Dubai and Sharjah are both very British-centric, followed closely by “EU-centric”. Therefore, all of the hypermarkets have ingredients that would be used in the UK/EU - as well as delicacies. At the local Hyperpanda hypermarket, I happened across Confit de Canard from France - i.e. Confit duck gizzard.
First, for the uninitiated, confit is the process of salt curing a piece of meat and then poaching (and storing it) in its own fat. You can confit fruit too - but without the fat poaching and using sugar. This process increases shelf life and drastically changes the flavor. I’ve never made confit, but have had duck leg confit. Therefore, when I saw a package of Confit de Canard gizzards - buy one get one free! Had to pick it up.
What to do with it, though? I searched the Internet and found some references to a few salad-type dishes with the gizzards. So, I kind of merged everything I found together and came up with the following recipe:
Confit Duck Gizzard Salad
Confit de Canard gizzards
Frisee (curly endive)
Pine nuts
Tomatoes
Vinaigrette (decent kind from a bottle - didn’t want to make my own)
1) Fingered off some of the duck fat into the frying pan and set it on low. The duck fat basically melted in my hands, but I wanted to heat it up some.
2) Sliced and lightly salted/peppered the gizzards; tossed them in the pan for about 3-4 minutes at medium temp. Just enough to get them hot.
3) In the meantime, my wife made the basic salad with the frisee and tomatoes
4) Dropped the gizzards in the middle of the plate, topped with pine nuts, and topped with dressing.
5) Eat!
Rating: 8/10
Confit Duck Gizzard Salad
Two reasons why only an 8/10. 1) I didn’t make my own vinaigrette and the one I bought was decent, but not amazing. 2) Too many gizzards. Can there be too many? yes. 4 gizzards/person is a bit too much. but they tasted fantastic. I wish I would have set 2 gizzards to the side for each of us and just topped the salad with 2. It would have made the salad.
We have all kinds of confits, pates, and terrines here, so I’m going to try some more in the near future. I love offals and am sure I will post more about them in the near future.
Until next time.