# Delicious duckfat mayonnaise



## susieM (Apr 23, 2006)

Two eggs, a pinch of salt and pepper, a splash of red wine vinegar, a huge spoonful of Dijon mustard, a biggish garlic clove, and a handful of freeze-dried mixed salad herbs (the jat is marked, 'garlic, chives, parsley, shallots'.

I put all that into a big jar and mixed it with a stick blender while adding the somewhat liquid fat from a pot of confit de canard. it 'mayoed' up beautifully and I left it til this morning to eat...the flavours had mellowed together and so maybe it was a bit garlicky, but the taste of the confit was right there, delicious.

We ate it for lunch on sandwiches of wholewheat bread, hard boiled eg and, mixed salad greens (lamb's lettuce, chicory, batavia, raddicio). It might have been nicer with a slice or two of tomato, but as they're out of season, I don't like paying high prices for the ones that are available from the other side of the earth.
a few seconds ago 

Next....bacon mayonnaise!


----------



## suzyhomemaker09 (Sep 24, 2004)

I so wish we had confit de canard available locally...
It just seems so difficult to make at home.
we processed ducks...cut up into parts and rendered the rest of the skin...it was fantastic to cook with. It just wasn't very much.


----------



## susieM (Apr 23, 2006)

So that you can make your own duckfat mayonnaise.

I live down here in the SW part of France. We are renowned for the ducks that are force-fed boiled corn and lard to make foie gras (which translates to 'fat liver'), confit d'canard, maigret d'canard, rillets, and the lovely yellow duckfat that we use everyday to cook everything from potatoes to eggs to sausages in.

The force-feeding of the ducks is generally done in the winter, and takes about three weeks from start to finish. Hard feedcorn is boiled with lard and about a cupful at a time is put into what looks like a funnel with a handle at the side and a spiral thing going down the tube part. The duck has the tube slid down it's throat, and then the handle is turned and the corn is deposited into the duck. After doing this three times a day for three weeks, the duck has an enlarged liver and a very fatty body.

At slaughter, care is taken to openthe body cavity very carefully, so as not to damage the liver, which can weigh over one kilo (2.2 pounds), and is almost worth it's weight in gold. The duck and it's liver are usually sold separately, and one can see row upon row of dead ducks hanging by their heads at the markets, each with a large slice down the belly, and the livers all lined up in a row on tables next to them.

Now...before anyone gets too upset by the force-feeding...

I believe that the US is about to, or already has, made the production of foie gras illegal due to concerns about cruely to animals. They may even be preparing to make the importation of French fois gras illegal.

I can't speak for the animal.

But I will say that there is word that an American method of making fois gras is legal and practised in the states...instead of force-feeding the animal, the animal is given shots of a certain hormone that makes it over-eat all by itself. 

If I had the choice of one kind or another, I'd not want the hormonal kind.

The livers of the ducks get very large...sometimes over one kilo in weight. The liver is the fois gras...fat liver.

Carefully take the bileduct away from the liver, split the lobes, and remove any veins, then then soak the liver in salted water overnight. After that, they can be eaten fresh or canned.

Fresh is simply fried with maybe white grapes or apple slices or raspberries. Or made into a terrine and baked in a bain-marie and then weighted down and left to cool.

For those of you who generally HATE liver (I am one), this is nothing like anything you've evert tasted, and tastes nothing at all like calves liver at all.

Canned means that you can always have some delicious foie gras to hand. Just open and scrape off the lovely yellow fat and serve on melba toast or fresh country style bread.

To can fois gras, put a bayleaf and a pinch of salt and pepper in the bottom of a small canning jar, along with a spoonful of armagnac. Gently fill the jar with the liver, seal, and give it a boiling water bath for twenty minutes, beginning the timing when the water begins to boil regularly.

Twenty minutes is what the Chef MaiitÃ© suggests, in order to keep the delicate texture of the liver intact. My French friends do it for 45 minutes.

Cool and store in a dark and cool place.

We don't usually eat Pat' de Fois Gras in this region of France, preferring the unadulterated taste of the pure thing. But I have seen the liver mixed with ground pork and canned as this kind of patÃ©, which would be easier on the budget, but not on the palate.......


