carswell

Billing itself as an artisanal farm, a bed and breakfast and a table champêtre, La Girondine is the project of the Bardos, a husband and wife team originally from Southwest France. In our phone conversation last year, Françoise Bardo insisted that moulards were the best duck for confit (I agree) and said her confit was the best she had tasted in Quebec. La Girondine's products are sold on site and through a few retailers around the province. In Montreal, they are found at Fromagerie du Marché Atwater (514 932-4653). Although the Fromagerie doesn't stock the confit as a matter of course, they are more than happy to special order it for you. The order normally goes out on Monday and they receive the products on Thursday. The confit duck legs come individually cryovaced in packages with a moulard duck on the label. Being moulards, they are largish, around 325 g apiece. Nearly hidden by a thick coat of rendered duck fat, they run $7.99 a leg ($7 at the farm). We prepared them following our standard procedure: dumping the contents of the package onto a baking dish and heating it all in a 375ºF oven for 20 minutes. The fragrance while cooking was classic and the approximately 1/4 cup of fat per leg produced lots of sizzle and pop. Out of the oven, they looked the genuine article. Brown and crisp at the edges, the skin was paler and softer above joint; at table, it was certifiably delicious, provided you scraped away the thick undercoat of fat. Coloured a rich brown, the meat had a fine, silky texture, softer on the drumstick, chewier on the thigh. It tasted meaty, savoury, rich and quite, but not overpoweringly, salty. At the end of the meal, not a shred of meat was to be found on either plate; in other words, it passed the gnawed bone test with flying colours. Overall, one of the top products tasted to date, ranking alongside the confit from Le P'tit Plateau and Anjou-Québec, and besting any other available at the Atwater Market. Our side was the Quercy-style potatoes from Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France. Cubes of Idaho russets parboiled in salted water, then slow-roasted in duck fat for two hours, the temperature raised during the last 15 minutes to produce a perfect golden brown. Showered just before serving with a persillade (minced garlic and parsley) and coarse sea salt, they proved a crunchy delight and, if anything, even better than the conft as a match for the 2001 Gaillac from Domaine Rotier, another fine example of this overlooked appellation, though at $21.85 not as good a value as the similar Château Labastidié ($15.80) and the delightful Peyrouzelles ($17.65) from Domaine de Causse Marines. La Girondine Ferme artisanale 104A, Route 237 Sud Frelighsburg, Quebec 450 298-5206

You're right that horsemeat is very lean. However, some internal organs, in particular the kidneys, are sheathed in fat, which is especially desirable because it is relatively free from impurities. (The same's true for hogs; leaf fat, the fat surrouding the kidneys, is considered the best for making lard.) The "Fries" chapter in Jeffrey Steingarten's The Man Who Ate Everything contains quite a bit of info on the subject. According to Steingarten, Alain Passard of L'Arpège cooks his fries only in horse fat, claiming they "have a not disagreeable horsey flavor ... a lightness and a true crispness you cannot obtain with other fats and oils." As part of his quest to find the best recipe for fries, Steingarten convinced a travelling friend to bring back six pounds of horse fat from Austria. Then, with three friers going — one filled with horse fat, one with beef tallow and one with peanut oil — he got down to work. "The peanut-oil version was good, but the beef- and horse-fat fries were exceptional, especially after I had diluted the animal fats by half with peanut oil. The potatoes were extraordinarily crisp and tasty, and they stayed that way much longer than usual." Steingarten also mentions that Parisian chef Alain Dutournier cooks his fries in goose fat in a two-stage process: the first frying is at low temperature and the second, after a two-hour wait, starts at 280ºF and with the temperature gradually increased to 392ºF.

Interesting. Will have to give this a try. I notice, though, that you and the other freezing advocates (thanks, Ludja) are talking about foie gras scallops. Does freezing an entire lobe work as well?

