Connoisseur Michael's Pate de Canard en Croute

I think most people agree that the silent question posed by the semi-biographical movie about French cooking legend Julia Child, “Julie and Julia,” was:  “Do you have the balls to put your reputation in the kitchen on the line a bone a duck?” 

The recipe for a boned duck, filled with pork stuffing, and wrapped in a pastry shell, or Pate de Canard en Croute if you want to be fancy, is the ultimate, most dreaded, and difficult recipe of the movie.  After seeing the movie I and every other kitchen crusader out there were ready to try our hands at disrobing a fowl’s skeleton from its meat and skin. 

Luckily for me I had a few friends who were willing to help me.

The day began with making the pastry dough.  I felt this was prudent since the dough has to chill for two hours before use.  My friend Trevor is a wiz with pie crusts so we figured he would be best for this job (he also owns Mastering the Art of French Cooking, so I had to invite him along).  As he was making the dough he kept commenting about how it was really nothing like pie crust at all, it was much less moist.  We were both puzzled by the inclusion of ¼ a teaspoon of sugar, mixed in with 6 cups of flour, but we followed the recipe thinking it best to stay true to Mrs. Child’s instructions. 

While Trevor was making pastry dough I was busy frying a pound of bacon – not for eating mind you (eating the bacon is just a happy side effect of the recipe), but to get the grease.  Mrs. Child calls for a full cup of pork fat in the stuffing.  The pound of bacon yielded about ½ a cup and the rest I made up from my drippings jar (I salivate every time I think of my drippings jar).  After the pastry dough was completed and chilling Trevor stepped out to pick up a trussing needle.  By the by, a trussing needle is incredibly hard to find – none at my local grocery store, none at Williams Sonoma, none at Whole Foods – we finally found one at Whisk in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Whisk comes highly recommend so if you’re ever in town check them out www.whisknyc.com.

As Trevor returned my friend Natalie and her husband David showed up with the duck they had put a hit on less than 24hrs previous.  Natalie felt a fresh duck was important so she went to a Halal place where she could choose a live duck and have it slaughtered at her whim.  Now the real fun was to start. 

I was in the middle of creating the pork stuffing, David was in charge of giving directions from the cookbook on the proper course for boning a duck, and Trevor and Natalie were glaring a the fowl’s carcass, sharpened knives in hand. 

After a small incision next to the spine of the duck Natalie became a bit impatient and went at it with a cleaver, so she was removed from the duck boning area. 

Trevor took up most of the boning work with occasional pointers from myself and David,

while I finished the pork stuffing adding a healthy dose of delicious truffle oil and morel mushrooms.

After the boning was finished Trevor and I stuffed and sewed up the duck. 

Several patch jobs were needed, as it wasn’t a perfect boning job, but all in all I think it was good for a first go round. 

After the duck was stuffed and trussed it was time to fry the outside to a golden brown.  For this I brought out one of my favorite and most used kitchen tools, the cast iron skillet.  I heated the oil to smoking and then placed the stuffed duck inside. 

Soon would come the hard part – rotating the duck so that all sides browned evenly.  Trevor and I both grabbed two “turning utensils” such and spatulas and wooden spoons while David held the skillet steady.  I have several oil burns on my forearms from turning the duck, but it was eventually browned on all sides.  Unfortunately, as the duck meat constricted with cooking, some of the stuffing exploded out, but I figured there was more than enough left inside.

While David and I were finishing with the browning process Trevor and Natalie had rolled out the pastry dough.  A little more water had to be added to the dough to make it pliable, which was not called for in the recipe.  We transferred the dough to a baking sheet and then transferred the duck to the pastry dough.  Now, the recipe calls for cutting out ornate leaves and flowers from the left over pastry dough for decoration, but we thought of a better idea.  Trevor retrieved his 100 piece cookie cutter bucket from downstairs and we went about choosing the best shapes to put on the crust. 

After much debate, it was decided that dinosaurs would be best so Trevor went about placing Tyrannosauruses and Stegosauruses all over the crust.  Finally it was time to put the duck in the oven!!!  Only two hours of cooking left to go!!!  Oh, no, wait!  On a re-read of the recipe it is discovered that after cooking, the duck has to rest for another two hours.  What the Golly Gee Willakers is that all about!  Oh well, we’ve come this far, might as well go for the whole freakin’ package. 

The thermometer went into the middle of the pastry and the duck was placed in the oven.  Once the duck was in the oven everyone finally had time to catch up on their wine drinking. 

Luckily for us the thermometer reached the appropriate temperature before the two hour mark.  We then, impatiently, allowed the duck to rest for another hour and finally it was time to carve into it.  Trevor, feeling we really needed some sort of vegetable, had taken the baking time to make squash halves filled with butter and maple syrup.  I guess if you’re going to have a vegetable it should involve fat and sweet. 

The duck was cut and served and everyone dug in.  Was it delicious?  Well, it was good – the pork stuffing was yummy, the pastry dough was tasty, the duck itself sort of got lost amongst the rest.  Another problem was the trussing string; it kept getting in the way of proper gorging, forcing one to slow down the food shoveling process.  Admittedly, we used more string than the recipe called for (we had to patch up quite a few holes).  There is also mention in the recipe of actually cutting open the crust, removing the duck, taking off the string, and then replacing the duck within the pastry crust before serving.  This idea seemed way to far fetched after an entire afternoon of cooking.  All in all, was the 7 hours of preparation and cooking worth it?  On a purely taste level I’d have to say no, but on a total experience with great friends level, most definitely.