Day 45 - Page 86-87 -" World's longest recipe for Chicken Wings" + Risi e Bisi

I love chicken wings in any shape or form. It's the bony, gristly parts that I like to chew and gnaw on. So it was exciting to make this because not only is it a favorite food but it involved delving into the mysteries of confit, an ancient technique for preserving food.  For westerners, the most familiar form of meat confit is the French confit de canard, or preserved duck. The meat is salted and stored in its own fat.

It was easy to track down the ingredients for my experiment: I found pork lard (also good for making incredibly flaky, light pastry) and chicken wings in the Marin Sun Farms freezer case.The wings were refrigerated overnight in a brine of sugar, salt, and water. Then they were covered with melted lard and refrigerated for a day. In my case, just long enough for the lard to solidify but the longer the refrigeration the more the wings absorb the pork lard flavor.

I made the taré by browning the wing tips and simmering them with soy sauce and sake until the liquid reduced by about one half. Ummmm. Some serious gnawing potential here.

I then lightly cooked slivers of garlic in some of the lard and added them to the taré to finish the sauce.
I heated the lard just enough to melt it and removed the wings and drained them. I browned them in a hot skillet, all the while pressing down with the lid of a pan. Tossed with the sauce and a few sprinkles of pickled red chiles and scallions, these were, hands down, winner chicken wings.

I also spent the good part of a day making Momofuku ramen broth. A big stash is a luxury and really comes in handy when you want to make up a risi e bisi with fresh picked peas. All the energy that went into making the broth paid off with a risotto of complex depth and ultra smooth creaminess.