Today we learned all about foie gras! I was very excited and couldn’t wait for Chef Francios to demo and talk about it.
Some facts that I was unaware of before today:
- Fois gras can come from ducks or geese.
- The ducks (I will say ducks, but will also be referring to geese. I just don’t feel like writing both each time
) are raised until they are adults, before they are selected to eventually be foie gras ducks. - Once selected, the ducks are put in individual cages and fed 3 times a day, however (and here is what I didn’t know), if a duck does not want to be fed, they are not forced!! Apparently, the ducks love being fed three times a day and not having to move. Go figure. Haha.
- The livers will expand up to 3 times their size and are 80% fat! The fat is what makes it so utterly, amazing smooth and creamy.
- There are 2 different grades: A & B.
- B has some bruises and therefore is not ideal for some applications, such as terrines.
Chef prepared the fois gras four ways: roasted, pan seared, fois gras terrine as well as fois gras flan. My favorite was the pan seared version because of the nice crust on the outside, followed by the roasted foie gras, which was still very smooth and creamy, but had a little less texture. Next was the fois gras terrine served on bioche and in last place was the flan only because the texture of it was a bit off-putting.
