Duck across the border

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When I think of southwest France I think of duck.  Unctuous legs of confit de canard, perhaps nestled in some cassoulet.  Yum.  Having only spent one night in southern France on our way down to Spain, and sampled just one very third rate cassoulet, we thought we’d missed our chance to gorge ourselves on confit de canard.  How wrong we were…

The confit de canard gorging started almost the minute we crossed over the Pyrenees and arrived at El Folló guesthouse in Catalunya.  And it continued until we emerged from Mercè Brunés i Marquès beautiful kitchen three days later, considerably fatter.  

Her absolutely delcious confit de canard was slow cooked in its confiting fat along with generous bundles of rosemary and sage and lots of peeled and halved peaches and pears.  Mercè made a huge batch and we worked our way through it over several meals (along with countless other delicious dishes.)  We even got to try a different version, with sweet roasted orange slices, at the local festa major.  People here love a good leg of confit de canard.

Read about other tastes of Spain…