Pâté de Canard en Croûte

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So here’s the schedule I would suggest to any wanna-be-French-chef: de-bone the duck the night before you wish to sew it up and make the paté (i.e., Tuesday night); on Wednesday, prepare the paté, stuff the bird, and sew it up; on the third day, Thursday, or whatever day you are serving the dish, brown your bird, roll out your crust, and prepare the actual snazzy final product.  With enough time spent on each step, you’re certain to get the dish right the first time and have an impressive presentation.

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  • 12

Ingredients

  • 1 5-lb 1 5-lb read-to-cook roaster duckling
  • 1/2 1/2 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/8 1/8 1/8 tsp pepper
  • pinch pinch of allspice
  • 2 2 2 Tablespoons Cognac
  • 2 2 2 Tablespoons Port
  • 2-3 2-3 2-3 diced canned truffles and their juice (optional)
  • 4 4 4 cups pork and veal stuffing
  • Puff pastry sheets - at least two.
  • Stuffing
  • Have the pork, veal, and pork fat ground together finely.
  • 2 2 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 1 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1/2 1/2 1/2 cup port, Madeira, or cognac
  • 3/4 3/4 3/4 pound each lean pork and lean veal
  • 1/2 1/2 1/2 pound fresh pork fat
  • 2 2 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 1/2 1 1/2 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/8 1/8 1/8 teaspoon pepper
  • Big pinch ground allspice
  • 1/2 1/2 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1 1 1 clove garlic, mashed (optional)
  • 1 1 8 . In a small skillet, melt the butter and cook the onion for 8 minutes or until it is translucent but not brown. Scrape it into a bowl.
  • 2 2 to . Pour the port, Madeira, or cognac into the skillet and boil it down until reduced by half. Scrape it into the bowl; leave to cool.

Preparation

Step 1

2.) Make an incision down the center of the duck’s back from the neck to the tailbone.  This step exposes the backbone.

7.) Now that you are a deboning expert, take your knife and make a similar incision against the breast meat and any remaining meat that is still sticking to the duck’s skin.  You want only the skin to remain, so using a sharp small knife, cut against the meet (NOT the skin) and remove the breasts of meat.  You will have two medium-sized duck breasts.

9.) Wrap and refrigerate duck until day two when you make the paté and sew up the duck.

10) ksf: I marinated pieces of duck separately from duck skin overnight in Cognac and Madeira

Day Two: Make Paté, Stuff, & Sew Up Duck

2.) In a bowl, add cubed duck breasts and any leftover duck meat from day 1.  Add 4 cups (2 cups each) of ground pork and veal. ksf:I would sandwich duck pieces around farce stuffing -- a layer of duck pieces on skin - then farce -then more duck pieces on top of farce.

3.) Add spices–salt, pepper, allspice–and cognac and port.  Mix to fully integrate.  If using canned truffles (I did not as they are waaaay to expensive, but used two tablespoons of truffle-infused olive oil from Vom Fass instead), cube and add to mixture.  Stir one last time to integrate ingredients properly.
ksf: I skipped truffles -- would use truffle oil next time
4.) Now, roll out the de-boned duck skin from the day before on a clean work surface.  
ksf: see note above for layering note.
Using your hands, add the paté to the center of the duck’s skin (back-skin should be facing out and you should be working with the inside of the duck).  Shape paté into an evenly flat log.

6.) Thread your trussing needle with cooking thread and evenly sew up all seams of the loaf.  This may take a while and you want to make sure that no seam goes un-sewn.

1.)Add 3 tablespoons of cooking oil to a large skillet.  Heat to medium-high until oil is almost smoking.

2.) Add duck to pan and brown the duck slowly on all sides.  Don’t be too skimpy with this step: the skin must be entirely cooked before you remove it from the oven, otherwise, the skin will taste gross in the final product.  Basically, the browner the duck skin, the better.  Remove duck from pan and allow to cool.  When the duck has cooled, do not remove any of the trussing strings (they help to keep the duck in place/hold its shape during the baking process).
ksf: I cooked this before applying pastry - 1 hour at 350. to internal 180 degrees. Cool to the touch on rack to drain off fat...

4.) Place pastry in a lightly-greased roasting pan and place cooled duck loaf on top of pastry.  Then, place a second layer of freshly rolled out pastry on top of the duck.  Bringing both layers of pastry together, pinch the edges all around the roast until the bird is completely sealed in a well-fit pastry shell.

ksf: I used two sheets of puff pastry. Brushed with Egg and did cut-out designs. Baked 30 min. in 400 oven . Bakes crust and warms duck.

5.) Using a circular cookie cutter, cut-out around 25-30 circular rounds.  Feel free to carve “fan-shaped lines” into the pastry circles, or leave them blank.  Decorate the edges of the top pastry level (right about the pastry seam) all the way around the pastry shell.  Place remaining 3, or 4 rounds in the center.

6.) Beat one egg and using a brush, paint the entire pastry shell.  Once shell is painted, pre-heat oven to 350F.  Using a small, sharp knife, make an incision into the center of the pastry (about a 1/8 inch hole) and add a small foil flute to it.  This flute will allow excess steam to escape the shell during the baking process.

7.) Place duck in oven and cook for 2 hours, or until a meat thermometer reads at 180F from the center-flute.

8.) Place cooked duck on a work surface and allow duck to settle for about 15 minutes.

9.) Once duck has sat for 15 minutes, use a sharp knife and make an incision all the way around the pastry shell underneath the decorative circles.  The idea is to cut under the “cap” of the pastry by making an incision into where the pastry shell seam comes together.

11.) Breathe.  The duck will have shrunk significantly during the cooking process, but that’s okay.  Now, using your fingers, carefully remove the cooking thread from the entire duck.  Make sure to remove the threads (the last thing you want is to eat cooking thread with your duck paté!).  Once threads are removed, place shell back on top of the duck.

12.) Place cap back onto the duck.  Using a sharp knife and significant gumption, carve the duck and crust as one dish.  Julia says to “make a deep incision the length of the breast, and cut lengthwise slices angled towards the center of the duck on each side” (576).  Basically, cut the duck up and down the way you would beef wellington so that you serve both meat and pastry at the same time.  Enjoy! Makes 20 servings.

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