What I Made for Dinner: April 29, 2020

Shredded roast duck.

Another deep cut from the freezer. Sometime within the past eight years, I experimented a couple of times with duck confited in olive oil, following this method. (It's excellent, but kind of a project and impractical for a big family.) Having done it once or twice, I started collecting ducks when I saw them on sale. So we have a couple in the freezer and, you know, now's the time.

I used the NYT recipe here. What would I do without the NYT Cooking app? Much, much  worse, that's for sure.

Anyway, it's ridiculously simple: Make sure all items are removed from your duck's cavity. (There are a surprising number of items in there.) Dry off your duck. Salt and pepper it. Put it on a rack in the largest roasting pan you have. Roast it at 325° for two hours; then use a sharp knife to prick the skin all over, and roast it for two more hours. Raise the oven temperature to 400° and give it another 15-20 minutes to crisp the skin. Pull of the skin in shards and shred the meat with two forks.

I served it with rice, romaine lettuce leaves, salted cucumber sticks, and Korean barbecue sauce. It would have been just as good over pasta with some roasted cherry tomatoes. It would make for some amazing street tacos with, I don't know, probably cotija cheese. Whatever, we're in virus jail and there are no rules except for one: Maintain Virus Jail.

Speaking of virus jail, it's looking like we might have a hard time procuring meat in the months to come. There are lots of amazing meatless dishes; it's more about getting the kids to buy into eating more meals built entirely from vegetables. I am thinking about it and writing down ideas for us.

Quarantime Dinners

We found two steaks. They were in the back of our freezer, ancient and irreparably frostbitten, of uncertain provenance (but probably Costco). In the Before Times, we would have thrown them the hell away. Now, they become empanadas.

You know two old steaks make like twenty-five new empanadas? Magic. Pandemic magic. Some things stretch, others contract.

Dice up whatever meat you have and saute it with some diced onion, potatoes, spices. A little liquid to make a sauce--chicken broth if you have it, or beer. The New York Times has a recipe for beef empanadas you can follow if you want one.