Canard Hachis Parmentier (Minced Duck Topped with Mashed Potatoes)

Hi Everyone! We had a lovely dinner party with some of our good friends a couple weeks ago, and I've been meaning to share with you the main culinary characters. We made canard hachis parmentier with a stuffed tomato, and chocolate-hazelnut layered mousse (see separate post) for dessert. We just returned from France and had a fabulous time with my husband's family, and of course, there was lots of great food which provided inspiration for this dinner party. My brother-in-law's Aunt made hachis parmentier (which translates to shepherd's pie, according to a quick google search, but I believe that hachis alone means minced. I need my French family to help translate parmentier). Anyway, this was no shephard's pie, it was much more elegant than a simple peasants dish. I can't take credit for this dish alone, my wonderful husband and I did this together. He was responsible for putting the finished product together, and what an excellent job he did! I was reminded once again that I made the right choice for my partner.



Here is the list of ingredients for the roasting the duck:
whole duck (~0.5-1 lb per person)
rosemary
pepper
salt
onion
olive oil

We have a self-basting dutch oven that works perfectly for roasting a whole duck, it's basically a knock-off Le Creuset (knock-off in price, but not quality!). We just chopped up the onion in big chunks, prepared the duck for roasting (Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking has a good description of how to do this), and stuck some of the onions inside the duck. Drizzled some olive oil in the pot, set the duck in there and rub with salt, pepper, and rosemary. We roasted the duck for about 1hr 30 mins - 1hr 45 mins, just until the meat looked cooked when we cut in with a knife.
We let it cool, minced up the good meat, and used the rest of the duck to make a stock. We made a nice, thick brown gravy (any recipe will do) with white wine and lots of spices (don't be shy with the salt), and mixed it with the minced duck. We let it sit overnight in the fridge so that the flavors had time to mix. The next day we prepared some thick mashed potatoes with heavy cream, butter, salt, and pepper. We caramelized diced onions and shallots, with butter and a little sugar (~1 tbsp). We didn't do this, but we recommend mixing in some of the caramelized onions to the mashed potatoes for flavor. To put this all together we used a can with both the top and bottom removed. You could use a round cookie or biscuit cutter, but we didn't have one of those, and we thought the can worked better because the lid that we cut off was good enough to go all the way through and push the potatoes all the way through the can. You just have to make sure that your can doesn't have a lip on it the will prevent anything from going through well. We piled the meat in, then the mashed potatoes, put the can lid through, and pushed that down lightly while pulling the can up. Use a knife to carefully remove the can lid. Top with some caramelized onion and we garnished with a rosemary sprig and a tomato stuffed with bread crumbs, diced mushroom, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and herbs de provence. Voila!