Our tips and tricks
Preparing a terrine:
Season the foie gras and flavour it to your liking. Leave it to marinate for 6 hours in a cold place.
Oven/bain-marie: place the terrine into a hot bain-marie and bake in a preheated oven (120 °C) for 40 min.
Steam oven & sous vide: vacuum seal the terrine. Put into a preheated oven and cook at for 45 min at 72 °C.
Both methods: on removing from the oven, cool in a bowl of iced water to stop the cooking. Press down to bring the fat to the surface and rest for at least 24 hours at between 1 °C and 4 °C.
Cooking an escalope:
To cook from frozen (recommended): sear your escalopes in a frying pan with no added fat for 1 or 2 minutes on each side, then bake in the oven at 160 °C for 9 to 11 minutes.
Thawing foie gras:
Foie gras is best thawed in its packaging, placing it in the refrigerator 24 hours before use.
A block weighing 4 or 5 kg may need 48 hours to thaw.
Preparing and serving raw foie gras.
Tip: to check whether your escalopes are properly cooked, pierce them with the point of a knife; it should come out hot.
Serving ready-to-eat
foie gras
To serve your foie gras, slice it with a cutter or a smooth-bladed knife (heated or dipped into hot water). For the optimal taste experience, the slice should be left for 5 minutes before serving.
Preparing and serving duck meat
Scoring the breast:
To score the breast, you need a really sharp knife. The idea is to cut through the skin without cutting through the flesh, to create a grid pattern (the finer the grid, the crisper the skin will be).
Scoring serves several functions:
- It allows the heat to penetrate more easily, giving more even cooking.
- It helps keep the flesh moist during cooking.
- It makes the skin crisper and more appealing.
Confit:
If you have a professional oven, cooking this is child’s play: 12 to 15 min at 190 °C in a fan oven with 20% humidity to avoid it drying out, but keeping the skin nice and crisp.
If using a frying pan, more care is needed so that the skin does not stick and become damaged, and to avoid drying out the confit by allowing it to cook too much on the flesh side.
Filets:
Filets can be fried in a pan or on a plancha, over a high heat, for 3 to 4 minutes.
They need to be seared and coloured, but kept pink.
Heart:
Trim the fat from the heart, removing the collar from around the top. The heart is then generally sliced in two or opened out to remove any clots and facilitate cooking.
Hearts are cooked quickly (2 to 3 min) on a high heat in a pan or on a plancha; they need to be seared and coloured without overcooking.