teajay

Those look fantastic, especially the surprise shapes... Huge fan of the rustic style plin.

Tri2Cook, do you mind sharing your pretzel roll recipe? I made the ones from King Arthur, first time trying pretzel rolls, and they turned out great. Would like to try some others

I really like that tray on the right Franci, might need to go order one... Have the one in the center and enjoy it. Highly recommended for speed and ease. Recently restarted the fresh pasta kick too. Did a batch of tortellini on the weekend that found their way into some reduced chicken stock flavored with parmesan and nutmeg. Filling was pork shoulder, sausage, prosciutto & mortadella, egg, parm and nutmeg (Classico e Moderno by Michael White). Have recently been rolling out the pasta sheets with a large wooden rolling pin vs using the machine. So far seems to be less finicky and easier to do as a one-man job. Added Flour + Water and Mastering Pasta to the bookshelf lately so will likely play with those for a bit.

Assuming you wanted the entire process, versus just the final sous vide step.... Season the legs with equal parts cinnamon and nutmeg overnight. Render the fat that was trimmed from the carcass that night as well. In the morning, cure the legs in a mixture of salt (1/2c), sugar (1/8c), couple smashed garlic cloves, few thyme & rosemary sprigs, few strips of lemon & orange zest. When I get home from work rinse and dry the legs, seal each in a separate bag with 1tbsp of the rendered fat and throw it in a 160 degree bath until the next morning. Weeknight confit! Franci - That recipe looks tasty!

Also bought a duck this weekend... This time opted for curing the breasts for a duck prosciutto (Charcuterie by Ruhlman has a good recipe, so does Babbo by Batali) and doing confit with the legs (favorite is from Gramercy Tavern book). Trying sous vide confit for the first time, since it's easier for a weeknight. The carcass is being used for duck stock, but Gramercy Tavern book also has a great "Brown duck sauce" I've done before. If you don't want to cure the breasts, season with nutmeg, salt, pepper, thyme, bay leaf overnight then follow Kenneth's instructions above for a traditional cook.

I've picked up Hazelnut paste from http://www.lepicerie.com/ in the past for the Hazelnut Cake from Batali's Babbo. They have a few options for Hazelnut and all kinds of other nut pastes. Needed to throw a couple other misc items in the cart to hit the minimum transaction amount, which wasn't too bad.

Bouchon. I haven't had Bourdain's, but I loved this one. I also didn't have all of the ingredients because of the snow storm. These included, short ribs (used chuck roast instead), pearl onions, garlic, and thyme. I also used More Than Gourmet beef stock, but obviously I would have preferred making my own. Not possible unfortunately. I probably was missing other stuff too. That being said, that fact that it came out as well as it did and how much I enjoyed it speaks to how good the recipe is. Really enjoyed making the wine reduction and doing the cheesecloth nest for the beef and refrigerating it for 24 hours and doing the garnishes separately. The only curious step was that I thought it was common practice to flour the beef before searing, but that didn't seemed to be called for here. Great recipe though. Can't wait to go back and do again with everything part of the recipe, including homemade stock. I made this twice in December - first time to familiarize myself with it, second time for family on Christmas Eve. Also love making the garnishes & will cook carrots / potatoes this way more often. Definitely make the veal stock though. I used homemade beef stock for the second one (veal bones weren't available where I was traveling) and the difference was noticeable.