I’ve been settling into a new job and have been reading a bit too much.  I’ve been ignoring my usual online reading haunts (ones that I either don’t want to RSS or that don’t have RSS!)   And until yesterday, I didn’t know that Mahmut Aygun passed away!!!!!! The god of drunk food, the inventor of DONER KEBAB!!!!!

For the uninitiated (hey, I never had doner until I went to Europe), this goodness is similar to a gyro, or a pita bread with lamb meat filling - and other goodness. This summer, my wife and I ate doner at least 3x a week. Simple, inexpensive, delicious goodness that you can carry home after a long night out

Mahmut - we will miss you, but we will never forget you.

Dubai and Sharjah are both very British-centric, followed closely by “EU-centric”.   Therefore, all of the hypermarkets have ingredients that would be used in the UK/EU - as well as delicacies.  At the local Hyperpanda hypermarket, I happened across Confit de Canard from France - i.e. Confit duck gizzard.

First, for the uninitiated, confit is the process of salt curing a piece of meat and then poaching (and storing it) in its own fat. You can confit fruit too - but without the fat poaching and using sugar. This process increases shelf life and drastically changes the flavor. I’ve never made confit, but have had duck leg confit. Therefore, when I saw a package of Confit de Canard gizzards - buy one get one free! Had to pick it up.

What to do with it, though? I searched the Internet and found some references to a few salad-type dishes with the gizzards. So, I kind of merged everything I found together and came up with the following recipe:

Confit Duck Gizzard Salad

Confit de Canard gizzards
Frisee (curly endive)
Pine nuts
Tomatoes
Vinaigrette (decent kind from a bottle - didn’t want to make my own)

1) Fingered off some of the duck fat into the frying pan and set it on low. The duck fat basically melted in my hands, but I wanted to heat it up some.
2) Sliced and lightly salted/peppered the gizzards; tossed them in the pan for about 3-4 minutes at medium temp. Just enough to get them hot.
3) In the meantime, my wife made the basic salad with the frisee and tomatoes
4) Dropped the gizzards in the middle of the plate, topped with pine nuts, and topped with dressing.
5) Eat!

Rating: 8/10

Confit Duck Gizzard Salad

Two reasons why only an 8/10. 1) I didn’t make my own vinaigrette and the one I bought was decent, but not amazing. 2) Too many gizzards. Can there be too many? yes. 4 gizzards/person is a bit too much. but they tasted fantastic. I wish I would have set 2 gizzards to the side for each of us and just topped the salad with 2. It would have made the salad.

We have all kinds of confits, pates, and terrines here, so I’m going to try some more in the near future. I love offals and am sure I will post more about them in the near future.

Until next time.

Well, this is the beginning.   A brief introduction.

My name is Mike and I am a food dork.  Some people say “I work to live, not live to work”.   For me, “I live to eat, not eat to live”.  In the past year, I have relocated to the United Arab Emirates in the emirate of Sharjah.  Sharjah is adjacent to Dubai and Dubai is a 5 minute (no traffic) drive from my flat.

A little history about myself.  I grew up in the Midwestern U.S. in a small, lonely town.  I was exposed to some culinary goodness, but I started to get involved with expanded my “food horizons” when I became a vegetarian.  Being a vegetarian lasted about 8 years, but my cooking expertise expanded enormously due to having to find alternatives to animal products.    Then, I fell off the wagon so to speak.   Super Bowl + beer + chicken offals = whole new world.   I had had chicken offals before, but this was the start of…where I am now.

After many years of exploring, I have made my own beer, made sausage, ate pretty much every part of a pig, cow, lamb, chicken, and fish (and more animals - but more on that in time), baked, fried, poached, sauteed, and boiled.   I love food.  I’ll try anything.  I’m always on the hunt to try new local dishes/drinks.

Moving from Denver, in the United States, to Sharjah/Dubai has opened my eyes a bit more to the food world.   I named this blog “Shawarma and Juice” in honor of the (sometimes) excellent fast food cafeterias in and around the area.

So…this is the beginning.