----------



## susieM (Apr 23, 2006)

Now that the liver is canned, we'll go onto the rest of the duck, shall we?

All is useful, all is delicious, the entire canard gras.

The breasts of the duck are called the maigret de canard. These are cut from the duck and left whole, with the skin and the almost half-inch layer of fat. They're each a bit bigger than the whole of your hand, and the meat part, at it's thickest, can be an inch thick. 

They are at their best cooked and eaten fresh, served rare and dripping with fat and blood, alongside of overcooked greenbeans stewed with parsley and garlic, and with fried potatoes to which onions and more garlic have been added. A glass of red wine, and a baguette, and you have the main course of a meal fit for a king (or a queen).

I have found that the best way to cook maigret is to begin with the slab of meat, fat side up, on a cutting board. With a sharp knife, cut almost all the way through the layer of skin and fat and down through the meat, leaving it just hanging on...do this every quarter-inch, all the way along the breast...make the cuts on the short side, so that the slices of meat are short, rather than the long way.

Put the maigret, fat side down, into a cold frying pan, and turn the gas onto medium high. Let the meat cook until the fat has become crispy brown and the extra fat has run out and melted, then turn the maigret and let it just brown on the other side...remember, you'll want it blood-rare and just warmed inside.

At this point you can serve one per person, or cut it lengthwise and make it a meal for two. Serve it crispy fat side up, and let each diner slice off a delicious flake of meat at a time. Yu get to eat both the fat AND the meat with each bite...don't be shy! As long as the blood is dripping down your chin, you done good.

The meal would have begun with a homemade garbure soup, full of vegetables and beans and probably also with bacon and the head of the duck. Then perhaps also a salad and coldcut platter. After the maigret, there would be a green salad with homemade vinaigrette, and cheese and bread...sometimes the salad is served with the cheese, sometimes not, it depends on the social standing and snobbishness of the family in question. After the meal, there will be a dessert...something as simple as a yoghurt of a piece of fruit, or perhaps an apple tart, a flan, or ice cream. After dessert is when the coffee arrives, once the table has been cleared of all the dishes. Tiny cups of very strong coffee and sugarcubes in a tin box. Never any milk, that's reserved only for the morning cafÃ© au lait.

This would be lunch.

Now for the REAL canning of the canard gras...or not...

What's left of the duck is now the legs, the wings, the neck, and the skeleton. First, the legs and wings, which will be the yummy and good for your heart; 'Confit de Canard'.

Take apart the duck, bit by bit. Put the legs, with skin, in a big pan. Put the wings in another. The neck, with the skin slipped off in one stocking-like piece and set aside, in yet another. Put all of the other bits, all the skin and fat and bits and bobs into a big, deep pot. Sprinkle the remaining carcass with a spoonful of rocksalt and let it sit a few hours, then broil it and pick the meat off the bones for a snack.

Use rocksalt and salt the legs, the wings, and the neckbones. Use more salt for the legs, less for the wings, and even less for the neck. I can't tell you how much to use...just enough to toss onto the meat and make sure that each piece has salt all over it (start with a small handful per leg).

The meat has to sit for a while in a cool place after this. And be turned from time to time. The bigger pieces getmore time in the salt, and the more the meat sits in the salt, the stronger the effect. Count on about four hours for the neck, six for the wings, and twelve for the legs...although I have friends who let the legs it for 24 hours, which I find is a bit too strong for my tastes. When the time is up, rinse off the salt and begin the confit...

Melt the duck fat and skin in the big pot, and add the morsels of meat, beginning with the neck. Simmer very gently, without browning, until the meat doesn't run red when poked, then take it out and put in into jars, covering it with more of the delicious duckfat, and can it for in a boiling water bath (The gizzard can also be done this way, and is delicious fried with potatoes and onions).

Confit can also be put into an earthenware pot in layers with fat, being sure to always have the meat covered with the fat (melt more fat to cover, when you've dug out the bits you want to eat). Cover the pot with newspaper and string, and keep this in the coolest, most northeast corner of the barn or house, and cook the pieces when you wish. My friend, Marcel the Farmer, says he prefers confit in pots, instead of canned, as one is like a roast meat, and the other is more like a stewed meat.

