Cabbage with duck fillet stuffing, Celery and apple brandade

A recipe from the magazine Avantages. This is a recipe I often come back to, because it's simply my favourite amongst many. This is a recipe for a Sunday, quite long to prepare but fairly simple to execute. I also shorten it during the week, to use up left-over meat and vegetables.

I accompany here with a recipe for a brandade of celery and apple, which we discovered during a lesson from Charles Soussin in the Fraîch'attitude kitchen with fellow-bloggers Ester, Doriann, Marie-laure, Adèle, Requia, Muriel and Marie. A very useful lesson, which makes a good addition to the numerous cookery books...

And the girls were so pleased with their apple sauce...

Preparation : 1 h 30

Cooking : 45 minutes

Ingredients for 6

16 large cabbage leaves

250 gr finely chopped cooked ham

1 duck fillet confit

1 tbsp duck fat

125 gr diced bacon

250 gr onions

125 gr carrots

1 stick of celery

25 gr chopped parsley

1 mixed herb bouquet (2 twigs of thyme, 2 laurel leaves)

1 pressed garlic clove

1 shallot

24 slightly crushed juniper berries

1 pinch of ground nutmeg

50 gr chopped white bread + 50 gr chopped granary bread

10 cl sweet white wine

6 chopped plums

3 tbsp milk

2 eggs

Celery and apple Brandade (recipe by Charles Soussin) :

1/2 celeriac

1/2 lemon

4 apple

1/2 l milk

• Cut the onions, shallot, carrots and celery into small cubes.
• Melt the duck fat in a frying pan. Add the vegetables, the herb bouquet, and soften for 5 minutes, whilst stirring.

• Add the garlic and white wine. Cover for 5 minutes, on a medium heat.
• Add the diced bacon, uncover, and let the bacon cook. Remove from the heat, and discard the herb bouquet.
• Add the chopped cooked ham, the chopped bread, the parsley and the juniper berries. Mix well.
• Remove the skin and any bone from the duck fillet. Chop the meat very finely, add it into the frying pan, and add the milk.
• Beat the eggs with a fork and add into the frying pan (still off the heat), mix well.
• Preaheat the oven to mark 6 (200°). Half-fill a large dish with water and place in the oven.
• Boil the cabbage leaves for 5 minutes in salted water. Drain, then place in cold water.
• Trim the edges of the cabbage.

• Line the serving dish with plastic film, and brush the lining with duck fat.
• Layer the cabbage leaves to line the walls and bottom of the dish (let the leaves on the side overlap the outside of the dish.)

• Pour in half of the stuffing, followed by half of the chopped plums.
• Then cover with a layer of cabbage leaves, before filling the rest of the dish with the remaining stuffing and plums.

• Fold the cabbage leaves lining the sides of the dish over the top to close the terrine.

• Cover the whole dish with aluminium foil, and place in the oven in the bain-marie.
• Bake for 40 minutes.
• Before tuning out, turo the dish over a leave for a while to allow any condensation to run off.

Celery and apple Brandade :

• Peel the celeriac with a knife, and pour a little lemon juice over.
• Cut into small cubes.
• Cover with milk in a saucepan, and cook for 30 minutes.
• Mix into a purée with a liquidizer.
• Boil the peeled and chopped apples in water (no sugar) into a compote, and mix into the celeriac puree.
• Season with salt and pepper.

Serve the terrine warm with the celery purée, accompanied with roast chestnuts.