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A friend graciously gave me some genuine grown-in-the-USA garlic, and I am going to taste one clove and plant the rest, because my pathetic failure last year is an anomaly...right?

And...send all of your extra antelope to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

Who are those poor deluded souls We know who shakes their Manhattans! These are the same people who drink fine bourbon with coke, and probably shake red wine with ice too.

$1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.

The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!