Cured Torchon anyone?

Yeah you should def cure the foie. A small amount of pink salt will help the torchon keep color, and the salt and other ingredients will obviously add flavor. I believe it also help the texture. 

The blanching is, at least what I've always thought, used to simply set the torchon and isn't really a good safety issue. Though I may be incorrect about that. 

Usually it is 

Cure

roll

blanch

hang

Prep and season. (veins out ,etc )

Does anyone put it in a milk bath first overnight ?

Rinse following day , season with fresh peppercorns and pink salt , a shot of cognac. Roll, hang in cheesecloth. It does not like air....so make sure all the air is out when rolling it.

Place in stock for a couple of minutes, then transfer to an ice bath.( approx 5 minutes)

Keep it compact in the cheesecloth , actually make it as compact as possible and apply another layer of cheesecloth keeping it  tight ,  Put  in the fridge overnight.

A real good one takes a few days as its not made overnight. If someone has another method, I would be glad to hear .

Kuan, this is a great thread....so much to learn

Petals.

Its blanched for just over a minute or so simply to reform it, then tossed into the ice bath to seal it.

Boils down (sorry the pun ) to personal choice. Thats how I see it.

Petals.

I'm pretty much on board with Petals.  I've always:

• Split the lobes and gently butterfly
• Soak in water/milk
• Let stand at room temp until just workable.  Remove veins (i was taught with a butter knife...nothing too sharp).  Keep as whole as possible.
• Season with pink salt and whatever else you like (we never actually encased all the foie in salt, like bacon)
• Wrap in cheesecloth 
• Poach in chicken stock.  And yes...POACH.  No bubbles.  45 seconds to 1 minute.  I guess duck stock would be appropriate here right?
• I was told not to shock it.  I don't really know why.  But i was told to go straight into the walk in.
• After it set enough to hold its shape we took napkins and rolled them.  I would tie one end with a simple knot. The other side would have a knot but with 3 feet of extra string.  You would then hold the end with the napkin (the side with the long string) and whip the twine around the end of the torchon so as the twine wrapped around the napkin, it tightened the foie. It looks like youre waving a towel around your head at a football game.  Once one side was done, tie another 3 ft long piece of string around the other side (with the original knot) and do the same thing.  This obviously ensured that the torchon was tight dense.
• Hang at least over night.

Quote:

Originally Posted by petalsandcoco 

 a shot of cognac

For the Chef or the foie? 

Dave

Well, I've always done a light cure. Can't remember the ratio off the top of my head but it is something like 20-25g of cure mix per every Kg of foie. So it's not very heavy cure...more just to give some seasoning and flavor and keep the meat pinker from the instacure. 

This is then blanched to just set the foie.

I've never done as heavy a cure as you describe. Don't know how it would turn out.