Having not posted on this blog for over a year, I decided it was time to make a a renewed effort to write about my cooking. Though my readership is pretty minimal, I love looking back over what I've cooked in the past. So, mainly for selfish reasons, I'm determined to make a more consistent effort from now. But enough of that - neither of us are hear to read about my lack of dedication - and on to last night's dinner.
I fear, looking back, that I overcomplicated things last night. Not in the process, but the flavours. I spent the afternoon doing terribly bitty little jobs that tend to go on for hours, so wanted to do something I could, largely, forget about. I decided to slow cook some duck legs, but baulked at the idea of doing a proper confit; sometimes, even I am put off by that much fat. Instead, I seasoned the legs with thyme, salt and pepper, placed them in little gratin dish with some olive oil and cooked them for two and a half hours, covered with foil, at 140C. The idea was the long, slow cook would leave them meltingly soft, and I could crisp them up later on with the oven turned out high. An hour into the cooking, I also decided to take advantage of some of the fat that rendered out of the duck by roasting an onion in the dish, too.
Next came stage one of the aforementioned over-complication. I knocked together a chutney - a syrup of sugar and water with some stoned, chopped plums thrown in - spiced with cinnamon and cumin, and a splash of white wine vinegar for a sweet-sour taste. Perfectly lovely, actually, and very well balanced compared to the over-sweet versions I've made before without the vinegar.
By the evening, I had two tender, but rather anaemic looking, legs, some absolutely cracking roast onion, and a kilner jar full of chutney. I crisped the duck legs in the oven, this time turn up to 220C, for 15 minutes. It being a dark, cold evening, I decided to make mashed potato. Here was stage two of the over-complication; it should have been plain mash. But those onions sat there, and they looked tasty, so when I put the potatoes through the ricer, I also put half the onion through to join them. The resulting mash was beautiful, smooth, with a nice hint of roast onion in the background; on the plate, the sweetness of the mash, the richness of the duck and the plum chutney was just too much. As I say, the mash should have been plain, or maybe even lightened, sharpened by some spring onion. That, I think, would've worked far better, but and I didn't have any spring onions in anyway so it's rather pointlessly speculative.
In summary, I've learnt a lesson: don't just use things because they're lying around in the kitchen; instead, think about how they will affect the meal as a whole.
P.S. I'm sorry about the frankly awful photograph, I was hungry and didn't bother to take a good one.
