Anna N

So sometimes I can be quite dense! I thought you were making some kind of hot sauce until I finally remembered your not too distant accident.

I am of the compost bin crowd. You have said you want to reduce your consumption of potatoes so I don’t quite see the point in all the work needed to conserve these “far from peak of perfection”spuds. Ditch them. Make sure the calories you consume are the best they can be! The earth will thank you for the additional compost.

So very sad.

Today @Kerry Bealpicked up lunch for us from a Peruvian restaurant called el inka. For Kerry some calamari and Ceviche Vegano — Avocado, cucumber, aji amarillo, lime juice, red onions Peruvian corn, sweet potato cilantro* For me — calamari and bistec a lo Pobre — 10 ounces grilled flank steak, chimichurri, rice, fried egg, canary beans**, sweet plantains. According to Google el inka means ruler or lord. *I suspect that the green sauce shown with my plate was actually the sauce that would’ve turned Kerry’s sweet potato into potato cilantro! It was quite delicious when poured over my rice. ** non-regretfully consigned to the compost bin because there were no canaries in the vicinity. Unfortunately the calamari was almost unnaturally tender but also regretfully flaccid. Not a sign of crispiness or crunch.

Yep. That is my usual way. But this is all about pushing the limits. It’s also about not having grease everywhere when physical challenges make cleaning a Herculean task and Covid makes it difficult to find cleaning people. 😀 It is certainly not likely to become the de rigueur method of dealing with duck breasts. But look at what failure of imagination has done on the world stage!

Wow! That should set you up for the day. It would set me up for the week! Looks quite delicious.

What a beautiful sunset photograph! Thanks as always for sharing.

Very few of the dishes you post escape me without at least a “like” and very often a “delicious”. A few I might skip where you use ingredients that appear in my non-food list (beans chickpeas, etc.), but not otherwise. But I gotta say this one is challenging. Now perhaps if I could just have a bite……….

My only reason for adding the water is to prevent the possibility of smoke from the fat. Smoke would put me out of action. Next time I will measure the amount of water remaining.

It is and it isn’t. It is closer to the heating element but also closer to the very powerful fan. Discretion is advised.

There are some things that the air fryer is supposedly designed to handle well —frozen burgers for example. Once again the Internet is all over the place with respect to time and temperature. They range from 350°F x 10 minutes to 360°F x 14-20 minutes. I did not bother with YouTube videos! I put 2 tablespoons of water into the basket and then added the frozen burger. I set the timer for 10 minutes and the temperature to 350°F. At the five minute mark I flipped the burger. I checked the temperature and it was only 116°F. I flipped it once again and added five more minutes. This time the temperature was 183°F. A bit of an overshoot. I was worried it would be dried out. Not sure if you can see that it remained juicy. (My crummy eyesight makes photography a challenge.) I consider this a success and will make a note that 350°F for 13 minutes is probably the sweet spot for these particular burgers.

@Duvel Thank you so much for this. It almost seems as if the versions I have seen over here are hugely simplified.

There is no broil function.

Things in the freezer department were completely out of hand so I determined I must bite the bullet and see what was really in there. Among other things, too embarrassing to mention, were far more duck breasts than anyone should have when they live alone. But such bounty offered material for a number of experiments. Today was experiment number one. I researched as much as I could on the Internet for how to cook a duck breast in the air fryer. The ones I found suggested wildly differing times and temperatures. One YouTube video took a tool that sort of resembled scissors and chopped up both the flesh side and the skin side of a duck breast! I watched in horror. It also seemed to me that “well-done” was the preferred final result. I find that troubling since it is probably also the most likely result! The results all looked amazingly like something that might come from the kitchen of a Wolfgang Puck or perhaps a Jean-Georges Vongerichten. My shit detector was in red alert mode. So I followed my own instincts. I did score the skin. I did salt it well. I let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes or so and then carefully dried it off with paper towels. I put 2 tablespoons of water into the basket of the air fryer (in hopes of preventing any smoking) and then I preheated it at 400°F for five minutes. I put the duck breast into the basket skin side down, set the timer for eight minutes and the temperature at 400°F before hitting the start button and turning on the over-range fan. After eight minutes. I added 5 more minutes to the timer, turned the duck breast over and again hit the start button. After 13 minutes it looked like this. I took a temperature reading and it was at 68.5°C/155°+F. That was plenty done for me! But there was little crisping of skin. I reached for a jar of marmalade and spread a generous teaspoon over the duck breast before giving it another minute in the air fryer. I let it rest for 5 minutes before cutting into it. It was edible but I would have been ashamed to serve it to anyone else. It has shrunk much more than any duck breast I had ever cooked before. It was also on the tough side. But there is much more experimenting in the future. Bearing in mind that an air fryer is only a very compact and powerful convection oven, I am open to any thoughts on what you might try next. It cannot involve much more than a duck breast and some salt and pepper! Grocery shopping is not an option.

Not sure I would like a salad but I am crazy about the name.