Amazingly uplifting powers for a simple salad.
I posted a picture of the duck legs with carrots I made last week on eGullet. One of the members, -sheila mooney, pointed out that I had incorrectly used just half of the duck leg. After thinking about it for five minutes, I was banging my head on the wall. For some reason “drumstick” = “leg” in my mind. So the whole “extra thigh pieces” weren’t exactly extra. But that’s okay, they were put to good use and now I have ample amounts of duck stock on hand. It also meant that I haven’t fallen victim to the “biggy-size” American mentality yet. However, I had done the recipe incorrectly and I needed to redo it.
A few invites later and I had dinner guests for duck legs, take two. It also gave me a chance to knock out another recipe. A salad would fit the bill perfectly. The only problem there was that a lot of the salad recipes wouldn’t exactly mesh well with duck legs as the main course or would take a lot more time than I had available. Fortunately the Anchovy, Little Gem, and Tomato salad was quick and almost all of the ingredients were available.
The interesting part of the salad was the “Little Gem” lettuce. I looked high and low for two heads of little gem with no luck. The closest thing I could find was the Living Butter Lettuce from Live Gourmet. Mr. Henderson asks in the ingredients list for tomatoes that are the happiest possible, so I found six ruby red orbs on the vine. Some curly parsley, the most expensive tinned anchovies I could find and I had everything I needed for the salad.
Except the vinaigrette. I’ll admit this was the first time I had ever made a vinaigrette. Considering how easy it was I’m a bit puzzled why people buy salad dressing in the bottle at all. I’ll never go back again now. You just take some crushed garlic, a little Dijon Mustard, lemon juice, white wine vinegar, olive oil and–pardon the catch phrase–bam, vinaigrette. I poured it into a squeeze bottle and I was done.
I set the oven on medium high and once it was preheated, dropped in the tomatoes that had each been cut in half and seasoned. The heat softened them and made them sweeter at the same time. I then chopped about a handful of parsley and tossed it with the lettuce and a healthy dash of the vinaigrette. The lettuce and parsley mixture was divided into four bowls, the now roasted tomatoes placed on top and the anchovies added.
The salad was light and very refreshing, perfectly setting the tone for a fun Friday night dinner amongst friends. The anchovies were a bit on the fishy side for my liking though. Next time I’ll try and find even higher end anchovies.
And here she is: Duck Legs with Carrots. Done correctly.
Next week, I’ll be writing about the absolutely wonderful Boiled Ham and Parsley Sauce.
One down, one hundred and eighteen to go.
