Pan Seared Foie Gras with Echalots Confites

                                                  6 portion

For Foie Gras

Ingredients: 

1 whole duck or goose foie gras, deveined, cold - serves 6 people 

1 cup of corn starch (a.k.a. corn flour) 

coarse salt 

pepper

Procedure: 

• Slice foie gras using a warm chef’s knife. Dredge slices of foie gras in starch, brush off excess starch, arrange on a cold plate. 
• With the tip of a paring knife score une side of the steaks mimicking grill marks. 
• Preheat a non stick skillet over medium high heat. Pan is ready when smoking. 
• Arrange slices of foie gras, scrored side down first. Sear for about 1 minute, then gently flip and sear other side, for about 1 minute. 
• Serve immediately on warm plates. Season with salt and pepper.

Tips: 

Keep the slices cold until ready to cook them. Don’t crowd the pan with too many pieces, it’ll drop the temperature of the pan preventing a nice brown color and it’ll make it difficult to flip the steaks. Clean the pan if you see burned starch particles. Drain the excess melted fat in between batches.

For Echalots Confites

Ingredients :

9 shallots 

100g unsalted butter (about 3oz) 

1 tablespoon raw sugar (or white table sugar, or brown sugar) 

Salt 

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 

60g/2oz sugar 

1⁄4 of a glass of water

Procedure:

• Trim the root end of the shallots but don’t cut it off completely or the shallot will fall apart during cooking. 
• Cut the shallots in half, peel them. In a deep small pot over medium heat add butter and let melt, add shallots, sugar and a pinch of salt. 
• Stir to coat then lower the heat and cook slowly until shallots start to brown, without caramelizing. Stir occasionally during this phase. 
• Turn off set aside. 
• Prepare caramel: in a small pot over high heat (on a small burner!) add about 2 tablespoon of the 60g of sugar. Wait until sugar starts to melt then add another tablespoon at the time until all sugar is in the pan. Cook the sugar swirling the pan occasionally until dark in color (like coffee or coca cola). At arm length pour the water, swirl the pan to dissolve the caramel then pour the obtained caramel syrup over the onions. Let mixture cool then taste to adjust seasoning (salt), add balsamic and stir gently. 
• Strain the shallots and save the juices that can be boiled down to a syrupy consistency and served as a sauce (duck, foie gras, seared lamb chops, pork chops etc).