Sausages can also be done this way, as confit, either in an earthnware pot or canned in lard. Just fry them and layer them, or can them in more lard. Boiling water bath for three hours, as usual, for the canned ones. The pot ones have been known to last the entire winter, and more. You could also envelope them in fat and freeze them, I've been told.

Confit can be done with any animal...not just with fatted ducks. Pork roasts are popular for confit, as is rabbit and chicken. I expect that beef would be excellent this way, and I have a Middle Eastern cookbook with a recipe for confit of lamb with spices. Just make sure that you have enough fat to cover.

About the fat. Most people go with duck or goosefat or lard, but I have one friend who swears by peanut oil. She says it MUST be peanut oil, as any other kind will spoil. Of couse, she also only gives her confit a boiling water bath for twenty minutes. MaiitÃ© does hers for one hour, and one and a half hours for the gizzards. I've been taught to do it for three hours.

Save the fat from the jars for fries and eggs and anything else. confit can be eaten cold (the roasts) or reheated by frying or baking for a bit, til browned. Or thrown into vegetable and bean soup......


----------



## susieM (Apr 23, 2006)

Now, once you've got the gizzard, the legs, wings, the neck, and the head into the canning jars, and filled up with fat...it's time for the rest.

I failed to mention about the big potful of fat and bits, the one you melt the fat in and cook the meat in....you need to throw in a chicken and a porkroast at the beginning of the operation. 

All of that meat and the remaining bits of duck and skin will have simmered down to a lovely kind of meatflecks and bits. 
First skim off the crispy, crackly, crunchy, rinds and salt them to eat right away, or can those, too...with, of course, more fat added...to make a lovely spread for bread. 

Then take half of the bits and can them (yes, with more fat), along with salt and pepper, to make what's known as 'rillettes', melted goodness of meat and fat that are perfectly delicious spread on a baguette and topped with those nasty things that the french call cornichons...teensy baby cucumbers pickled in what is nothing but vinegar and nothing else. Or try topping boiled potatoes with rillettes and baking them til all melted and rich tasting.

Take the other half of the simmered meatflakes and grind it, not too finely, with the addition of a raw egg or two, a splash of armagnac, a pinch of thyme, salt, pepper, garlic...whatever looks good...and stuff this mixture into the reserved skins of the duckneck, that you will already have sewn closed at one end with string thread, and will sew all the way closed, once the stuffing is in place (don't stuff it too tightly). Put this into a canning jar WITHOUT the addition of more fat. It does look rather...special. Along the lines of Frankenstein...or a penis, if you want the truth. But don't let it get you down, it turns out like a salami, and, sliced and served cold on a tray of appetizers, is wonderful!

Add the rillettes and the neck sausage to the water-filled washtub and start water boiling away. Your choice of time, one hour, three, or five. I do three.



actually, I do an hour and a quarter at ten pounds pressure, nowadays.


----------



## Firefly (Dec 7, 2005)

SusieM, those are some amazing recipes. Thank you! I'll have to try some this fall.


----------



## suzyhomemaker09 (Sep 24, 2004)

I have duck breast in the freezer still...we did the leg 1/4's in a fantastic sous vide style.
Following this recipe IIRC

http://www.acanadianfoodie.com/2010/06/08/sous-vide-duck-confit/

it was fantastic...I quite love sous vide cooking 

I have great plans for St. Patrick's day with this one ...

http://www.cookingsousvide.com/info/sous-vide-recipes/more/sous-vide-corned-beef-and-cabbage


----------



## Murray in ME (May 10, 2002)

susieM, you're making me very hungry. I've made duck mayo before, minus the freeze dried herbs you used. It is wonderful stuff. Duck fat is one of the world's great food products. Fries cooked in duck fat are one of the best foods anywhere. I haven't had duck confit or rillettes in a long time. I love the idea of serving the rillettes baked with potatoes. It sounds delicious. Thanks for sharing with us.


----------