In restos, possibly, though most places that serve tartare offer steak or burgers too. Maybe one of our chef members can provide specifics. At home, I'd wager that cooked carries the day. The reason for horse tartare's popularity is historic as well as gastronomic, by the way. Unlike beef, horse is not a carrier of tapeworm or tuberculosis, which made it preferable for raw preparations. Sure. Lots of butchers, including my neighbourhood boucherie, and even some grocery stores carry it. Very flavourful, signficantly fewer calories than beef and not nearly as pricey as other specialty meats like venison and caribou.

It's a regular feature on the menus of a few places and puts in an occasional appearance on a few more. Nearly all are French bistro-type establishments. A while back, in her Hour column, our own MaeveH wrote: To that short list, I'd add the Old Montreal's Tintinesque Le Petit Moulinsart; Belgian fast food chain Frite Alors !, which not only offers horse tartare and steak but also cooks their delicious fries in horse and/or beef tallow; and Le Tartarin, the resto/café arm of the Prince Noir butcher shop that recently moved to the new extension at Jean Talon Market. Am fairly sure I've seen horse on the menus of L'Express and Au Petit Extra at one time or another. Globe, too? I like horse just about any way I can get it. Bavette (flank steak) is classic, especially with a red wine or cream sauce. It's great in stews. And horse tartare beats beef any day of the week, though Au Pied de Cochon's venison tartare is even better. IMHO, of course.

You could preserve the foie in goose fat, phlawless. The Larousse Gastronomique has a fairly straightforward recipe, which I can summarize if you like. Once preserved, the liver will keep for several weeks. Not screaming heresy, Tobin, just wondering if you've ever actually done this. If so, can you describe how the foie changes (if at all)? Agree that roast whole foie gras is a treat, though a little goes a long way. I'd calculate 7–8 first-course servings for a foie the size phlawless is talking about.

I use duck fat I've rendered myself (from duck breasts I sauté, whole ducks I roast and trimmings from ducks cut up for braising) and fat recycled from store-bought confit and earlier homemade batches. Any shortfall I make up with purchased duck fat, goose fat and artisanal lard. It depends on the size and fattiness of your duck legs (moulards are big and fatty, pekins often half the size and leaner) and the size of the cooking and storage vessels. Paula Wolfert's recipe in The Cooking of Southwest France calls for 6 cups per 4½–5 lbs. of duck. With my particular setup, it's more like 6½ cups. Prices vary widely. In gourmet stores, a one-cup tub will run about C$5. Some butchers that handle a lot of duck will sell the same amount for around C$3. Again, it depends on the duck; some are much fatter than others. Most ducks have globs of fat in their cavity that you can pull or cut out and render in a saucepan. When roasting a duck, collect the fat that melts and leaves the bird through the holes you've pierced in the skin, especially where the legs join the body. When sautéing duck breasts, score the skin and cook the breast skin side down over medium low heat until brown, removing the rendered fat before it browns; you should get 1/3–1/2 cup per breast. The fat from trimmed skin can be rendered in the same way. Store the rendered fat in a glass or plastic container in the fridge for a few weeks or in the freezer indefinitely until you have enough to make confit.

Well, yes, though freezing doesn't work well with every herb for every use (for example, pesto freezes well but basil leaves do not). Actually, the best way to store herbs is in soil in pots on a sunny windowsill in the winter and outside in the summer. My rosemary bush is around 15 years old now. It blooms after I bring it indoors, then goes into suspended animation from November through January. New growth starts in February, as with most of my other potted herbs. It's like they know they're going to start spending time outside in another five or six weeks.

How could I of all people forget? Confit! Of duck, of course, but also guinea hen, quail, chicken, rabbit...

There's an entire French repertoire of potatoes sautéed or roasted in duck fat. Many of them end up being showered with persillade — minced parsley, garlic and, sometimes, chives — just before serving. Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France is a good source of recipes; the revised edition is slated for publication this fall. Duck fat is also a great medium for sautéing vegetables and seafood. Try rubbing it on chicken before roasting and using it as the fat for browning poultry and rabbit. It can also replace part of the butter, lard or shortening in savoury pastries. Believe it or not, it's actually healthier than many other fats, especially butter.

