Today I am not a happy camper. I have spent two hours on the phone trying to get France Telecom to send the bills for the home phone/internet to the office, and getting the actual billing account details changed to the business account. As was supposed to have been done when I took the contracts out, back in June.
This means I have spent two hours variously on hold, being shuttled between the "professional" and "particuliers" services (because apparently a professional account cannot be tied to a domestic phone, godnose how I managed to get the contracts set up but it didn't seem to worry them at the time), being cut off just as I'm to be transferred to someone who might be able to help ...
I would really like to kill someone. Preferably rather slowly, and it would probably involve roasting in my huge oven and perhaps some of the less-used kitchen implements around here. (I'm thinking maybe the butter curler, and perhaps the peculiar Device for removing the strings from celery stalks.) Best, perhaps, not to dream, and just say WTF. Which, as David Lebovitz pointed out, does not mean what you think. It's just the acronym for "Welcome To France", which just about says it all.
Anyway, I annoyed Sophie a week back by turning up at midday on Saturday and getting a perfect roast chicken ready. Well, annoyed is perhaps not the word (in fact, fâchée is, at least in Frog), more gênée, or embarassed. OK, she was in fact fâchée because she'd told me not to do anything (in my defense, let it be said that it was more of a recommendation than an outright order), and gênée because she worries what people might think - a semi-divorced woman being catered for by a married man! Shock, horror. I did point out that, if ever pressed on the matter, she could claim that the food was crap and therefore didn't count - not entirely successful as arguments go, but as she polished off the second drumstick we agreed to speak no more of the matter.
And in future, I will not turn up with unannounced food. Not even a chicken, which requires sod-all in the way of preparation and attention to become an object of desire. Just rubbing a decent spice mix onto the flesh under the skin and then into the oven for an hour or so ... bliss. Add some roast potatoes and a good salad and I'm yours. Especially if there's a Côtes de Languedoc to go with it.
Be that as it may, she did say that she wouldn't mind trying a bit of duck one day. Which is a rather treacherous admission coming from a Bressane (that would be someone from the Bresse region) where the chicken is king. Along with cream. One of these days, I'll get Sophie to give me her grandmother's recipe for poulet de Bresse à la crême and just maybe I'll share it.
Whatever, maybe I've corrupted her but she's getting these urges for red meat, and duck's a good way to get into that. And one of the best ways to have duck would have to be cuisses de canard confites, aka ducks legs cooked in their own fat until they fall apart.
One of the best recipes I've ever come across for this sort of thing comes from Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman. I'm not going to give it to you because I actually bought a copy with my very own money and you can damn well go and do the same, but I will tell you that it involves a brief salting with orange peel, cinnamon and star anise before the actual act of confiture ... I can see you dribble, you know.
On the down-side you do need to start it about three days in advance, which is not always an option. But a simple confit takes only a couple of hours (OK, maybe three) and is quite excellent.
Basically, all you need is some ducks legs. And a bottle of wine, or maybe two. A Côtes du Rhône, or a decent something from the Gers. Some potatoes and a few leeks would be good too.
First of all, put a good solid frying pan on the heat and open the first bottle of wine. None needs to be reserved for the actual cooking, so serve yourself liberally. When the pan's good and hot, turn the heat down and fling in the duck legs, skin side down. They will probably spit: so would you, under the circumstances. Give them half an hour or so like that: at the end of this time the skin should be crispy-brown and there'll be about a half-inch of duck fat in the pan. So turn the heat down as low as it goes and turn the legs over.
After another half-hour (during which I hope you've been paying attention to the wine) the meat will be well-cooked but will not as yet have achieved confit. So turn it over again, put a lid on top (or tinfoil, if you've no lid), and leave it for an hour. During which you could definitely drink, discuss whatever comes to mind, or maybe get a dessert ready. Up to you.
After an hour's steaming whilst simultaneously bathing in grease, the ducks legs are getting ready. Now would be a good time to peel a couple of potatoes and cut them into cubes, and slice a few leeks into half-inch slices. (The leeks are optional, use onions if you prefer.)
Now remove the legs from their fat and add the potato cubes in their place: raise the heat a bit and stir them around, covering them with fat, for ten minutes or so. Then add the leeks and carry on stirring for another five minutes. You will notice that the fat is magically disappearing: an as-yet unexplained mystery. There will be no cholesterol in the finished dish.
Sprinkle with salt and some herbes de Provence, then put the legs back in, skin-side down again, and cover once more. After 15 minutes the potatoes should be well and truly done: remove the lid, turn the heat up high to crisp the duck skin (this will take a couple of minutes) and serve.
Personally I would not go overboard on the side dishes. In the Gers you might find this accompanied with white beans cooked with tomatoes (getting perilously close to cassoulet) and the whole lot may well be preceded by foie gras: I would not turn down the foie gras but I'd settle for a salad with the duck. And there's that second bottle of wine, of course.
Oh, I finally did get the phone billing sorted out. Until the next time. I just had to pretend not to know anything about the business number (because otherwise I'd've been transferred to the commercial service, which doesn't want to know about domestic numbers) and sob. A lot. At the end, that was quite easy.
