Salade landaise
A salad from the Landes in south-western France, a region known for raising ducks and growing maize — both end up on this plate. It is a warm salad, hot pieces of duck laid over cold leaves at the last moment. One ingredient is decisive: walnut oil in the vinaigrette. Its flavour is so distinctive that without it the dish becomes an ordinary salad with meat in it.
Your own work in that: 10 min.
- Vinaigrette 10 min
- Soft-boiled eggs 10 min
- Duck 15 min
- Assembly 10 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneEmulsify the vinaigrette with walnut oil
Whisk the mustard with the vinegar, salt and pepper, then add both oils in a thin stream, whisking. The mustard is the emulsifier — without it oil and vinegar separate before you can dress the leaves.
Ingredients: 60 ml walnut oil · 30 ml olive oil · 3 tbsp sherry vinegar · 1 tsp Dijon mustard · ½ tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
Mustard emulsifies — without it the dressing splits at once.Never heat the walnut oil
Walnut oil is delicate and not for frying — at high heat it quickly loses its aroma and turns bitter. It belongs only in a cold vinaigrette, never in a pan.
Ingredients: 60 ml walnut oil · 30 ml olive oil · 3 tbsp sherry vinegar · 1 tsp Dijon mustard · ½ tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
Soft boil the eggs and chill them
Boil the eggs 6 minutes from the boil, plunge them straight into iced water and peel carefully. Set white with a liquid yolk is part of the dressing — halved, the egg runs over the leaves and binds the salad.
Ingredients: 2 pcs duck confit · 120 g smoked duck breast · 4 pcs eggs · 80 g walnuts
Crisp the confit skin side down
Scrape the excess fat off the legs and fry them skin side down in a dry pan over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until the skin is crisp. Turn and heat for another 4–5 minutes, until the meat is hot right to the bone. A dry pan is enough — the confit renders so much fat that the meat fries in its own.
Ingredients: 2 pcs duck confit · 120 g smoked duck breast · 4 pcs eggs · 80 g walnuts
A dry pan — confit renders all the fat it needs.Toast the walnuts in the rendered fat
Lift out the duck and toss the walnuts into the rendered fat for 90 seconds. They take on the duck's flavour and turn crisp — a small detail that makes a big difference.
Ingredients: 2 pcs duck confit · 120 g smoked duck breast · 4 pcs eggs · 80 g walnuts
Shred the meat, keep the skin in strips
Take the meat off the bone and tear it into large pieces, cutting the crisp skin into strips. Skin shredded with the meat softens from the moisture; kept apart it stays crisp to the end of the meal.
Ingredients: 2 pcs duck confit · 120 g smoked duck breast · 4 pcs eggs · 80 g walnuts
Dress the leaves, not the extras
Toss the leaves, rocket and thinly sliced shallot with the vinaigrette — dressing on the leaves only. Add the corn, halved tomatoes and walnuts undressed. Dressed as well, they coat themselves in it and the whole turns heavy instead of light.
Ingredients: 200 g salad leaves · 60 g rocket · 150 g sweetcorn · 150 g cherry tomatoes · 1 pcs shallot
Lay the warm duck on top and serve
Arrange the leaves on plates and top with the warm meat, slices of smoked breast, a halved egg, the walnuts and the skin. Serve at once — a salade landaise lives on the contrast of warm meat and cold leaves.
Ingredients: 2 pcs duck confit · 120 g smoked duck breast · 4 pcs eggs · 80 g walnuts
Warm meat on cold leaves — the point of the whole dish.
Before you start
It works without confit
With no confit to hand, use smoked duck breast alone, seared two minutes skin side down. The salad is lighter and less Gascon but keeps its character — provided you keep the walnut oil in the dressing.
The corn is not incidental
The Landes is maize country and its ducks are fed on it, so corn in this salad is local logic rather than whim. Drain and dry it well — wet corn thins the vinaigrette within minutes.
Everything but the leaves ahead
The vinaigrette keeps a week in the fridge, the eggs can be boiled in the morning, the duck crisped an hour ahead and rewarmed. Wash and dry the leaves at the last moment — once dressed they lose their spring in a quarter of an hour.
