What's With All the Magret?
Cooking

What's With All the Magret?


(photo by Tim Cherna)
Astute readers may have noticed that I've cooked a lot of magret in the last few weeks. I used some for my "Damn Good Duck Confit" as well as for dinner to accompany an Australian shiraz, where I cryptically mentioned that I was trying to use up leftovers.

So why all the magret manipulation? Because this year I was "guest chef" at my friend Tom's winter party. I've talked about Tom's elaborate winter parties before, and I've mentioned that he uses a "staff" of cooks drawn from his food-obsessed friends. I've been on staff duty for a year and a half now. Each party (he has a still-impressive but more casual event in the summer), he asks one of his staff to take charge of a single dish. The chef has to conceive it, audition it, do trial runs, and be explicitly in charge of it on the day of the party. This time it was my turn. Tom gave me minimal guidance: he was thinking something with crepes, maybe a salad. Somehow it occurred to me to do something with magret, the breast meat of a bird raised for foie gras (don't let anyone tell you that they remove the liver and toss the rest of the bird, by the way; there's probably less waste from a foie gras bird than any other type of farmed poultry). I looked in Culinary Artistry for some flavor-pairing ideas, and hit on pomegranate and oranges. You know me; the dish would have to be seasonally appropriate. I thought the acidity in those would work well with the fatty duck, and for a touch of bitterness and interest I decided to add some greens (spinach and watercress). Plus, it had to be a salad. (Tom commented at the party that he had told me, "maybe something vegetarian" and this is what I came up with).

Crepes came in the form of baked crepe cups that held individual servings of this salad. I did a trial run in late October, and Tom came up to Tim and Mitch's house for the audition. We worked out some kinks (the main one: bake the crepe cups on an upside-down muffin tin rather than in the cups themselves. You get more even bowls with a predictable volume), but it was pretty good to go. The dish was well received by the crowd, and at one point the rest of the kitchen made me go out to the patio to receive an embarrassing round of applause from the thirty-five guests.

The party was fantastic. Tom said that many people have told him it was one of the best ever. Melissa and I have been going to the winter party for four years, and I'd have to agree. Normally there are two or three stellar dishes while everything else is merely extremely good. This year, there were something like half a dozen really spectacular dishes. Be sure and check out the menu, the prep strategy, and more at Tom's site, as well as the rest of Tim's pictures to get a sense of the fun. I got there at 8:30a.m. on Saturday and left around 11:30p.m. Tom started the actual cooking the week before, though he had been planning and testing dishes throughout the year. He and William did some initial work during the day on Friday. There were up to six people working in Tom's galley-style kitchen throughout the day, but somehow we all managed, though Meriko and I had a moment of confusion about whose chef's knife was whose.

Pomegranate Duck Salad:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Fold the crepes in quarters and trim away the edges. Take each crepe and lay it (ugly side down) over the bottom of a cup on an upside-down muffin tin. Bake until cups are hard, about 15 minutes.
  2. Wash, dry and roughly chop spinach and watercress.
  3. Trim magret and score skin with several diagonal slices
  4. About one hour before service, preheat the oven to 400°. Heat a skillet over low heat. Season magret with salt and pepper, though Tom had me grind down grains of paradise for the final dish.
  5. Forty minutes before service, place the magret in the pan skin-side down and pan sear on both sides. Place on a sheet pan (skin-side down) and roast until just rare, about ten minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest at least fifteen minutes. While duck is resting, dress greens with some of the pomegranate reduction. Slice magret thinly.
  6. To plate: in each crepe cup, place some of the dressed greens with an orange supreme slice on top and to one side. Lay three magret slices on top. Spoon pomegranate reduction over plate. Garnish with pomegranate seeds.




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