This is not just about two ways of cooking duck, but about two different morceaux or parts of the duck. One is the leg, called a cuisse de canard. The other is the boneless breast, which is called either filet or magret, depending on whether or not the duck has been fattened to produce foie gras.
The magret is the breast of a fattened duck. The word is related to the French word maigre, meaning "lean" — and to the English word "meager" ("meagre" in British English). The way a magret de canard is cooked is the way a good beefsteak is cooked: it's grilled, oven-roasted, or pan-roasted. Duck breast meat resembles beef in color and texture more than it resembles, for example, chicken or turkey.
Walt cooked the magret de canard in these photos on our barbecue grill. He first "scored" the skin in a cross-hatch pattern to keep the magret from curling as it cooked. Then he seared the magret, starting with the skin side, and continued cooking it over indirect heat until he judged that it was about medium-rare inside. He's good at grilling and judging doneness just by feel.
Duck legs (and duck wings too, but they are less meaty) are slow-cooked in duck fat at low temperature until the meat is starting to fall off the bone. In France, you can buy confit de canard already cooked, either in cans or vacuum-packed in plastic. These photos show confit de canard at two stages: right out of the duck fat after the fat has been melted, and then after being browned in the oven. Notice that I obviously like both kinds of duck served with beans (white beans or pinto beans, for example) and greens (kale, collard greens, or chard).
I didn't know that the magret was the breast of a fattened duck. You learn something new every day! What is it called when it's from a regular duck? Blanc de camard, even though it is rather brown?
ReplyDeleteA quick search says it is called filet and it is thinner than the magret from a fattened duck, but the taste is somewhat similar.
DeleteI learned something new today, too, chm! Thanks for explaining the reason why magret is used sometimes for duck breast (well, most of the time, as I've seen).
ReplyDeleteI don't remember cooking or even eating magret or confit de canard in Paris back in the early 1980s. Maybe my memory has failed me. I do remember a friend cooking and serving duck cooked with olives in Paris back then. She had spent time in Cahors in SW France. It seemed pretty exotic to me.
DeleteDuck is one of my favorite foods. We used to get magret de canard and confit de canard whenever we could in France, because they were virtually impossible to obtain in the US. However, for many years now I've been making both duck breast and duck legs. For duck breast I now order them on-line from one particular source, since it's pretty much the only place I can get Moulard or Muscovy ducks, which are the only breeds I think are worth getting for duck breast. For legs, I can get them locally, and I make a "pseudo-confit." I put a rub of salt, pepper and bay leaf on them, and let them sit overnight. Then I roast them, w/o any added fat, at 300F for 3 hours. It replicates confit very well.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a good and much less complicated way to make confit, Bob. I used to get Muscovy ducks in San Francisco (canard musqué in French). A lot of French sources say the meat is too gamey, but I'm not sure that's my opinion. The mulard duck is a sterile hybrid, I think, and is the variety that foie gras is made from most of the time. My first confits, again in SF, were from a recipe for making a confit in the microwave. I got it from Food & Wine magazine, I think, and it was pretty good. It required salting and marinating the duck pieces with herbs, as you describe. I think it called for cooking the duck pieces in a lot of duck fat, however. I could always get frozen ducks in SF, which was nice.
DeleteI think the breast meat or magret is what you would typically see in restaurants here. Yours looks tasty.
ReplyDeleteAfter 16 years in France and no return trips to California, I'm sort of out of touch with food developments there. Maybe people eat duck more there now than I remember from the '90s. I do remember buying whole ducks in San Francisco, usually frozen, or lacquered duck in Chinatown. I think the first time I ever made French confit de canard was in SF, following a method I found in Food & Wine magazine.
DeleteThe duck looks terrific, and so do the greens and beans.
ReplyDelete