28 November 2019

Doing it with duck

My car trip yesterday through Saint-Aignan and over to Faverolles-sur-Cher, across the river from the town of Montrichard, was therapeutic. It rained the whole time, and hard too. I went out for two necessities: I needed to go to the pharmacy and pick up some of my daily medications, because I was out. And I "needed" to go to see the butcher in Saint-Aignan who sells and prepares the best leg of lamb — gigot d'agneau — I've ever had. For years we've been cooking lamb for Thanksgiving, saving the holiday bird for our Christmas dinner. I have to get that gigot into the oven this morning.


But birds were on my mind too, this year. In this week's supermarket flyers, which come with Monday's mail, I noticed that a supermarket in Faverolles-sur-Cher, Carrefour Market, was advertising a special on fresh duck legs (cuisses de canard) for 3.99 €/kilogram. Neither of our Saint-Aignan area supermarkets, SuperU and Intermarché, had duck legs as an advertised special. So I decided to drive over to Faverolles (pop. 1,400), which is 10 miles downriver from Saint-Aignan (and only about five miles upriver from the Château de Chenonceau), to buy some duck.



I already had a plan for cooking the duck, and it would be an experiment. Buying the duck leg-and-thigh pieces would be a good way to get some delicious duck without a big layout of cash. At approximately  $2.50/lb., what was there to lose? I bought eight legs, weighing a total of five pounds (2.2 kg).

 Besides, going to get the duck would be a good opportunity to take a drive in the country, through fields, villages, and forests — a sure cure for cabin fever. It rained, again pretty hard, all the way there, but that was actually pretty too. The fields are green, a lot of trees are sporting gold and red autumn colors, and the villages are picturesque and sleepy-looking.

My idea for the duck legs and thighs? Well, as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing new under the sun (the question "What sun?" pops into my head). I decided I wanted to make a batch of N.C.-style "barbecue" but with duck rather than pork. "Barbecue" in North Carolina is synonymous with "pulled pork" — meat slow-cooked and then shredded and seasoned with barbecue sauce. I often make "pulled turkey" when turkey legs and thighs are on special, and it's just as good as pulled pork in my opinion. "Pulled duck" is bound to be even better.

To make "pulled" meat, I cook it in the slow-cooker (la mijoteuse) because I don't have a smokehouse on the property here. Even in N.C., a lot of the barbecue restaurants now use electricity or gas to cook meat (mostly pork, of course), and smokehouses are soon to be completely phased out because they contribute so much to air pollution. Only the few restaurant-owners who have been cooking pork in smokehouses for decades are still allowed to do so. My understanding is that those few do are not allowed to pass on the right to cook smoked meat over oak or hickory coals to their heirs or to people who might buy their restaurants from them.


Here's what the cuisses de canard look like this morning, after slow-cooking overnight. I guess they're not very appetizing yet, but just you wait. Duck makes a lot of fat when you cook it, but that's a benefit, not a negative thing. You can use the duck fat to season vegetables or for frying potatoes, for example. They say duck fat is a healthy fat. To season these duck legs before their slow-cooking, I put in onion, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, allspice, smoked paprika, and white wine. I have to get them out of the cooker, let them cool, and then chop and shred the lean meat, saving the fat for other nice treats. The meat will go into the freezer for now.

More tomorrow...

15 comments:

  1. Coin, coin! As you explained to me once (and if I understood well), pulled pork is like rillettes. Since you're going to make pulled duck, is it going to be rillettes de canard or something else? In any case, I'm sure it will be very good. Pâté de canard?

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is such a reasonable price for duck. Looking forward to seeing the finished product. Never look for it here as I'm pretty sure they aren't going to have it. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ben voilà vous avez fait du confit de canard ! avec des pommes de terres sautées à la graisse de cananrd... miam miam... on peut s'inviter ?

    ReplyDelete
  4. This "pulled" duck could turn into rillettes, but I'd have to add a lot of the fat back in with the meat. As it is, the fat is continuing to simmer in the slow-cooker with the duck bones and the skin. I'll end up with half a liter of fat and about that much broth. If I prepare the lean duck meat as a kind of N.C. "barbecue" I can just flavor it with a dash of vinegar plus some more hot red pepper, and then brown it slightly in a skillet before serving it hot (with a minimal amount of the duck fat and broth). I don't think I've ever tried heating rillettes up or eating them hot, but I think you have, CHM. I've always eaten them cold.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I never had hot rillettes per se, but I used to thoroughly mix them with mashed potatoes, and cream cheese substituting for milk and butter. Some kind of rillettes parmentier, if wou will. In my opinion, that was very good.

      Delete
    2. It would surely be very good. I might try it by heating up some pork rillettes, draining off much of the fat, and then making a hachis parmentier (cottage pie) with the lean shredded pork. It's a good idea. I've made my own rillettes in the past, using pork in California or rabbit in France.

      Delete
  5. Looks lovely, Aldi had whole ducks for $3.50 a pound, I have one in the freezer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good deal for you. You're close to the source. Our local Intermarché had whole canards gras (fattened ducks) minus the liver, etc., for 4.49 euros per kilo. I've bought them in the past, and will again in the future, but this year I wanted just the legs and thighs for my "experiment."

      Delete
  6. Duck, in all its forms, is one of my favorite foods. Here, we can get duck legs from a local poultry producer which are quite good. I usually make confit with them. However, getting a proper duck breast (either from a moulard or muscovy duck) is very difficult. I have to mail-order them, for big bucks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The whole duck business in France is based, I think, on the production of foie gras. All those ducks raised, fed, and then slaughtered for their livers are then sold as meat — whole birds, breasts, legs/thighs, wings, gizzards, etc. — are then sold at low prices to consumers. Walt and I buy some foie gras once a year or even less, but we buy a lot of duck, especially in autumn when the production of foie gras goes into high gear in anticipation of the end-of-year holidays. I know you know all that, but a lot of people might not.

      Delete
    2. Very interesting. I guess I never realized that ducks in France were principally raised for their liver. That would explain the low price for duck parts. Essentially the liver production subsidizes the rest of the duck.

      Delete
    3. Magrets are the breast meat of ducks fattened for foie gras production. Breast meat fron other ducks are just called filets. More on the blog to come.

      Delete
    4. I just learned that w/in the past year. Before that I thought that Magret de Canard=Duck Breast (= Delicious).

      Delete
  7. Oh, I know you'll love this!
    So... what does the term caissette X4 mean, on the label on the package? Does that just meant something like it's a package of 4?

    ReplyDelete

What's on your mind? Qu'avez-vous à me dire ?