Home for the Holidays
Dec. 23rd, 2007 03:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quisletOK, done with the "on the road" thing for the year. Now I have some time to chill, get some home stuff done, but first there's some cooking to do! I have a pair of duck carcasses left over from Thursday's dinner that have been calling to me across the miles and time zones, so today, before I even start on my Xmas cookies, there is stock to be made! Yaay!
I love stock. It's magic, best beloved.
So to the tune of an empty house (save one pair each of dogs and cats), I picked the last bits of meat off the bones, roughly cut up some onion, shallot, garlic, carrot and celery. Even these broken and bruised aromatics carried an air of expectancy, knowing that they were about to be carried to the next life with luscious duck and my loving manipulation of the maillard principle and water's latent heat of vaporization. Next I oiled and salted the aromatics, tossed the duck bones atop them, and broiled all until they began to surrender their juices, crisp on the edges, just reaching out for that perfect moment of GBD (golden brown and delicious).
Now that their flavors have been concentrated and sharpened, it was time to drown them all. I dumped in the contents of the roasting pan (back from a party at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
insegnante's house last night), tossed in some bay, peppercorns and a few dried new mexico chilis, poured water in until all was covered. Some of the duck fat had already rendered out in the oven, forming a layer of whorls and pebbly droplets across the top of the stock-to-be. I could see convection carrying tiny bits of duck and vegetables up to the surface, just under the dancing swirls, reaching for that heavenly fat before turning back to the depths of the pot like Icarus on duck-seared wings. It was mesmerizing, a lava lamp of my own creation, bright orange hunks of carrot, spring-green stalks of celery surrendering their crispness to join the liquid song.
As the convection stirred the pile of bones in the deep, the occasional air bubble rose to the surface, a teasing promise of the next movement in this thermodynamic dance. As the bubbles rose, they carried minuscule bits of liberated proteins to the surface, forming tiny clusters of bubbles, held in a growing foam between the dancing patterns in the circulating duck fat. The foam grew, as if the bubbles were multiplying, the proteins in the meat denaturing, the proteins in the bone and gristle liquefying to create an unctuous sea of liquid love.
I used water just off the boil to start it all, but you could still hear time groan as the pot-full of water drank up every BTU of heat that it could before surrendering. One at a time, a new procession of bubbles started rising to the surface, these rising faster. These bubbles were not escaping air. No, these bubbles were tiny wisps of steam, a sign that the water could not possibly store any more heat while in liquid form. This is as it should be, this is where the stock happens. Any hotter than a gentle simmer, and the proteins in the bone and gristle could get trapped in the structure of the bone instead of ending up in the soups and sauces that I'm harvesting them for. A gentle simmer is where we'll stay for the next few hours, and then it will be time to skim off the fat, strain it all, save some stock out for tonight's duck soup, and save the rest for later. The perfume of delicious duck is wafting throughout the house even now, with hints of those dear fallen vegetables that gave their lives for the greater good. I'm thinking a little stock would work nicely in a boudin sausage gravy for the buttermilk mashed yukons that will accompany my Xmas turducken and collards...
I love stock. It's magic, best beloved.
So to the tune of an empty house (save one pair each of dogs and cats), I picked the last bits of meat off the bones, roughly cut up some onion, shallot, garlic, carrot and celery. Even these broken and bruised aromatics carried an air of expectancy, knowing that they were about to be carried to the next life with luscious duck and my loving manipulation of the maillard principle and water's latent heat of vaporization. Next I oiled and salted the aromatics, tossed the duck bones atop them, and broiled all until they began to surrender their juices, crisp on the edges, just reaching out for that perfect moment of GBD (golden brown and delicious).
Now that their flavors have been concentrated and sharpened, it was time to drown them all. I dumped in the contents of the roasting pan (back from a party at
insegnante's house last night), tossed in some bay, peppercorns and a few dried new mexico chilis, poured water in until all was covered. Some of the duck fat had already rendered out in the oven, forming a layer of whorls and pebbly droplets across the top of the stock-to-be. I could see convection carrying tiny bits of duck and vegetables up to the surface, just under the dancing swirls, reaching for that heavenly fat before turning back to the depths of the pot like Icarus on duck-seared wings. It was mesmerizing, a lava lamp of my own creation, bright orange hunks of carrot, spring-green stalks of celery surrendering their crispness to join the liquid song. As the convection stirred the pile of bones in the deep, the occasional air bubble rose to the surface, a teasing promise of the next movement in this thermodynamic dance. As the bubbles rose, they carried minuscule bits of liberated proteins to the surface, forming tiny clusters of bubbles, held in a growing foam between the dancing patterns in the circulating duck fat. The foam grew, as if the bubbles were multiplying, the proteins in the meat denaturing, the proteins in the bone and gristle liquefying to create an unctuous sea of liquid love.
I used water just off the boil to start it all, but you could still hear time groan as the pot-full of water drank up every BTU of heat that it could before surrendering. One at a time, a new procession of bubbles started rising to the surface, these rising faster. These bubbles were not escaping air. No, these bubbles were tiny wisps of steam, a sign that the water could not possibly store any more heat while in liquid form. This is as it should be, this is where the stock happens. Any hotter than a gentle simmer, and the proteins in the bone and gristle could get trapped in the structure of the bone instead of ending up in the soups and sauces that I'm harvesting them for. A gentle simmer is where we'll stay for the next few hours, and then it will be time to skim off the fat, strain it all, save some stock out for tonight's duck soup, and save the rest for later. The perfume of delicious duck is wafting throughout the house even now, with hints of those dear fallen vegetables that gave their lives for the greater good. I'm thinking a little stock would work nicely in a boudin sausage gravy for the buttermilk mashed yukons that will accompany my Xmas turducken and collards...
