Add the shallots to a small stainless steel pan with the garlic, herbs, alcohols, salt and five or six turns of the pepper mill. Bring up to the boil and reduce until four-fifths of the liquid has cooked off – the reduction should resemble a thin syrup. Fish out and discard the sprigs of thyme and the bay leaf. Scrape the rest of the reduction into the bowl of the food processor.
Set the oven to 110°C. Melt the butter thoroughly but slowly, so that it does not become too hot – it should be at warm blood temperature. The eggs also must be at the same temperature. Breaking them into a small pan and keeping them by the stove (or by an open fire in winter – très rustic) will help in this regard. The livers themselves ditto. This is easiest achieved by placing the livers into another small pan and, with scrupulously clean hands, agitating over a low heat so that you can feel when the correct warm temperature has been reached.
When all the ingredients are at the correct warm temperature, we need to work quite quickly. Start by blending the livers thoroughly with the reduction in the food processor for about 20 seconds – you may need to stop the machine to scrape the ingredients back down under the blade with a rubber spatula. With the motor running, add the eggs one by one – wait no longer than 2–3 seconds between the addition of each egg, as we do not want the mixture to cool down unduly. With the motor still running, pour in the melted butter gradually but confidently in a steady stream – it should take about 10 seconds to add. Do not chuck it all in at once or the mixture will split. Stop the machine as soon as the butter has been incorporated.
Once the mixture has been made, pass the whole lot quickly through the sieve. The back of a small ladle will help you get it through more quickly. You will need to work hard to get the mixture through the sieve. If the mixture has become too cold, the butter will start to solidify and it will be difficult to pass. If the ingredients are too hot (on no account should any of them be steaming hot), the mixture will be thin enough to go though the sieve easily but one runs the risk of it separating. Once the mixture is successfully through the sieve, dispense it evenly between the ramekins. Do not fill them to the very brim – about two-thirds full is fine.
Pour the contents of the boiled kettle carefully into the container so that the water comes up roughly to the same level as the mixture inside the ramekins. Cover the whole container loosely but neatly with foil and transfer to the oven. How long these take to cook will depend on the exact temperature of the mixture when passed through the sieve. They normally take 20–25 minutes. They are ready when there is still a slight ripple in the middle of the mousse when the ramekin is gently shaken. The mixture should have thickened perceptibly, but if it has remained stubbornly thin, cook the mousses for another 5 minutes and re-check.
Alternatively, all the passed mixture can be poured into one small china terrine and baked in the same way. This will obviously take longer to cook – more like 40 minutes, but the same ‘ripple’ test applies.
Leave the mousses to come down to room temperature and then store them in the fridge. Personally, I think they are best cooked in the morning and eaten in the evening. Making them the day before is absolutely fine, though, but they begin to take on a fridgey taste after a couple of days and the light texture will start to deaden somewhat. Eat with toasted sourdough or brioche and a dressed green bean or leaf salad. Or just spread thickly on baguette. It is fashionable to serve onion marmalade (or other chutneys) with chicken liver mousse, but I prefer it without such embellishment. Add some rillettes of duck, some thinly sliced prosciutto and cornichons and you have yourself an elegant assiette of charcuterie.
Rillettes of duck and some thoughts on confit and duck fat
The first time I ate decent rillettes, it was a revelation. How any chef worth his or her Maldon can go for long periods without wanting to make them is beyond me. Rillettes made from duck, pork, guinea fowl or rabbit are equally good and, once sealed in a Kilner jar or somesuch, will keep for months, which only increases their culinary value, in my book. The word rillettes, by the way, is the French term and hails from the city of Tours in the Loire valley. Potted duck would be the English equivalent, but as the method of salting and cooking the duck slowly in its own fat is distinctly and brilliantly French (this is the great ‘confit’ after all, one of French gastronomy’s most treasured gems), it seems apposite to use the correct terminology here. Since this dish keeps very well and the process takes a couple of days, it is daft to make it in small quantities. In addition, duck confit is a superb dish in its own right, so definitely the more duck legs, the merrier (see Duck Confit with Pommes Sarladaise).
This recipe calls for far more duck fat (to cook the legs) than actually ends up in the rillettes themselves. This is a very good thing, as the leftover fat (which will have become beautifully infused with the garlic and thyme) is the perfect vehicle for sautéing and roasting all manner of things – particularly potatoes. It can also be re-used to confit more duck, but bear in mind that each time it is used for this purpose, the fat will take on some of the salt from the legs. There will come a time when it becomes unusably salty and at this juncture it is fit for nothing, so do not attempt to use the same fat for duck confit more than three or four times. However, once the fat is sealed in an airtight container, it will keep almost indefinitely. I have a large jar at home (in which I confit the Christmas turkey legs) that is three years old and still going strong. Although its preserving properties are waning (as explained above), it remains just the ticket for the Sunday roasties.
So, if attempting this recipe – and I urge that you do, almost above any other in the book – it is best to bite the bullet, climb on the duck-fat-bandwagon and stock up your larder. Conveniently, good delis and the better supermarkets now stock duck or goose fat in handy, baked bean-sized 350g tins.
Serves lots as a starter – makes about 1.5 litres
6 large (French) duck legs – about 350g each (or 10 smaller English duck legs, such as Gressingham)
50g sea salt
1 whole head of garlic
1 big bunch of fresh thyme
6 bay leaves, roughly torn
at least 1.5kg duck or goose fat, possibly more depending on the dimensions of your pan
½ eggcup of black peppercorns
freshly ground black pepper
The day before you cook the duck, place the legs in a roomy container and rub the sea salt well into the meat on both the skin and flesh sides. You may think this is a lot of salt, but worry not. Split the garlic head widthways with a heavy knife and break it up with your fingers to separate the cloves. Add them, skin and all, to the duck legs. Add the thyme and the bay leaves. Mix well, cover and refrigerate overnight.
The following day, set the oven to 130°C and select a suitably capacious ovenproof pan with a lid – a big Le Creuset is ideal. The legs need to fit in it comfortably but snugly, as they will be totally submerged in the fat as they cook. If the pan is too small, they will not poach in the fat properly; if it is too big, you will end up needing even more fat to cover them.
Briefly rinse the salt from the legs under a cold running tap (discarding the salt) and dry them thoroughly on absorbent kitchen paper. Empty the contents from the tins of duck fat into the empty pan. Pick out all the garlic, thyme and bay leaves from the marinade and add these aromatics to the pan together with the peppercorns. Add the duck legs and bring the whole lot up to a gentle simmer on the stove. As the fat melts, the legs will settle and should end up totally submerged. If they are not submerged, you will need more fat – this is why it is worth erring on the side of generosity when you purchase your duck fat in the first place.
Cover with the lid and cook in the oven for 2½–3 hours. The meat should be