Free Eating by Jason Epstein Page B

medium carrots, chopped, and two stalks of celery, diced, the juice and zest of half a lemon, and two or three bay leaves. Brown the giblets and wings and caramelize the vegetables in the duck fat left in the pot. Then blend a tablespoon of arrowroot or Wondra instant-blending flour into the vegetables to make a roux, and cookfor a minute or so. Heat and add to the pot two cups of rich chicken or duck stock with a cup of port and three cups of Pinot Noir or similar robust red wine. Turn the flame to high and reduce the wines and stock by a third. The liquid should not cover the duck when you return it to the cocotte, breast side down, resting on the wings, which serve as a kind of couch. Add a good pinch of sea salt. Cover the cocotte with plastic wrap, place the lid on top, and braise the duck slowly in a 325-degree oven for about an hour, checking occasionally that the breast isn’t scorched, until the leg meat is firm and the breast runs yellow when pierced. Strain the stock, discard the wings and giblets, and press the vegetables to extract the liquid. Pour the liquid into a clear glass container. Let it cool, and spoon off as much fat as possible. Or use a fat separator with a spout at the bottom and pour off the clear liquid. Better yet, chill the liquid for an hour or so, until the fat congeals enough to be spooned completely away. Reduce the stock to the consistency of light cream. If it’s too thick, thin it with a little chicken or duck stock. If it’s too thin, boil it down more. Add to the stock a handful of pitted picholine or similar green or black pitted olives. Heat a half-cup of cognac, add it to the stock, and flame it. When the duck is cool enough to handle, remove the breast meat with the grain in long, rather thin slices. Remove the legs at the joint and trim them neatly, removing any loose fat. Then arrange the legs with the sliced breast meat nicely on a warm platter. Nap with the warm sauce and olives, and serve. A Lynch-Bages from a good year would be just right, or a fine American Pinot Noir.
    PURÉED RUTABAGA
    Autumn rutabaga—peeled, hacked in chunks, and boiled until tender, then puréed with butter and a little salt in a food processor—would be a perfect accompaniment;or, more elegantly, pass the softened rutabaga through a food mill, then add butter and salt. Grilled Treviso radicchio or endive, a lightly curried cauliflower purée, or turnips in wedges braised in duck fat are also fine accompaniments.
    Save the duck fat, which is said to be less harmful than other animal fats. Add a tablespoon of duck fat to a pound of lean chuck to make a poor man’s version of Daniel Boulud’s hamburgers with foie gras.
    There are many kinds of ducks, and many ways to prepare them. My favorite is the magret or boned breast of the Moulard, a large duck bred from a Pekin female and a male Muscovy and raised for its fattened liver. Magret de Moulard can be found in high-quality markets or ordered directly from dartagnan.com, which sells magret as a by-product of its foie-gras business.
    MAGRET DE MOULARD
    Each half-breast weighs about a pound and serves two. You will need a cast-iron or heavy steel skillet, and a very sharp knife to score the skin through the fat but not into the meat in the finest cross-hatch you can manage. Lay the breast skin side down in the hot skillet, and reduce the heat so as to render the fat slowly without overcooking the meat, which must be served pink and warm: no more than 125 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, or even less, according to taste. Above all, do not overcook the magret.Pour off and save the fat as it accumulates: use it to braise a few turnips in three-quarter-inch dice. In about ten minutes, nearly all the duck fat will have been rendered. Then turn the breast over and sear the other side over high heat for a few minutes, until the meat feels firm to the touch. Keep the magret warm under a kitchen towel or in a barely warm oven.
    Meanwhile, prepare Colonel