Duck fillet with ratatouille and kale chips

During the 2025 food festival, a total of over 27,000 special menus were ordered from the 22 participating restaurants. These statistics were published in Tartu Postimees. This number is more than ¼ of the population of the city of Tartu. The winner of Tasty Tartu was the restaurant TOKO. Excellent result! Congratulations to the people of TOKO.
According to the statistics, Café Crepp also received good reviews, and our main course, which was sous vide duck breast fillet, which we served with ratatouille in an unconventional way with a vegetable sauce/vegetable puree matched to the dish, and a crispy crust made of kale and Andre grand cheese, received a particularly high average score. You don’t necessarily have to use the sous vide technique to prepare duck fillet, but the duck prepared this way will definitely be mouth-wateringly soft and tasty, and overall it is also easier to prepare, especially in larger quantities.

Authors of the photos used: Silver Gutmann, Joosep Sepp, and Andres Tover.
Display design: Joosep Sepp.

Preparation time: Preparation 3-4 hours, food display about 15-20 minutes.
Level: Not too complicated
Amount: for the body

Preparation of duck breast fillet
Ingredients:
Two duck breast fillets
Salt and black pepper for seasoning
Fresh thyme sprigs for seasoning

Preparation:

1. Gently cut the skin of the duck breast fillet into squares with a sharp knife. Do not cut deeply, let the knife do the work and lightly slide the blade over the surface of the skin
2. Season the duck with ground black pepper and sea salt and place in a vacuum bag with a few sprigs of fresh thyme.
3. Close the bag with a vacuum sealer and place in a sous vide bath at 57 degrees for two to three hours.
4. When the duck has “cooked” in the sous vide bath for the prescribed time, cool the duck fillets quickly. We used an ice bath for this.
   Use a ready-made duck for displaying food.

Ratatouille
Ingredients:
1 medium zucchini
1 medium eggplant
2 tomatoes
1 large red or yellow bell pepper
2 medium red onions
3-4 crushed garlic cloves
A bunch of fresh thyme for seasoning
Ground black pepper and sea salt for seasoning
Olive oil for cooking ratatouille

Preparation:

1. Cut the vegetables into 4 mm thick rounds.
2. To assemble the ratatouille, stack the zucchini, tomato, bell pepper, red onion, and eggplant slices on top of each other. Stack the resulting vegetable bundles upright in a baking dish or smaller heatproof pan until the baking dish or pan is tightly filled with vegetables.
3. Crush the garlic and shake over the vegetables.
4. Sprinkle everything with black pepper and sea salt, place thyme sprigs on top of the ratatouille, pour in olive oil, and bake tightly covered with foil at 200 degrees for 90 minutes.
5. The resulting ratatouille can be eaten as is or made into eggplant cones for serving.

Eggplant slices for making ratatouille cones (cornucopia)
Ingredients:
One oblong eggplant
Sea salt for seasoning
Cooking oil for frying

Preparation:

1. Cut the eggplant lengthwise into slices about 5 mm thick. It is best to use a special cutter or mandoline for this.
2. Fry the eggplant in a ribbed pan with cooking oil until nicely browned on both sides
3. Season with sea salt and use to make ratatouille cones

Raratouille sauce (vegetable coulis)
Ingredients:
2 large eggplants peeled and cut into pieces
1 large tomato cut into slices
1 medium red onion cut into slices
1 medium zucchini cut into pieces
1 medium bell pepper cut into pieces, seeds removed
(you can also add a piece of eggplant, but it is not absolutely necessary)
3-4 medium garlic cloves
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
200 g parmesan cheese
200 ml whipped cream
Sea salt and 0.25 tsp black pepper to season
0.5 tsp oregano to season
50 g butter

Preparation:

1. Cut all the vegetables and place in a cooking pot with the butter.
2. Brown the vegetables for 5-10 minutes.
3. Add the soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce.
4. The vegetables will release enough liquid to be stewed. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer the sauce, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are almost tender.
5. Season with salt, pepper and oregano.
6. Add the whipped cream and carefully blend the sauce with a hand blender. Blend the sauce as smooth as possible.
7. Place the sauce back on the stove, stirring constantly, as the sauce will immediately splatter on the stove.
8. Add the grated parmesan, mix, and season with salt and pepper if necessary.
9. The sauce is ready. If the sauce is not smooth enough, blend it again with a hand blender, but it is better not to do this because the cheese in the sauce will stick to the blender.
   Use the sauce to serve the main course.

