Duck Rillettes

This all began when I went to Chinatown to pick up a duck.  Now normally I do a whole duck butterflied in a large baking dish so the flesh confits itself - but that will be another post.  This time I wanted to make Rillettes de Canard.

So, whole duck.  I harvested the breasts to make some duck proscuitto.  Since this bird came from Chinatown, it had feet, head, the whole shebang.  I harvested all the big bones for stock.  What I was left with was legs (bone in), wings (yes with bones), skin, miscellanous scraps of meat.

Toss all the meat into a pressure cooker
Add salt and pepper and cooked that sucker at pressure for a couple of hours
Let it cool down, don't be too eager
Scrape the meat from the bones (keep the bones for stock)
Take the skin and crisp it up in a frying pan
Used a mesh strainer to get duck fat out of the meat (keep the confit)
Shred the meat in a bowl
Chop up the crispy skin and add that to the meat
Add cognac, chopped parsley, salt, pepper and orange zest
Spoon the mixture into ramekins and push it down with a fork to create a level surface
Spoon the duck fat onto the ramekins until there is about a 1/4 inch of fat over the meat
Put in the fridge and don't touch for two days

Now, you make some toast points.  Slice up some cornichon (baby dills).  Fork on some Rillettes to the toast.  Put a pickle on top.  OMG.

What you need

• A duck
• cognac
• chopped parsley
• orange zest
• salt and pepper
• toast points and cornichon for the eating