Cooking Ahead

So... I'm a big fan of "Sara's Weeknight Meals"... PBS show with former Food Network person Sara Moulton. Always liked her - she's great at demo-ing a recipe and the recipes are usually solid.

Was watching a re-run of one the episodes a couple weelks back... "Cooking Ahead". I've always wanted an excuse to try beef short ribs, and is there ever anything wrong with duck confit????

I followed the short rib recipe pretty much as instructed. Browned the beef...


And I actually followed the recipe instructions pretty much spot-on. Ok, I did forget to boil down the wine before I dumped in everything else, and I did also use some veal stock since I had it in the fridge. After cooking, I drained off the solids, took the meat off the bone, and then stuck the liquid in the fridge so the fat could rise to the top.

My.... that's a lot of fat.... (and my.... that's a dirty counter top.....)

Muuuuuch better with the fat scraped off....

Combine liquid and meat together, reheat and dinner is served......

Looks better than it tasted. I guess I'm not as big of a fan of beef short ribs as other braised cuts. It wasn't a lot of work, but the hubby and I agreed it wasn't much better than a pot roast that was plunked in the crock pot.

On to duck confit!!!

The recipe called for doing it in an oven bag.... why not a crock pot??

Bottom of the crock pot has the neck and the backbone of the duck, then the breasts, then the legs. Figured the breasts would only benefit from being in whatever liquid ended up on the bottom.

On Saturday night, it was just taking out the already cooked duck and flopping the pieces into the cast iron skillet with some duck fat and getting them nice a crispy browned.....

Yeah, the breasts were on the well-done side, but the skin was TO DIE FOR. Rare praise from the hubby came in the guise of happy eatting noises with every bite. He NEVER does that.

So.... 50/50. Won't try the beef short ribs again, but the duck confit is a new favorite.