Although it's not exactly a health food, silky, superlative duck fat is better for you than you think

By LEAH McLAREN

Saturday, December 20, 2003 - Globe Style, Globe & Mail

The French Paradox, that eighth wonder of the nutritional world, has long baffled cardiologists and chefs alike. How, despite a diet high in saturated fat, do the French maintain a relatively low rate of heart disease and obesity? Moreover, how do French women put away the confit and foie gras and stay so fantastically thin? The answer that has ducked us for years may be in sight.

Duck fat, a decadent staple of Southwestern French cuisine, turns out to be good for you! Well okay, not as good as olive oil, but much better than butter, and all things considered, not that bad, thanks to duck fat's high percentage of mono-unsaturated fats, the kind that help raise good cholesterol.

What happy news in the season of excess, and how timely, as our anxiety about all things fatty reaches a smoking point. We have recently been alerted to the life-threatening qualities of trans fat, the hydrogenated artery clogger found in everything from cookies to microwave popcorn. At the same time, low-carbohydrate, high-fat regimes such as the Atkins diet, the Zone and the Miami Beach Diet continue to feed a food trend that just won't die.

Of course, the virtues of duck fat are not news to those in the know, even if it took until recent years for dieticians to pay attention. Chefs such as James Barber, host of television's The Urban Peasant, has vivid childhood memories of the stuff.

"My first exposure to duck fat was when I was five years old staying with my grandmother in France. On the last day of October, she would rub our chests and backs with duck fat and put woollen shirts on us, which we were not allowed to take off day or night until the first of May." In those days in France, goose and duck fat were used to ward of bronchial conditions. "It was the poor man's Vicks," he says.

Since then, Barber has used duck fat liberally in his cooking. He keeps a jar of his own rendered stuff in the fridge ("put in a teaspoon of salt so it won't go rancid") and often uses it to make pastry, which he describes as "lovely, smooth and unctuous."

Dr. Serge Renaud of France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research, who first articulated the French Paradox in 1991, maintains there is something different about the fats in ducks and geese -- and in cheese -- that makes them less damaging and possibly even protective of the heart.

"Goose and duck fat," Renaud has said, "are closer in chemical composition to olive oil than to butter and lard."

Even dietitian FatimAjwani, at the Toronto Cardiac Unit at Sunnybrook Hospital, gives duck fat a grudging nod. She stresses that olive and canola oils are still the best bet for people looking to increase their intake of mono-unsaturated fat. "But if you were using duck fat in place of butter," Ajwani says, "to give a nice flavour to foods, it would be okay in moderation."

Duck fat, she says, consists of 33 per cent saturated fat as compared with clarified butter, which is made up of a heart-stopping 62 per cent saturated fat. Duck fat is also high in cholesterol-fighting mono-unsaturated fats (49 per cent) as opposed to butter's 29 per cent. And it has a higher smoke point than butter, making it more practical for high-heat cooking.

In a fat-phobic world, what a pleasure to note that a substance as rich and flavourful as the insulating lard of a fine Mullard or Pekin duck may actually be good for the ticker. We love it disguised as foie gras, slow roasted Peking-style, but most of all, as the basis of crisp and tender duck confit.

Now that we know not to fear duck fat, how does one go about cooking with it?

Duck fat is "wonderful," writes Fran McCullough in The Good Fat Cookbook (Scribner 2003), "for frying potatoes or onions, or for enriching a stew at the last minute."

In The Duck Cookbook (Stewart, Tabori & Chang), a new book from New York chef James Peterson, the author recommends keeping a tub of duck fat in the fridge for everyday use as a healthy and flavourful substitute for butter.

"I love it for omelettes or frying steak or meat of any kind," he says. "And of course for fried potatoes there is nothing more divine."

The duck is one of nature's most versatile birds; virtually every part can be used in cooking, right down to its wings, skin and bones. To render your own duck fat, Peterson recommends saving the skin from a raw duck (even one skin is worth it) and chopping it finely, either by hand or in a food processor. Put it in a heavy-bottomed pan and cook it over medium heat until clear. When small pieces of skin left in the fat begin to turn brown and the fat itself is perfectly clear, usually after one to two hours, depending on the quantity, it's ready to strain. (Hint: make sure to not overcook it or the duck fat will lose its flavour.) Pour it into containers with tight-fitting lids and store in the fridge for a few months or freeze it indefinitely.

Duck confit, the traditional pièce de résistance of the quack fat repertoire, is made by gently cooking duck parts completely submerged in their own fat. Twenty-five years ago, according to Peterson, confit could be found only in Southwest France, where it was originally used as a method of preserving duck and goose without refrigeration, but now the dish has become a staple of the fashionable bistro menu.

Many cooks are horrified by the amount of duck fat required to make a typical confit de canard (Peterson's recipe calls for 12 cups), but Peterson emphasizes what could be called the other French Paradox.

"There's actually not an enormous amount of fat in the confit leg because the fat on the outside renders out the fat on the inside. In the end, surprisingly, a confit gives you all the flavour without very much of the fat."

For those who want French flavour without the hassle of skinning a dead duck, rendered fat is available at some fine food stores. Pusateri's in Toronto provides duck fat on customer request and White House Meats sells 250-millilitre tubs for $3 each -- a bargain.

Stanley Janecek, owner of White House Meats, says people thought he was nuts when he began carrying duck fat three years ago, but since then sales have picked up.

"People have no problem eating cheese or butter, which is cow fat, but many of them are still scared of duck fat, despite the fact that it's better for you than butter. I would even argue that it's a more natural product than margarine -- after all, I've never seen a marg running around the farm, have you?"

And the customers who come to Janecek for his duck fat say it has better flavour than butter.

"The milk people might take issue with that," he says, "but someone's got to support the lowly duck!"