some small cooking goals

photo linked to wikipedia belongs to stu spivack

I want to get out of my usual comfort zones on my cooking a bit. In recent years most of my cooking has been Asian. I have many good reasons in sticking mostly Asian cuisines, and healthier eating is one. The other is the relative simplicity of the ingredients. While Asian cuisines are very diverse very often some of the most crucial ingredients are those that are easily preserved.

Funny with the duck confit photo I linked above from wikipedia. I recognize the owner. Years ago when I used to spend a lot of time browse through the food photos on Flickr I always envy the many great dishes stu ate. The world isn't really that big...


To expand my repertoire there are a few Western dishes I want to make. Most are French or employ French techniques. There are three dishes that I want to make in the short term.

For this post I do not have my own photographs so I am linking to those found on Wikipedia.

The first dish I want to make is duck confit base loosely on Hurbert Keller's recipe
duck confit

The second dish is duck and pork terrine with pistachios based on Herbert Keller's recipe. The primary ingredient is the duck confit. Unfortunately I don't have a photo so this one with salmon would do.

terrine

I watch a diverse cooking shows on public television. Most of the time I just watch to get the gist of the technique and the ingredients used. I don't have paid TV and refuse to support the cable and satellite pigs.

The third dish I want to make is lobster thermidor again based on HerbertKeller's recipe in the episode I watched. Unfortunately for the interested readers he hasn't post the recipe. I like his version as there it is more than just a lobster with the typical cheese sauce.

lobster thermidor

So stay tuned to read about my conquest.
Apr 20, 13 update:
A few days ago I tried my first attempt with duck confit. I am quite happy with the result.
In the last few days I have been diligently reading up on a few dishes that I fancy. I went shopping today and bought some ingredients for two dishes I would tackle in the next few days:
1) lapin au vin rouge - rabbit in red wine sauce

2) émietté de crabe à l’huile de curry - something like flaked crab with curry oil
image linked from peter hertzmann's wonderful french cusine site