I'd add muscat to that list.

Bay: Place in an open plastic bag; store in a dark, cool, dry place. The leaves will dry out over time; when they are fully dry, pull them off their stems and store them in an airtight jar. Rosemary (also sage, oregano, marjoram, savoury, verbena, thyme, etc.): Remove any string/rubber band holding the stems together; place herbs in an open plastic bag; store in the fridge. Will keep for about a week. To dry fresh herbs, tie them loosely together at the base of the stems and hang the bunches in a cool, dry place where air can circulate freely. Store basil, dill, mint, coriander, chervil, chives and parsley (arugula, rapini and asparagus, too) by trimming the stems (unless the roots are intact), standing them in a container partially filled with water and loosely covering the container with a plastic bag. I don't refrigerate fresh basil as I find that mutes its flavour; the other herbs don't seem to mind the chill. edit: italicized bits

It should be thicker than you describe. The crème fraîche I buy is as thick as sour cream and a bit gooier, though the stuff I've made has never quite achieved that consistency. Note, too, that the crème will continue to thicken as it ages in the fridge. I wonder about your proportions, however. Did you really only use a teaspoon of buttermilk for a cup of cream? I've never used less than a tablespoon. Over on the Montreal board, forum host Lesley Chesterman, a pastry chef by training, recently suggested using 30 ml (2 tablespoons) of buttermilk for 500 ml (2.12 cups) of heavy cream and described the result as "thick, silky and nutty" (click here). That faint nutty taste would be another sign that you have the genuine article.

I like the look of your recipe, ejebud. The addition of thyme, bay leaf and clove is appealing and the garlic would do no harm. Chopping several large onions is easier than peeling many pearls, though the latter make for a more elegant presentation. (I do like the carrots in my recipe, however, for the colour and layer of flavour they provide.) In the end, the only hesitation I would have is the vinegar, but even so the quantity almost qualifies as homeopathic. Still, the vinegar and long cooking time have me wondering whether your recipe was originally for wild rabbit. Do you know?

Hope I'm not spoiling a surprise (if I am, let me know and I'll edit this post), but your recipe is a slightly elaborate version of a French classic. For discussion purposes, here's a more streamlined version I adapted from the long out-of-print La cuisine mijotée: Rabbit Braised with Prunes and Beer Lapin de garenne aux pruneaux 1 rabbit, cut into 7-8 pieces 2 tablespoons butter 4 ounces (100 g) bacon, cut into lardons 8 pearl onions, peeled 2 tablespoons (15 g) instant-blending flour 2 carrots, peeled and cut into rounds 10 medium-size prunes, pitted 1/3 cup (75 g) golden raisins 1 2/3 cups (400 ml) beer, preferably a not-too-hoppy extra pale ale or pilsner 1. Two hours before you cook the dish, place the prunes and raisins in a small bowl, add warm water to cover and set aside. 2. Blanch the bacon in boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain. Put it and the butter in a heavy-bottomed casserole or sauté pan. Turn the heat to medium low and sauté until the edges begin to brown. Remove from the pan. 3. Turn the heat to medium. Add as many rabbit pieces as will fit without crowding. Brown on all sides, adjusting the heat to keep the fat from burning. Remove pieces from the pan as they finish browning, replacing them with unbrowned pieces. 4. When all the rabbit is browned, add the onions and the carrots. Sauté for 5 minutes. Add the rabbit, the bacon, the beer, a small pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper. Turn the heat to low, cover and simmer gently for 30 minutes. Add the drained prunes and raisins. Cover again and simmer another 20-25 minutes. 5. Put the flour in a small bowl. Add two tablespoons of sauce and stir until blended. Repeat, adding sauce in small increments, until one cup has been added. Pour the mixture back into the pan, stir and simmer 5 minutes more. Four servings Ingredients aside, the main difference between the recipes appears to be the cooking time. By my calculation, your rabbit cooks for nearly two hours after browning. That strikes me as awfully long. The only time I do something similar is when making a rabbit-based pasta sauce, in which case the meat does indeed end up "falling off the bones" (to quote your recipe), no almost about it. Have you tested your recipe? If not, you probably should. By the way, one danger with long-cooking rabbit is that it can become dry, like overcooked chicken breast. Avoid this by browning at no higher than medium heat and simmering at very low heat, with only the occasional bubble breaking the surface. In any case, bleudauvergne is right. In the context of your meal, you should probably count on around five servings per rabbit. As I suggested above, however, the front legs are scrawny, bony and hard to eat elegantly; they'll put your diners' knife and fork skills to the test. You might consider saving them for another use and buying a sixth or seventh rabbit to cover the shortfall.

