Duck Carnitas: Part 1

Homer Simpson: "Lisa, honey, are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon? Ham? Pork chops?"
Lisa Simpson: "Dad! Thos all come from the same animal!"
Homer Simpson: "Yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, maaaagical animal."

Today I began the journey toward duck carnitas, which I mentioned last week. It's a recipe from Rick Bayless, a chef whose show, Mexico-One Plate At A Time, makes me hungry every time I watch it. I want to be his friend so I can go to his backyard parties with huge pots of food and tequila tastings. But even though it's got duck in the title, this recipe is really about pork lard. Yes, pork lard. There is something satisfying about cooking with lard in a world constantly trying to produce substitutes for the evils of butter - I like heading the other direction sometimes. I had a heck of a time finding pork lard, so instead I just cooked up 2 lbs of bacon (ate a lot while cooking and will now have breakfast sides, BLTs and maybe some macaroni?)

Not quite 2 lbs of bacon...since I probably ate 1/4 lb in the process.

This produced an amount of grease which, on the one hand, is horrific, but for the purposes of my recipe just may not be enough since you have to SUBMERGE THE DUCK in lard when you put it in the oven. I didn't think about the fact that some bacon is not as fatty as others so one of my packages didn't yield as much liquid gold as I had anticipated. Oh well, I'll make do.

Still, that's a LOT of grease.

It's almost attractive in a weird way. Though it won't be once it cools into a cloudy, awkward mass. It was also a bit of clean up, but the reward is sweeter when you work for it, right?

Where's my maid?

After the bacon came the marinating of the duck in salt, oregano and lime juice (I'm already hungry). Now to let it sit in the fridge for 24 hours. Tomorrow night, the journey continues.