Ten years ago, the mister had traveled to Prague. It was the first and only time he attempted a solo trip. What got to him in the end was having to call me multiple times to plan his day. There was however a thick silver lining. It was this dish that he claimed was the crowning glory of European food. The Duck Confit. Eating out was never the same again for him. Everytime we went out, he would eagerly grab the menu to see if they had duck and if they were confit-ing it. If by a rare chance the establishment had duck, he would immediately order it. The dish would be served the last, later than anything else we’d have ordered. He would look at it, tut-tut in disappointment and ask the waiter, “but my dear sir, where is the confit?” Ever since we started on this crazy cooking spree, I had been holding my breath, waiting for him to declare any weekend now, we were making duck confit at home. That weekend finally happened. I made a couple of calls to the meat stores on Saturday evening. One of them said, fresh ducks arrived just yesterday and asked me to hurry over. I took off immediately. I had been instructed to get 4 big leg-thigh cuts. The butcher asked me to take the entire duck or leave it. I made a quick mental calculation of the number of legs per duck, the weight of the duck and the number of people eating the duck. At 1.7kg a duck, I could afford to buy only one duck. I asked him to chop it up for me. While I waited, I walked around the store, and found this product. 3 dates to go. So many questions! The most important one being - To go where? It took me all of 2 mins to eat them, before the first chop fell on the duck. The second most important one was - Where does this madness stop? With the burst of energy the all natural snack provided, I gave my thumbs the usual workout with the doom scrolling on social media. An ad for an inner wear brand popped up “Matching underwear for you and your loved ones.” The creative showed 4 young people hanging out at their kitchen-cum-breakfast counter in matching underwear. Not at the beach, not 5 year olds, but adults inside the house. Do I not understand how life works anymore? Yes of course, I clicked on the Shop Now button. Luckily, the butcher announced he was done, and I could leave before more existential questions could assault me. I came home triumphantly. I offered to search for the recipe. The first link I clicked on led me to a recipe that read: Ingredients - 1) Duck 2) Salt. No more. Time and again, life proves that it is infinitely more amusing than anything I can make up. The mister sighed and took over and searched for his own recipe, treated the duck with the spices and love it deserved and stashed away the marinaded pieces in the chiller. The next day we began cooking what was the most time consuming dish to ever come out of our kitchen. He started with the side - red cabbage slowly simmered in vinegar, apples and orange juice. He left it on the stove and went to the balcony to catch up on his social media scrolling. In half an hour, the house went from smelling of sweet pungent potpourri to a dumpster on fire. Exhaust fans were switched on, black cabbage was scraped off the pan and eventually, the pan thrown away. We ordered a fresh batch of red cabbage and started the process all over again. Our oven, meant for a normal sized family, did not take all of the duck at once. There were 3 batches in all, with each one grilled for over 3 hours. The duck was roasted very slowly and patiently in its own oil, on a bed of semi mashed potatoes. Our guests arrived as the second batch was in the oven. We set up the table and served them the first batch of duck with the potatoes and passed the cabbage around. What goes with this - bread or rice they asked. Potatoes we said. They tried to hide their disgust and be polite. The mister insisted that the duck and potatoes along with cabbage was a complete meal and that, that was where the magic lay.
He kept asking everyone to have one more serving of the confit. Eventually one of the guests asked why he was calling the cabbage confit. We whipped out our phones and checked the facts. Turns out confit is a method of cooking. You see, the mister thought the cabbage side was the confit. Meanwhile, the son thought there was going to be 'duck on feet' on the table. The guests and the son alike accused him of trying to make cabbage cool. Various pieces of the puzzle fell into place. All those fights with the waiters, all those disappointments and declarations of breakup with the duck - they were all extra. There never needed to be any cabbage. Be that as it may, it’s safe to say there’s going to be more duck accompanied by cabbage in our house in the near future.
31 Comments
Arathi Uchil
5/4/2021 09:29:53 pm
I smiled throughout as I read this one.... hilarious!!!
Reply
Sriram
5/4/2021 10:40:14 pm
Lovely write up again icy , here's hoping the subsequent duckys coming from ish kitchen has less of the adventures mentioned and more on the taste and flavor. 😃
Reply
12/9/2022 01:42:38 am
Really informative article, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, thank you. https://kurma.website/
Reply
12/9/2022 02:02:30 pm
Really informative article, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, thank you. https://odemebozdurma.com/
Reply
15/9/2022 05:40:27 am
Really informative article, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, thank you. https://bit.ly/site-kurma
Reply
5/10/2022 10:14:14 am
I think this post is useful for people. It has been very useful for me. Looking forward to the next one, thank you. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/ordu-escort/korgan-escort/
Reply
5/10/2022 01:56:56 pm
It was a post that I found very successful. Good luck to you. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/van-escort/ipekyolu-escort/
Reply
7/10/2022 01:34:42 am
I support your continuation of your posts. I will be happy as new posts come. Thank you. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/mugla-escort/kavaklidere-escort/
Reply
7/10/2022 10:55:40 am
I think the content is at a successful level. It adds enough information. Thank you. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/kastamonu-escort/taskopru-escort/
Reply
8/10/2022 01:35:16 am
Thank you for your sharing. I must say that I am successful in your content. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/bursa-escort/keles-escort/
Reply
8/10/2022 08:40:28 pm
Thoughtful and real content is shared. Thank you for these shares. https://escortnova.com/escort-ilanlari/giresun-escort/alucra-escort/
Reply
24/11/2022 04:44:07 pm
Hemen Göz At evde para kazanmaya basla: https://sites.google.com/view/evden-ek-is/
Reply
12/12/2022 08:37:10 am
kaliteli düşmeyen takipçi satın al: https://takipcialdim.com/
Reply
18/12/2022 01:56:51 am
takipci satın almak için tıkla: https://takipcim.com.tr/
Reply
20/12/2022 04:22:02 pm
İnstagram takipçi satın almak istiyorsan tıkla.
Reply
6/1/2023 03:54:47 am
100 tl deneme bonusu veren siteleri öğrenmek istiyorsan tıkla.
Reply
7/1/2023 03:10:05 am
100 tl deneme bonusu veren siteleri öğrenmek istiyorsan tıkla.
Reply
28/6/2023 09:40:09 pm
En iyi adana ilan sitesi burada. https://adana.escorthun.com/
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Aishwarya KalakataThe loss of and search for individualism has never been felt more acutely. Everything changed after I had a kid. But this blog is not about me being a mom. It’s about the things I do when I want to stop being a mom. It’s about telling myself that it is possible and that it is ok. It’s about my little escapades. Mostly travel - sometimes physical, sometimes mental. A desperate bid to stop my identity from being rolled into a single word. CategoriesArchives
March 2021
|