Kirkland Foodies: Cassoulet with Duck Confit (and a Vegetarian Option)

Yesterday evening my wife, step-daughter and I went to Buckley's in Belltown to join Auburn club to watch the BCS Bowl. These fans in the SEC teams are "true" fanatics! I was fortunate to attend a football game a couple of months back where Auburn Tigers were playing an unranked team. The capacity of the stadium is about 87,500 and about 70,000 showed up. This was considered a slow game?!?! I never seen so many dedicated spectators in my life! Yesterday evening was no exception where the fans that showed up at Buckley's were very into the game. Since the game was Auburn Tigers versus the Oregon Ducks, I asked my wife if she would like duck for dinner today. Her replied was only if we win. During the last 3 seconds of the game, Auburn kicked the winning field goal and my mind was churning what should I cook for dinner?

On the drive home I was thinking of comfort food - cassoulet with duck confit. I was never much of a bean person until I turned vegan.
Duck confit is easy to make but can be labor intensive. The method that I like to use is to use a wet brine first and then sous vide the meat for a minimum of 10 hours. I bought a couple of duck quarters at an Asian food store. Call me cheap but the cost of certain items can be 30-60% cheaper at an Asian grocery store with almost similar qualities.

I soaked the duck quarter in a 5% brine solution and added chopped garlic and fresh rosemary as an aromatic to the brine. Some people would add brown sugar to the brine to sweeten it slightly. I normally don't use sugar for duck but will almost use it every time to brine turkey for roasting, smoking, or deep frying.

To avoid bacteria growth I normally put the meat and the brine solution in the refrigerator for about 3 hours. Last night I started around 12:30am knowing that I'll stay until 3:30am finishing work from the office. I figure it was a good motivator to get my work done :) Around 3:30am I was still wide awake and rinse off the brine from the duck quarters. I then covered them and put them back in the refrigerator. Here is the tricky part. It takes 10 hour to cook the duck confit so I needed to wake up a decent hour to start the sous vide :)

The next morning when I was half asleep I seasoned it with a "secret" Cajun seasoning. It is one of the best seasoning to use for duck confit among other things.

I then took a duck quarter and place it in an individual foodsaver bag with frozen rendered duck fat about 3 tablespoon. This is required to cook the duck in its own fat to make it a confit.

It was then vacuum packed at the dry setting to get most of the air out using a foodsaver machine.

The method that I use to make the duck confit is using a sous vide supreme machine. It is almost foolproof. I have made duck confit in the past the traditional method in the oven and it doesn't come out as well. My sous vide supreme is probably one of my top 3 appliances in the kitchen. I set the water bath to 176 degrees to cook the duck.

I placed each of the vacuum packed bags in the rack and dropped it in the water bath, cover it, and then waited 10 hours.

I got home from work and started the cassoulet! I chopped some aromatics (minus carrots because I ran out) - onions, celery, and chopped cooked Virginia ham I had in the fridge.

I cooked this mixture with a little olive oil in a pan for 8-10 minutes. This isn't exactly vegan but it smelled really really good :)

I took two canned white beans and drained all the liquid. I then added the beans to the aromatics and the ham. This was then cooked on the stove top for about 12 minutes. Sliced tomatoes and bread crumbs where then added on top and then placed in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

I started to make potatoes while the cassoulet was cooking on the stove top. I love Yukon gold potatoes cooked in rendered duck fat! Again, this is not quite vegan but the taste is amazing!

This is an easy recipe. Just add a couple of tablespoon of duck fan in a pan and then cook the sliced Yukon gold for about 3-4 minutes on each side. Add salt at the end to taste. Can we say yum???

I then sauteed some fresh spinach with olive oil and garlic salt for about 5 minutes on medium heat.

Take the pan off the heat to prevent the spinach from overcooking. Ever had overcooked spinach? Think back when you were in elementary school :)

Since I'm still vegan (95% of the time), I lightly fried fresh tofu in duck fat with a light dusting of flour and salt for about 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

Okay, let's jump back to the duck confit. I took the confit out of the foodsaver bag and pour out all the excess oil and juice for use later. Here is the duck quarter right out of the bag after 10 hours. It's not really aesthically appealing but it is not done yet!

Take more duck fat and added it to the pan. See the common theme here? Set it to medium heat and cook the duck quarter for about 10 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Now this looks a lot more appealing :)

I have made duck confit in the past using a blow torch to sear the outside. I find that searing it on the pan provides a more uniform color. Here is the completed dish. I didn't spend a lot of time on presentation but it tasted yummy nevertheless :)

If I were to do it again, I would make my own bread crumb. I was lazy this evening since I didn't have any stale bread and I was too tired to make it from scratch so I cheated. Here is the cassoulet close up shot.