Canard confit

This is in no way the step-by-step series of pictures that I think we'd planned when we started, but it's still cool enough to mention: we made our own duck confit. I know this seems like the last thing that someone with a morning sickness-based aversion to meat should be doing, but we were having our French speaking and cooking group over for supper, and we'd decided to make cassoulet. A good cassoulet requires confit, and this is basically impossible to find in Jena. (As is foie gras, but that's another story.) And so we brought out the trusty Joy of Cooking (as well as consulting a few online sources), and found ourselves some goose fat at the market (for lack of sufficient duck fat after rendering our ducks) and went to town.

For those of you unfamiliar with the technique, or who have only ever tasted the finished product, confit is a way of preserving meat by removing most of the liquid through long slow simmering in a pot of melted fat, and then keeping it airtight by sealing it under an airtight layer of hardened fat in a cool place. It sounds pretty gross, and uses an ungodly amount of fat, but it leads to incredibly delicious, tender poultry. It can be eaten on its own (as Jeremi did with much gusto with the leftover pieces), but it's also a key ingredient in cassoulet, the white bean-based casserole dish from south western France.
The meal as a whole was a great success, with much delicious food, but we only managed to get a couple pictures of the confit preparation, which was done a couple days in advance. It was pretty cool to do, but I can't see it becoming a regular part of our repertoire. Still, it's always nice to try something so involved at least once...