Kale Crisps
Ingredients:
Kale
Fine sea salt
A little cooking oil for spraying or drizzling

Preparation:

1. Cut off the strongest stems from the kale, place the kale pieces on a baking sheet covered with baking paper, and sprinkle with a little cooking oil and sea salt.
2. Bake in the oven at 130-150 degrees until the kale leaf is dry and crispy. Stir the drying kale from time to time to ensure even drying. When the kale is almost dry, leave it in the cooling oven to harden.
3. Store in an airtight container and use as a snack or as a decoration or crispy component for food.

Cheese crisps
Ingredients:
200 g coarsely grated cheese. We used Andre Grand cheese, which has a great taste, but making cheese crisps from it is not so easy.

Preparation:

1. Coarsely grate the cheese.
2. It is recommended to make cheese crisps in a pan, not in the oven.
3. Use a non-stick pan, sprinkle a thin layer of cheese on the pan. The layer should not be thick, rather let there be relatively large “holes” between the cheese strips. Too thick a layer will create a tough crisp.
4. Fry the cheese over medium heat without stirring until the cheese is lightly browned.
5. Let the cheese crisp and cool slightly and carefully lift it from the edge onto kitchen paper, which will absorb the excess fat released from the cheese. If the cheese crisp is still soft, it is worth frying it for a little longer.
6. Let the cheese crisp and cool and break it into suitable pieces.

Flavored butter for roasting duck

1. Melt 50 g butter, add a few sprigs of thyme and 3-4 lightly crushed (by pressing) garlic cloves, and let this mixture stand for at least 30 minutes to allow the flavors to blend and use it when roasting the duck.

Food display
Ingredients:
Sous vide duck fillets
Ratatouille sauce
Ratatouille
Eggplant slices
Cheese crisp
Kale crisp
Thyme sprig for garnish
Flavored butter for frying duck

Preparation:

1. Roll a 3-4 cm thick slice of ratatouille into a cone and place in the oven with a pan at 180 degrees for about 5-10 minutes.
2. If the ducks have been prepared earlier, it would be a good idea to place them back in the sous vide bath at 57 degrees to warm up the duck fillet from the inside. This is not essential, you can also use cold duck, but this way the process is faster and the result may be somewhat better.
3. Remove the ducks from the vacuum bag, dry them carefully with kitchen paper, remove the thyme sprigs.
4. Place the duck fillets skin side down in a cold pan and place the pan over a medium-hot stove.
5. Let the duck fry on the stove for about 5 minutes until the skin is golden brown and the fat layer under the skin melts. The rendered fat can be used, for example, to fry potatoes. According to chef Gordon Ramsey, using duck fat takes fried potatoes to a completely different level.
6. When the skin is golden brown and crispy, turn the duck fillet over, baste the duck with the butter-thyme and garlic mixture and insert a thermometer into the duck fillet.
7. When the duck’s internal temperature is 52-53 degrees, remove the duck from the pan and let it “rest” properly (4-5 minutes) on a cutting board.
8. Use the sauce while it is warm. Place 3 tablespoons of the sauce on a plate, shape it into a comma. Place the wide end of the comma towards the sauce ratatouille.
9. Cut the duck fillet open with a sharp knife and place the “comma” of the sauce on the wider side.
10. Place a cheese crisp between the duck fillets and a kale crisp on both sides of the sauce.
11. Place a sprig of thyme on the duck fillet and serve immediately.
    Ready!!

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