This means I have spent two hours variously on hold, being shuttled between the "professional" and "particuliers" services (because apparently a professional account cannot be tied to a domestic phone, godnose how I managed to get the contracts set up but it didn't seem to worry them at the time), being cut off just as I'm to be transferred to someone who might be able to help ...
I would really like to kill someone. Preferably rather slowly, and it would probably involve roasting in my huge oven and perhaps some of the less-used kitchen implements around here. (I'm thinking maybe the butter curler, and perhaps the peculiar Device for removing the strings from celery stalks.) Best, perhaps, not to dream, and just say WTF. Which, as David Lebovitz pointed out, does not mean what you think. It's just the acronym for "Welcome To France", which just about says it all.
Anyway, I annoyed Sophie a week back by turning up at midday on Saturday and getting a perfect roast chicken ready. Well, annoyed is perhaps not the word (in fact, fâchée is, at least in Frog), more gênée, or embarassed. OK, she was in fact fâchée because she'd told me not to do anything (in my defense, let it be said that it was more of a recommendation than an outright order), and gênée because she worries what people might think - a semi-divorced woman being catered for by a married man! Shock, horror. I did point out that, if ever pressed on the matter, she could claim that the food was crap and therefore didn't count - not entirely successful as arguments go, but as she polished off the second drumstick we agreed to speak no more of the matter.
And in future, I will not turn up with unannounced food. Not even a chicken, which requires sod-all in the way of preparation and attention to become an object of desire. Just rubbing a decent spice mix onto the flesh under the skin and then into the oven for an hour or so ... bliss. Add some roast potatoes and a good salad and I'm yours. Especially if there's a Côtes de Languedoc to go with it.
Be that as it may, she did say that she wouldn't mind trying a bit of duck one day. Which is a rather treacherous admission coming from a Bressane (that would be someone from the Bresse region) where the chicken is king. Along with cream. One of these days, I'll get Sophie to give me her grandmother's recipe for poulet de Bresse à la crême and just maybe I'll share it.
Whatever, maybe I've corrupted her but she's getting these urges for red meat, and duck's a good way to get into that. And one of the best ways to have duck would have to be cuisses de canard confites, aka ducks legs cooked in their own fat until they fall apart.
One of the best recipes I've ever come across for this sort of thing comes from Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman. I'm not going to give it to you because I actually bought a copy with my very own money and you can damn well go and do the same, but I will tell you that it involves a brief salting with orange peel, cinnamon and star anise before the actual act of confiture ... I can see you dribble, you know.
On the down-side you do need to start it about three days in advance, which is not always an option. But a simple confit takes only a couple of hours (OK, maybe three) and is quite excellent.
Basically, all you need is some ducks legs. And a bottle of wine, or maybe two. A Côtes du Rhône, or a decent something from the Gers. Some potatoes and a few leeks would be good too.
First of all, put a good solid frying pan on the heat and open the first bottle of wine. None needs to be reserved for the actual cooking, so serve yourself liberally. When the pan's good and hot, turn the heat down and fling in the duck legs, skin side down. They will probably spit: so would you, under the circumstances. Give them half an hour or so like that: at the end of this time the skin should be crispy-brown and there'll be about a half-inch of duck fat in the pan. So turn the heat down as low as it goes and turn the legs over.
After another half-hour (during which I hope you've been paying attention to the wine) the meat will be well-cooked but will not as yet have achieved confit. So turn it over again, put a lid on top (or tinfoil, if you've no lid), and leave it for an hour. During which you could definitely drink, discuss whatever comes to mind, or maybe get a dessert ready. Up to you.
After an hour's steaming whilst simultaneously bathing in grease, the ducks legs are getting ready. Now would be a good time to peel a couple of potatoes and cut them into cubes, and slice a few leeks into half-inch slices. (The leeks are optional, use onions if you prefer.)
Now remove the legs from their fat and add the potato cubes in their place: raise the heat a bit and stir them around, covering them with fat, for ten minutes or so. Then add the leeks and carry on stirring for another five minutes. You will notice that the fat is magically disappearing: an as-yet unexplained mystery. There will be no cholesterol in the finished dish.
Sprinkle with salt and some herbes de Provence, then put the legs back in, skin-side down again, and cover once more. After 15 minutes the potatoes should be well and truly done: remove the lid, turn the heat up high to crisp the duck skin (this will take a couple of minutes) and serve.
Personally I would not go overboard on the side dishes. In the Gers you might find this accompanied with white beans cooked with tomatoes (getting perilously close to cassoulet) and the whole lot may well be preceded by foie gras: I would not turn down the foie gras but I'd settle for a salad with the duck. And there's that second bottle of wine, of course.
Oh, I finally did get the phone billing sorted out. Until the next time. I just had to pretend not to know anything about the business number (because otherwise I'd've been transferred to the commercial service, which doesn't want to know about domestic numbers) and sob. A lot. At the end, that was quite easy.
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