Modernist Duck Confit Legs Part Two

It's day two of the confit cured duck leg recipe from Modernist Cuisine.

My duck legs have been curing in the confit cure mix for 10 hours so it was now time to wash off the cure and dry the duck legs.

Once the duck legs were dry I vacuum sealed them individually with  20g of duck fat.

Vacuum sealed duck leg with 20g rendered duck fat

Modernist Confit Cured Duck Legs

Today I started work on a recipe for Duck Leg Confit from Modernist Cuisine.

First off I needed to prepare the confit cure mix for the duck legs to cure in for 10 hours under vacuum.

I am only curing two duck legs so I needed to scale down the recipe from the book in order to cut down the amount of cure I had to make, however I still ended up with too much so I vacuum packed it to use another day on a different recipe. You will need digital gram scales for this recipe!

Ingredients for confit cure mix
200g kosher salt
20 toasted coriander seeds
2.2g mashed garlic
1.4g crushed star anise
1g finely grated orange zest
0.4g thyme leaves
0.16g crushed black peppercorns
0.08g thinly sliced bay leaves

Method
Combine, vacuum seal, and refrigerate until use.

With my cure mix made I then spread 41.5g of the mixture onto each duck leg and vacuum sealed before placing in the fridge to cure for 10 hours

The vacuum sealed duck leg with confit cure mix 

Sous vide cod fillet

Today is the my first day off work since I have had my sous vide water bath so dinner could not be cooked in anything else!

I had a nice piece of cod fillet in the fridge so trimmed it nicely into two 150g portions, before consulting modernist cuisine for a recipe/method for cooking the cod.

To cook the fish to a tender outcome I heated my water bath to 41 degress celsius. I then vacuum packed the cod fillets with some olive oil, lemon juice and parsley, before putting them into the water bath for 30 minutes.

Whilst the fish was cooking I made some mashed potato to accompany the fish.

25 minutes later the fish was ready and the result was amazing!


Recipe for Sous Vide Cod Loin Fillets

Ingredients
2 x cod loin fillets (150g each)
2 x slices of lemon
2 x sprigs of parlsey
4 x tbsps olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Method
1. Vacuum seal together.
2. Cook sous vide in 41 degrees celsius water bath for 30 minutes
3. Remove from bath and season to taste

Images from Modernist Cuisine

Here is a selection of images taken from the book

Cooking Modernist Cuisine

I have always been obsessed with the art and science of cooking and the modernist approach that chefs such as heston blumenthal, ferran adria, grant achatz and wylie dufresne have been taking for a while now. For years the only way to gain the knowledge of these chefs was through working with them at their restaurants as stagiers. But now, thanks to an amazing team of people who have published a monumentlal cookbook that covers all these modernist techniques you dont have to. This cookbook to end all cookbooks is called ‘Modernist Cuisine’.

About Modernist Cuisine:

A rev­o­lu­tion is under­way in the art of cook­ing. Just as French Impressionists upended cen­turies of tra­di­tion, Modernist cui­sine has in recent years blown through the bound­aries of the culi­nary arts. Borrowing tech­niques from the lab­o­ra­tory, pio­neer­ing chefs at world-renowned restau­rants such as elBulli, The Fat Duck, Alinea, and wd~50 have incor­po­rated a deeper under­stand­ing of sci­ence and advances in cook­ing tech­nol­ogy into their culi­nary art.
In Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet—scientists, inven­tors, and accom­plished cooks in their own right—have cre­ated a six-volume 2,400-page set that reveals science-inspired tech­niques for prepar­ing food that ranges from the oth­er­worldly to the sub­lime. The authors—and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab—have achieved astound­ing new fla­vors and tex­tures by using tools such as water baths, homog­e­niz­ers, cen­trifuges, and ingre­di­ents such as hydro­col­loids, emul­si­fiers, and enzymes. It is a work des­tined to rein­vent cooking.
How do you make an omelet light and ten­der on the out­side, but rich and creamy inside? Or French fries with a light and fluffy inte­rior and a del­i­cate, crisp crust that doesn’t go soggy? Imagine being able to encase a mus­sel in a gelled sphere of its own sweet and briny juice. Or to cre­ate a silky-smooth pis­ta­chio cream made from noth­ing more than the nuts them­selves. Modernist Cuisine offers step-by-step, illus­trated instruc­tions, as well as clear expla­na­tions of how these tech­niques work. Through thou­sands of orig­i­nal pho­tographs and dia­grams, the lav­ishly illus­trated books make the sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy of the culi­nary arts clear and engag­ing. Stunning new pho­to­graphic tech­niques take the reader inside the food to see cook­ing in action all the way from micro­scopic meat fibers to an entire Weber grill in cross-section. You will view cooking—and eating—in a whole new light. A sam­pling of what you’ll discover:
Why plung­ing food in ice water doesn’t stop the cook­ing process;
When boil­ing cooks faster than steaming;
Why rais­ing the grill doesn’t lower the heat;
How low-cost pots and pans can per­form bet­ter than expen­sive ones;
Why bak­ing is mostly a dry­ing process;
Why deep-fried food tastes best and browns bet­ter when the oil is older;
How mod­ern cook­ing tech­niques can achieve ideal results with­out the per­fect tim­ing or good luck that tra­di­tional meth­ods demand.
Many invalu­able fea­tures include:
Insights into the sur­pris­ing sci­ence behind tra­di­tional food prepa­ra­tion meth­ods such as grilling, smok­ing, and stir-frying;
The most com­pre­hen­sive guide yet pub­lished on cook­ing sous vide, includ­ing the best options for water baths, pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als, and seal­ing equip­ment; cook­ing strate­gies; and trou­bleshoot­ing tips;
More than 250 pages on meat and seafood and 144 pages on fruits, veg­eta­bles, and grains, includ­ing dozens of para­met­ric recipes and step-by-step techniques;
Extensive chap­ters explain­ing how to achieve amaz­ing results by using mod­ern thick­en­ers, gels, emul­sions, and foams, includ­ing exam­ple recipes and many formulas;
Some 300 pages of new recipes for plated dishes suit­able for ser­vice at top-tier restau­rants, plus recipes adapted from mas­ter chefs includ­ing Grant Achatz, Ferran Adrià, Heston Blumenthal, David Chang, Wylie Dufresne, David Kinch, and many others.
From the pro­fes­sional chef to the home cook, Modernist Cuisine is an indis­pens­able guide for any­one who is pas­sion­ate about the art and sci­ence of cooking.
As I begin to read this epic cookbook I will be regularly updating this blog with things that I have learnt and will share recipes with you that I have had a go at from the book, although some of them will not be possible to take on without a number of specialist pieces of equipment which I am still in the process of purchasing, however I do have alot of it already such as sous vide water bath, vaccuum sealer, digital gram scales, mixers and high power blenders (all i need now is a centrifuge, a dehydrater, a homogenizer, a freeze drier, a spray drier, a gastrovac, an autoclave and a few other bits!!!!!)