Pâté foie de
Carnac Barbarie
Mise en
place
Short while
ago I aimed for duck dumplings, liver dumpling soup (from Pig) is a very common
and a popular dish in traditional Bavarian and German food serving restaurants
of every level. Next to liver the recipe is asking for whole egg and
breadcrumbs. I modified the recipe to duck liver. Since I had some excess of
the dumplings farce I added some milk to it had it rest for 5 hrs then sieved
it finely and placed it in a prepared with spiced red wine gel. Quite nice but this
could only be the beginning.
The Pâté
I
established some pre-sets: I didn't want to have the pristine duck flavor
watered with any dairy products or eggs; to the contrary, preserving the purity
of the duck flavor was the only result acceptable! Following the pre-set I extracted
the Fat from the Skin and used it as additional flavor carrier. Some Xanthan
for emulation and smoothness, the duck meat spiced with pre mixed curing salt
(0,5% NoNa²) for color preservation and conservation, added Citric acid for the
same reason on the liver only as I really didn't want to salt the liver directly.
I split the
process it in two days. Day one was to prepare the Duck meat and have it cured
for 24 hr. Day two was set to prepare the liver and then join the two
components.
I deboned
one whole duck, saved one duck breast for a different use. Skinned the duck to
extract the fat layers at 80° C , trimmed and diced the meat, vacuum packet it
( 3cm) for a 35min bath at 60° C. The
carcass went into a stock for reduction to a demi-glace.
After
cooling the meat in an ice bath and adding the curing salt, the meat was passed
on to a meat cutter and finally the
farce went to rest for 24hr at 4° C. I
figured.., as it turned out correctly, the pre-cooking of the duck meat made it
possible to process it very finely by keeping a pink color.
Day 2, Preparation
of liver
Now deep red
color of the duck liver is a sign the duck was a free running one and lived
from what the environment offers, thus from what ducks historically feed on;
bugs, larvae's, worms and seeds. The
more yellow/ ochre colored livers are telling of a farm raised duck feed mostly
by corn, the color corresponds similar to the one of a foie gras. I had about
50% of each, red and ochre, I first had reservation to mix them both, possibly
compromising the color of the “pâté foie de Carnac Barbarie” as it could tend into
and rather ochre color but to my relive it did not. I account the separated
preparation of meat and liver for the constancy of the pink color and of course
the citric acid on the liver and the curing salt on the farce.
Processing
duck liver can be labor intensive as Duck liver contains blood vessels which
need to be removed, than it was fine sieved (µm 50) and the citric acid added.
Meat farce,
sieved liver, 30g duck fat, Xanthan and spices added to taste (ground pepper,
Marjoram) it was mixed thoroughly after the mix it cured for another one hr at
4° C, the batch was fine sieved again (µm 50) and filled in prepared
(sterilized) glass jars. 9 jars in all
placed in the SV Supreme with water filled right under the lid for 80min at 60°
C.
The added
fat made 3 % to the batch, considering meat and liver containing fat per se; it
would be fair to say the whole batch contained approximately 9% - 11% fats.
The
consistency is stable but at the same time soft to spread which was intended (Xanthan),
as I knew ahead the duck meat will give the pâté more structure, both in taste
and consistency.
The duck
flavor is also nicely lasting and the spicing on the tip of the blade, all in all,
the entire recipe proved to perfect, I received a very satisfied result in
every aspect.
Fresh baked
Bread and the Pâté . Just gorgeous.
