Here's a picture of the foie gras after curing. I broke apart the lobes and soaked the foie in milk with curing salt. After an overnight bath in the milk, I drained the foie and cleaned it of blood vessels. The cleaned foie was sprinkled with kosher salt, sugar, more curing salt, and freshly ground black pepper and allspice. I rolled it into logs using parchment paper and allowed it to cure in this shape. Foie gras is graded A, B and C quality. B will work absolutely fine, if well cleaned, for au torchon. Because this was for Patricia's special dinner, I used A.
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In this picture, I am rolling the cured logs in dampened cheese cloth as tightly as possible. Even allowing some of the fat to press through the cloth. .jpg)
Here are the logs all rolled and tied, ready to be poached. .jpg)
The tied foie is lowered into barely simmering stock where it will poach for just under two minutes.
Into an ice bath it goes to stop the cooking process. And here is where I stopped taking pictures. The next step is to tie it (still in the cheese cloth) as tightly as possible in a kitchen towel (torchon in French, and thus, the name of the method). This last step allows one to reshape and press the foie, guaranteeing that it will hold its form. Hang it in a cooler over night and that's it!
Here is the final product, sliced and trimmed with a small circular cutter. It's on mini toasts and garnished with rhubarb and anise hyssop. YUM!
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