Salade périgourdine — warm duck gizzards, walnuts and foie gras
Salade périgourdine is a regional composed salad rather than an instruction to pile every expensive duck product onto one plate. The combination here is deliberately coherent: crisp leaves, warm confit duck gizzards, walnut kernels, garlic croutons and a single measured slice of ready-to-eat duck foie gras for each serving. Walnut oil and mustard form the vinaigrette. That keeps the Périgord markers clear while leaving smoked duck breast, potatoes, strawberries and pan-fried fresh foie gras as variations rather than mandatory extras.
The gizzards are commercially cooked confit, so the pan step is reheating, not raw-meat cookery. They warm in 10 g of reserved duck fat until supple and lightly browned. The other 10 g of measured fat is used for the bread, which turns it into crisp garlic croutons without allowing an undefined amount of confit fat to disappear into the nutrition. The walnut vinaigrette is made separately and kept away from the greens until the hot components are ready.
Temperature contrast is part of the success of the plate. The salad leaves and foie gras stay chilled, while the gizzards and croutons arrive warm. After the leaves are dressed and portioned, the hot elements are distributed over the top and one 20 g foie-gras slice is added to each plate without heating it. Assemble only at service: a dressed salad stored with warm duck loses both crispness and food-safety margin. Refrigerate perishable leftovers within two hours and reheat only the components that benefit from it.
