A Tale of 2 Ducks

I now have renewed respect for the humble duck. Or perhaps I have taken the mantra of the CIA chefs to a new extreme: "Waste not, want not". In any case, true to my word (to this blog), I purchased 2 ducks from the local poultry stall on Wednesday to start on my duck stock (in place of veal/beef bones, Chef Mike had suggested that duck bones would work just fine) and duck fat.

So I dutifully butchered the ducks, separated the breast fillets and the legs from the bird, reserved the excess fat, etc etc. I then chopped the bones into small pieces, browned them in the oven, and plopped them into my stock pot to simmer away. I followed most of the instructions in "The Professional Chef" and what resulted after 5 hours was a beautiful, brown stock which I further reduced into a syrupy glaze and froze in an icecube tray. (Obviously I have used a cube, and I have to say it is THE secret to a great pan sauce.)

Moving on to the fat, I cut the pieces of reserved skin and fat into smaller pieces before placing in a pan to render. That done as well, I turned to consider what to do with the rest of the duck.

I decided to marinate the breasts in champagne vinegar, olive oil, honey, shallots, garlic and various herbs (recipe adapted from "The Joy of Cooking") and sauteed them to medium rare - that turned out beautifully - I felt the sweetness of the marinade gave depth and balance to the duck. I tried 2 pan sauces with the duck - poivrade (white wine, peppercorns, butter) and robert (white wine, onions, mustard and butter). Robert was the better suited sauce I felt but of course it did not help that my poivrade sauce broke (pan too hot when butter was put in... DUH).

With the legs, I decided rather ambitously to attempt confit du canard. Now, my best ever encounter with this dish was back in 2004, in a tiny little country bistro in the town of Moret-sur-Loing. I don't even remember the name of the bistro, but all I can say is that the confit was the most delicious, the most melt-in-your-mouth-tender, the absolute BEST confit one can possibly imagine. It was so heartbreakingly good, I have been afraid to order confit ever since at any other restaurant.

Now, in my attempt to commit culinary blasphemy, I culled tips and recipes from "The Joy of Cooking", "The Professional Chef", and Kuidaore. I did not possess the recommended enamelled cast iron cocotte, so I had to make do with with my small glass casserole dish, and work with just 2 legs at a time. After 9 hours of slow poaching in an 80 deg c oven (not the 2 hours called for in both Joy and Pro Chef), the legs emerged tender and flavoursome. They weren't quite Moret-sur-Loing, but they were a decent first attempt I thought.

The flavour of confit supposedly develops in complexity after being stored and matured for 2 weeks, but happily enough, the first batch of legs did not last even the first night - S got home hungry from the day's sporting events and proceeded to demolish the confit in between comments of "sedap!" and "deeelish!".

As an added bonus, the garlic bulb which had been roasted with the legs had turned into into this sweet, sticky, smoky paste - perfect spread on crostinis. Mmmm-hmmmm.