Salmis of duck

A salmis is a dish in which a part-roasted or sautéed piece of meat or bird is sliced and then reheated in a rich, concentrated sauce.  In this recipe for salmis of duck, the flavour is intensified by incorporating the juices from the carcass into the sauce and then reducing it.

Preparation Time: 30 Mins

Cooking Time: 4 Hrs

Total Time: 12 Hrs

Ingredients

For 4 servings…

1                    Duck        

60 ml              Cognac     

110 ml             Wine  - red 

                      Pepper      

                      Salt          

For the sauce

110 gms          Butter       

80 gms            Flour        

2                    Carrots  - diced       

1                    Onion  - diced         

                      Giblets  - of the duck 

                      Bouquet garni         

280 ml             Wine  - red 

90 cl               Stock  - white          

60 gms            Mushrooms  - chopped

Method

To make the sauce…

This should be done the day before cooking and serving the duck.

Make a brown roux by melting the butter in a sauce pan and then stirring in the flour.  Add a mirepoix of the carrots and onions and the bouquet garnet and giblets.  Keep stirring over a low heat for 20 minutes until the vegetables are browned.  Moisten with the wine and add the stock and mushrooms.  Continue to cook gently for 1½ hours.  Leave to cool and mature.

To cook the duck…

Season the duck and roast in a hot oven for about 30 minutes or until three-quarters cooked.  Then cut the bird into serving pieces arrange in a buttered sauté pan.  Cover and keep warm.

Crush the duck carcass and in a mortar and pestle and add to the duck in the roasting pan and deglaze the with the cognac and wine.  Boil until reduced and then add the sauce which was made the day before.  Cook for a few minutes and sieve into a clean pan.  Return to the heat.  Add salt and pepper, if necessary, and some butter.  Pour this sauce over the pieces of duck and serve.

Variations

The sauce can be enhanced further by adding sautéed mushrooms and/or truffles.

Wine recommendations

The dish needs and deserves a good quality red wine.

Conventional

     Burgundy

Interesting

     Hermitage

Special

     Corton Grand Cru

     Pomerol

     Vosne-Romanée