A composed salad from the Landes that gathers the region's duck larder on a bed of greens: warm confit gizzards, thin slices of smoked or dried magret, a few pieces of seared foie gras, and toasted pine nuts, dressed with a sharp vinaigrette. It is the showcase plate of southwest duck country — a starter that puts confit, magret and foie gras side by side rather than burying them in a stew.
The Landes, the great pine-forest département of Gascony, is duck and foie gras country, and the salade landaise is how restaurants there present that abundance cold on one plate. It is a relatively modern composed salad rather than an old peasant dish, built on the region's signature products — confit gizzards, magret, foie gras, and the pine nuts of the local maritime pines. There is no fixed recipe, but the cast of duck parts is what marks it out from any other green salad.
Cool greens against warm, salty gizzards; the magret is dense and faintly smoky, the foie gras silky where it has just been kissed by the pan, the pine nuts crunchy and resinous. The vinaigrette — often sharpened with the local wine vinegar or a little Armagnac — cuts the richness so the duck fat does not coat the mouth. Each forkful can carry three different forms of duck at once.
The contrast of temperatures is the design: the gizzard confit is gently warmed so its fat softens and perfumes the leaves, while the foie gras is seared hot and fast so the outside browns before the interior melts away. An acidic vinaigrette is essential — fat-rich proteins like foie gras and confit read as cloying without an edge of acid to balance them, the same reason confit is classically eaten with a sharp pickle. Pine nuts are toasted to bring out their oils.
Variations
Some versions add smoked duck breast (magret fumé) in place of dried, or include duck heart confit; others scatter croutons, walnuts, or a soft poached egg. A simpler everyday salade landaise may leave out the foie gras and lean on gizzards and magret alone. The same idea, built around Périgord truffle and walnut, becomes the salade périgourdine.
On the Palate
Where Salade Landaise sits in the French flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
5 steps · 30 min
- 18 min
Wash and dry mixed salad leaves and arrange on plates.
- 25 min
Gently warm the confit gizzards in a little of their fat, then slice.
Watch outWarm the gizzard confit only gently, just to soften its fat and perfume the leaves — hot enough to loosen, not so hot it fries.
- 34 min
Sear slices of foie gras in a hot dry pan for seconds a side until browned but still soft inside.
Watch outSear the foie gras seconds a side in a hot dry pan — browned outside, still soft within; a beat too long and it melts away to nothing.
- 45 min
Toast the pine nuts until golden, and lay thin slices of dried magret over the leaves.
- 58 min
Whisk a sharp vinaigrette, dress the leaves, top with gizzards, magret, foie gras and pine nuts, and serve at once.
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