A can of buttery thanks

Last week, two of my work friends (whom I shall refer to as Lady N and Lady K to preserve their anonymity, for reasons that will soon become apparent) took a business trip to Montreal. They knew I'd been a few times, so asked me where they should eat.

Of course, I only had one suggestion.

"Au Pied de Cochon. And get the duck in a can."

So they did. And they did.

I got a message from Lady N on Monday morning:

"PDC. Best. Meal. Ever!"

So that made me feel good.

People often ask me for restaurant recommendations, and while I love to help, I always have a nagging fear that I actually have terrible taste and I'm sending unwitting diners to the worse experience of their life.

(Case in point: Lady N went to L'Espalier for Restaurant Week a couple of days after us. She got body-checked by the elevator, to the maître d's apparent disdain, and there was a hair in the butter and in dessert.)

At least in this case it turned out well. Back in the office, they pronounced Au Pied de Cochon fabulous, the duck in a can awesome, the place fun and lively, and the check not outrageous.

And then ... they presented me with a token of their appreciation.



Yes. Yes. Duck in a can, along with a serving of the oh-let's-just-be-honest-and-call-it-butter celery root purée that accompanies the dish.

(There was also a piece of bread for authenticity, but it had been traveling for four days and was slightly past its best.)

Now, let's just break down how much work was involved in this gift.

First off, the dish is not cooked inside a sealed can; the ingredients are fresh. Which means it needs to be refrigerated. So Lady K had to plead with the hotel staff to help her chill it for the trip home.

Second, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to transport fresh meat across the US-Canada border. This means Lady K had to pull a Midnight Express (except the duck was in her suitcase and she got away with it).

Needless to say, I was moved and delighted by this gift. And I knew what we were having for dinner that evening.

The cooking instructions were simple enough: place the can in boiling water for 27 minutes; let it rest for five; open and serve over toasted bread and the celery root purée.

This is how it's done in the restaurant. Simple, non?

However, when it came time to serve, we discovered that our nice ergonomic can-opener just didn't have the chops. We hacked at the can. We tried from the top and the side. We considered knives.

Eventually, we broke through in a few places — just enough for the scent of warm buttered cabbage and balsamic sauce to sneak out and taunt us.

Ten minutes later, the can was misshapen, ragged, and open. But the contents had cooled — or perhaps hadn't heated through enough — so for safety's sake, we gave everything a more intense heat-through in a pan. (I know, I know: c'est un sacrilège.)

And then we poured everything over the toast and purée.



It was perfect: rich and dark, with a slight vinegary kick. The duck breast was tender; the foie was creamy; the cabbage was less a vegetable and more a transport mechanism for butter. Completely decadent.



So ... anyone else want restaurant recommendations?

Au Pied de Cochon: bonjour, canard en conserve!

Last weekend we took an almost-spontaneous (i.e. with only two weeks' notice) trip to Montreal. The drive up was a little rough — a six-hour trip after a full day's work — but we pushed onward, motivated by a constant drumming rhythm:

Duck-in-a-can, duck-in-a-can, duck-in-a-can ...

I wrote about our previous trip to Montreal, the highlight of which was dinner at Au Pied de Cochon, where The Boy realized his lifelong dream of eating poutine with foie gras and I discovered that my lifelong dream would be eating canard en conserve.

Now we were returning to fulfill that dream.

The only available table was at 9:00, which is later than we usually eat. So we prepared accordingly: we spent the day shopping on Rue Saint-Denis and took an afternoon nap. Oh, and we had an early lunch at Bières et Compagnie, a Belgian-style brasserie with 100 beers on tap and a lovely ostrich/duck/pheasant sausage plate:



(That was The Boy's lunch. I just had a simple salad.)



(Okay, it was loaded with Toulouse sausage. But salad nonetheless!)

Anyway, back to the main event.

Au Pied de Cochon was, as always, loud and busy. People at a long table in the window taking turns standing and making exuberant toasts. A group of six hip young guys, devouring plates of meat and passing around a plate of salad. An older guy with a graying ponytail and matching beard, looking like a world-weary corsair, steadily making his way through a plate of blood pudding.

We knew, of course, what our main objective was; but what else to order? Even with the best of intentions to be restrained, the menu at PDC almost dares you to try everything.

Come on, you haven't had the duck carpaccio before! What about the boudin and foie gras tart? Or the guinea fowl liver mousse? Or the Quebecois version of chicharrón, oreilles de crisse?

But we were good, and ordered salad.

Among other things.

Most notably, the cromesquis de foie gras:



They look innocent enough, don't they? But here's the deal: They're cubes of foie gras, breaded and deep-fried. The breading becomes an impermeable shell and the inside turns to liquid.

To eat, you put the whole thing in your mouth, close your lips, and bite. And suddenly it's as though the entire inside of your head is bathed in warm, soft, rich, deep, soothing liquid.

It actually, literally, seriously brought tears to my eyes.

As another snackeroo to begin, we ordered the plate of cochonailles. In fairness, we expected a small sampling of tasty pork bites. Earlier in the week, we were at Craigie on Main's Whole Hog dinner (see review from the people sitting behind us), where the tiny, delicate cochonailles looked like this:



So naturally we were surprised to find that at Au Pied de Cochon, the cochonailles looked like this:



Head-cheese terrine, two types of pâté (one of which is hidden beneath the bread), sausage, half a deviled egg, a lovely onion jam, something dolloped with mustard that I don't even remember, and that dark brown square, which is essentially salty beef-stock Jell-O.

But it's okay, because we also had salad.



Layers of fresh beets and goat cheese I could easily have eaten for dessert, had there been room for such a thing.

And then it came.



When they say "duck in a can," they mean it: the waiter brings a can, and a can-opener, and pours the contents out onto toast topped with celeriac puree.

My photographic skills are not sufficient, so I advise you check out Claudine's Flickr photo to see it in all its glory.

The magret: perfectly cooked, moist, meaty, delicious.
The foie gras: soft and tender and all the better for sitting in balsamic meat broth.

The cabbage: well, when the description essentially translates to "embuttered," what else needs to be said?

And despite the richness of the dish, serving it on toast somehow made it seem like home-cooked comfort food; as though there was really little difference between opening a can of duck and a can of beans to throw over toast for a quick lunch.

It was a luxurious and decadent experience, and one I highly recommend.

Interestingly, though, when I asked The Boy whether he'd order the same thing next time, he said no.

Not because he didn't enjoy it, of course (he later admitted he was disappointed that he had to share the foie gras with me; thanks, honey).

But as he pointed out, there are so many other things left to try: the foie gras burger. The lamb confit. The fries made with duckfat. The foie gras-stuffed pig's foot ...