Throwing a dinner party? This savory show-stopper—the recipe serves 10—will make your evening one to remember.
Breaking Down the Ducks
Ingredients:
5 Whole ducks, portioned
Directions:
• Trim the legs for confit.
• Keep the bones for brown duck stock.
• Set aside the breasts for searing.
• Pull off the chunky fat for rendering.
Toulouse Duck Sausage
Ingredients:
1 lb Coarse ground duck
1 lb Coarse ground pork chuck
1/3 cup Dry white wine
5g Garlic, finely chopped
10g Kosher salt
1/4 cup Fresh parsley, chopped
8g Ground black pepper
1/3 tsp Ground nutmeg
Hog casing
Directions:
• Cut the meat into strips for grinding. Mix the salt, garlic and all the spices together and toss with the meat. Chill 4 hours or overnight. Along with the grinding press, everything needs to be cold; the meat can almost be frozen.
• Soak the hog casing and rinse with warm water.
• Grind through your meat grinder using the coarse die. Use an ice bath to keep the farce cold while grinding.
• Take out your big mixer’s medium bowl and add ground meat and wine with the paddle attachment. Mix for 90 seconds—just enough for it to marinate a bit and bring out the seasoning. Let it rest in the fridge for an hour.
• Stuff the sausage into the casings all at once. Twist off links by pinching the sausage down and twisting and spinning it, first in one direction, and then with the next link, the other direction.
• Hang the sausages in a cool place for 4 to 12 hours to dry the casings and set the sausage. Sausages you plan to freeze need to dry longer.
Brown Duck Stock
Ingredients:
4 Duck carcasses, lightly trimmed of fat
1/2 gallon Rough chop mire poix, sautéed tender or roasted in some duck fat
Thyme to taste
1 Bay leaf
Garlic to taste
2 gallons Water
Directions:
• Roast the duck bones until brown with some tomato paste.
• Combine with other ingredients.
• Simmer 6 hours and strain.
Cassoulet
Ingredients:
2 lb White navy beans, soaked
1 gallon Medium diced mire poix
¼ cup Garlic, chopped fine
1/4 cup Fresh thyme, chopped
¼ cup Marjoram
1/4 cup Parsley, chopped
2.5 gallons Roasted duck stock
1 lb Smoked ham or smoked pork belly
10 Toulouse duck sausages (See above)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Directions:
• Soak the beans for at least 8 hours.
• Sauté the mire poix lightly with some duck fat; sear the duck sausages.
• Add the marjoram, thyme, parsley, beans, smoked ham or pork belly and stock.
• Cook covered in oven for 1.5 hours at 325 degrees.
• After 1.5 hours, add in the sausages.
• Cool in the oven overnight and portion.