Expanding on Paula's comments, in oven-braised dishes where the liquid does not fully cover the ingredients, the paper prevents the surfaces exposed to the air from drying out and browning. The one time I made choucroute without parchment, before serving I had to peel away a 1/2-inch layer of dark brown cabbage that was neither attractive to look at nor enjoyable to eat.

How are you preparing the critters, ejebud? One problem you're going to face is the different sizes of the pieces. On an average domestic rabbit (around 3 lbs. in my neck of the woods), a hind leg is a fairly generous portion while two front legs are borderline skimpy. The torso is usually cut in three or four pieces; assuming the latter, you'll probably need two per main course portion. For the rabbits I buy here, I usually count on four main course portions per average animal and five for a larger one. Restaurants often get around the problem by preparing only the hind legs or removing the legs and deboning, stuffing and tying the torso, which makes for easy slicing and portion control and an elegant presentation. The unused pieces can be used in other preps like sautés, terrines and sausages.

Here's a recipe for the Slanted Door's version. Very tasty.

No one has mentioned roast kale! Rinse, stem and rib the leaves, tear them into bite-size pieces, toss in a big bowl with olive oil and salt, place on a baking sheet and roast in a 400ºF oven for no more than 10 minutes, stirring once or twice during the cooking. It's like Chinese deep-fried spinach, only tastier and healthier. What's more, eveyone loves it, even veggie-adverse kids. Wish I could claim the idea was mine but I got it from here, a recipe adapted from Epicurious. Whatever. The referred-to salad has become a wintertime favourite chez nous.

Hi, j-p, and welcome to eGullet. Point taken. I addressed this issue toward the top of the thread. See here (and please excuse the snarky tone of the reply; it was in response to a suspected troll and my patience with him was beginning to wear thin). I think the salient point is convenience, especially for someone like me who lives in an apartment (no cool storage space) and has a small fridge. Also, while confit is simple to make, it requires some running around to get the ingredients (especially if you insist on moulard duck); the dirtying of several pans, bowls and utensils; and a chunk of time. Another thing. Though I haven't done a detailed cost breakdown, my impression is that homemade isn't that much less expensive than the product sold by several of the better local producers, especially when you factor in time. And clearly a lot of people aren't willing to make the effort. So far, this survey has tested the products of nearly 20 local producers and a few more are in the queue. Several of the vendors sell tens and even hundreds of legs a week. Obviously there's a demand, an impression reinforced by the positive reaction to this thread both on and off line. But, as I said, point taken. Prompted by this thread and Paula Wolfert's request for recipe testers for the forthcoming revised edition of her The Cooking of Southwest France, I've made two batches of duck confit since last June. And, yes, the results were excellent, especially of the batch I matured for four months. Where I might part company with you is in applying the "best possible" moniker to the fruit of my labour. It was certainly the equal of the better local products but I'd hesitate to call it the best, as it didn't quite achieve the scrumptuousness of André Philippot's legendary duck, the confit that launched my quest. Maybe it would have been the best possible confit if I had to live in Vancouver, though... Looks good. Not terribly dissimilar from Paula's recipe, though following her main procedure, I prepared both batches on the stovetop, not in the oven. Thanks for the new twist on an old theme. Will give this a shot soon, though the side for my next confit will be the Quercy-style potatoes, also from Paula's book.

