What's in Our Duck & Poultry Selection
This is a duck lover's page first, and we make no apology for it. The heart of the selection is unmistakably French: Rougié duck leg confit and Moulard breast magret, duck rillettes shot through with foie gras, and jars of pure rendered duck fat, all from a Périgord house that has been making duck since 1875. Around that core sits cured duck, both a silky magret prosciutto and a firmer, sliceable duck salami, alongside smoked duck sausages and a handful of non-duck finds: delicate boudin blanc, an apple-and-cranberry chicken sausage, speckled quail eggs. What you won't find is a case of commodity chicken. This is the specialty end of the bird.
Everything here is picked the way a good buyer picks, by who makes it best. Rougié handles the French classics, Smoking Goose cures duck the American way, La Belle sends its magret down from the Hudson Valley, and small charcutiers like Terroirs d'Antan take care of the boudin blanc and duck salami. igourmet has bought directly from specialists like these since 1997, which is why this reads like duck done properly rather than poultry bought by the pallet.
Duck Confit and Magret
Duck confit, confit de canard, is the star of the page. It is one of the oldest tricks in French cooking: duck legs cured with salt and aromatics, then cooked low and slow under their own fat until they turn fall-off-the-bone tender. It began as a way to get duck through the winter and survives because nothing else quite tastes like it. The good news is that the confit we carry comes fully cooked, so there is no project involved. Crisp the skin in a hot skillet, under the broiler, or in the oven, then serve the leg whole or shred the meat into a cassoulet, a salad, or a pastilla.
Magret is the other French icon, and a different animal in the kitchen: the breast of a Moulard duck, the same bird raised for foie gras, capped with fat and dark, beefy, and rich. Treat it like a steak. Score the skin, lay it fat-side down over low heat until the fat renders and the skin goes shatteringly crisp, then flip to finish at a rosy medium-rare and slice it thin against the grain. One breast feeds two. Push it past medium-rare and it tightens up, so the rule is the same as any good steak: stop early, and let it rest.
Cured Duck, Sausages, and More
Past confit and magret, duck turns up cured and ground. The magret prosciutto is a single duck breast, dry-cured and sliced tissue-thin like the Italian original, silky and intense on a board, in a firmer slice. The sausages run playful, a smoked duck link laced with apple jack brandy and a duck-and-bacon number with a jalapeño kick, both cooked like any fresh sausage. And do not overlook the duck fat: one jar, rendered and ready, is the open secret behind potatoes and vegetables that crisp up properly.
The rest rounds out a French table. Boudin blanc, pale and delicately spiced, wants a gentle poach or pan-fry with a little mustard or some apples alongside. The apple-and-cranberry chicken sausage is your easy weeknight win, and quail eggs, tiny and speckled, turn any plate elegant, soft-boiled or fried and perched on top. Duck loves a sweet-tart foil through all of this, a cherry, orange, or fig sauce especially, and our sauces and marinades collection is stocked with the kind that suits it.
Also Worth Exploring
Since duck and foie gras come off the same bird and the same tradition, the foie gras collection is the obvious next stop for anyone chasing the richer end of duck. Hungry for other specialty proteins, from venison and elk to wild boar? The game and exotic meats collection sits right next door, and the broader French food and ingredients collection keeps the lentils, mustards, and confit-friendly staples that finish these dishes off.
Duck & Poultry: Frequently Asked Questions
Because it is already fully cooked, duck confit just needs to be heated and crisped. Warm the legs in a skillet, under the broiler, or in a hot oven until the skin is golden and crackling and the meat is heated through; if broiling, keep it a few inches from the element, since the fat can flare. Serve the legs whole over lentils or potatoes, or pull the meat from the bone and fold it into a cassoulet, a salad, pasta, tacos, or a Moroccan pastilla. A spoonful of the fat from the package is worth saving for roasting potatoes.
Magret is the breast of a Moulard duck, the breed raised for foie gras, so it is larger, meatier, and darker than ordinary duck breast, with a thick layer of fat under the skin. It is cooked like a steak, not slow-cooked like confit. Score the skin in a crosshatch, lay it skin-side down in a cold, dry pan, and cook over low-to-medium heat so the fat renders and the skin turns crisp, then flip briefly to finish. Magret is at its best at medium-rare; sliced thin against the grain, one breast serves two.