Pre-searing Sous Vide Duck Breast vs Not Pre-searing
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Pro-level cooking techniques made simple.
Ingredients for 2
2 duck breasts with the skin on
Directions
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Step 1
To test this theory, we cooked two duck breasts - one that we pre-seared and another that we did not.
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Step 2
We pre-seared the skin side of one duck breast in a dry pan for 1 minute before placing both duck breasts in bags to cook sous vide in our Anova sous vide immersion circulator for 1 hour at 57C
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Step 3
With 20 minutes left to go on the sous vide machine, we preheated the oven to 210C
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Step 4
When the hour of cooking sous vide was up, we took the duck breasts out of the bags and seasoned them with salt and pepper
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Step 5
We then seared the skin side of both in a pan (the pre-seared one for 1 minute and the non-pre-seared one for 2 minutes, as it needed more time to render)
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Step 6
We then placed them in the oven (skin side up) for 4 minutes at 210C
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Step 7
We left the duck breasts to rest for a few minutes before slicing
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Step 8
Upon slicing, we noticed that the pre-seared duck had crispier skin as more of the fat had been rendered, and the flesh was more pink and moist
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Finishing Steps
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Step 0
Season with salt and pepper
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Step 1
Sear the skin in a pan (the pre-seared one for 1 minute and the non-pre-seared one for 2 minutes)
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Step 2
Cook in oven (skin side up) for 4 minutes at 210C