Take one box frozen brussels sprouts. Dump in sauce pan with 1/2 cup salted boiling water and 1 teaspoon margarine. Cover and cook 40 minutes. Serve. The smell alone turns my stomach to this day.

On Saturday, Havre aux Glaces was trumpeting its masala (as in garam) sherbet. And who can blame them? It's not very sweet and has a soft, light texture that dissolves as soon as it hits the palate, filling the mouth with a rich and complex mélange of sweet spices. While you're tempted to shovel in another spoonful, they suggest waiting a few seconds, the better to savour the long finish and not to miss the intriguing mild black-pepper burn. Amazing. I had gone in planning to buy one of the citrus sherbets but Philippe de Vienne, he of the olive and spice store, was at the counter exclaiming over the masala sherbet after experincing his first spoonful, so I had to give it a try. Will serve it tonight atop a compote of brandy-spiked prunes stewed in Earl Gray tea and garnished with slivers of candied ginger. Also, the organic butcher, Boucherie St-Vincent, is finally open for business.

After braving the elements for several seasons, Les volailles et gibiers du marché has set up shop in the southwest corner of Jean Talon Market's new extension. Besides big jars of duck conft packed in fat and, oddly, duck stock (expensive at $25, but a good buy compared with Fromagerie du marché Atwater, where the same jars retail for $29 and change), they often have cryovaced confit duck legs (goose legs, too!). I picked the largest pack on offer: two barbary duck legs with a total weight of 280 g and selling for $11.17, which if my math is correct works out to $39.90/kg. Contrast that with Le P'tit Plateau's moulard legs which average 330 g apiece and retail for $25/kg and you'll see that VGM's legs are both small and pricey. The ingredients are listed as duck legs, duck fat and salt. And although the clerks at VGM refer to it as notre confit de canard, the packages bear the Le canard goulu label. We emptied the two legs and accompanying fat onto a baking dish, which we stuck in a 400ºF oven for just under 20 minutes. To our disappointment, the kitchen was not filled with that mouthwatering confit aroma. Still, the skin crisped to an attractive golden brown and we recovered a goodly amount of fat, about a half cup's worth all told. Deeply coloured, the meat had a good overall texture, though it lost points for being stringy in places and pasty in others. The taste was savoury if quite salty and not particulary ducky. Scraped free of its underlying fat, the skin was a crackling if salty delight. The portions were extremely small; I could easily have eaten two legs. Luckily we had plenty of lentils and a chesse plate to assuage our hunger. As you might expect, our wine, a Gaillac from Château Labastidié, went well with the duck. The bottom line: passable but way overpriced. Les volailles et gibiers du marché Marché Jean-Talon 7070, Henri-Julien (514) 271-4141

For the record, the week before last, Anjou-Québec (1025 Laurier West, 514 272-4065) had trays of four moulard duck legs. I don't recall the price but it wasn't exhorbitant. The owner said they often stock them but not always and, when they do, they're not always displayed.

As derricks mentions, it's great in salads. One I've made several times is an adaptation of a di Stasio idea: bitter greens including frisée; apple slices sautéed in butter or duck fat until golden; cider vinegar vinaigrette; shredded duck confit. Have also morphed that using oranges but never with star anise, which sounds like a great addition. Lentil salad with duck confit and walnuts is another winner. The last time I ate at Le P'tit Plateau, the BYOW that also happens to be the purveyor of Montreal's best duck confit, I enjoyed a riff on shepherd's pie that involved mashed celery root and potatoes, shredded duck confit and, IIRC, mushrooms. Comfort food taken to a very high plane. Duck confit also makes a great stuffing for ravioli. Or how about a duck confit lasagne?