Duck breast with port sauce

Duck breast with port sauce, carrot purée and pomegranate salad.

Author

hjVhjSUF1lST9MXt4LVmrl

Cooks for fun.

Prep Time: 00:30

Recipe Time: 01:00

Temperature : 131F / 55C

Ingredients

• Duck breast
• Sea salt
• Black pepper
• Lemon zest
• Butter
• Carrots
• Nutmeg
• Lettuce (mix of rucola, lamb’s lettuce, young lettuce)
• Ruvola or cherry tomatoes
• Taugé
• Walnuts
• Mustard
• Pommegrenate
• Walnut oil
• Thyme
• Port
• Chicken stock

Directions

1. Warm the water bath to 55 degrees Celsius.
2. If necessary trim away to tough pieces of the duck breast and score the skin. Be careful not to cut into the meat!!
3. Put some sea salt on the skin side and sea salt and black pepper on the meat side. Put it in a vacuum bag and add some lemon zest to your liking. Vacuum seal the bag. Leave the duck in the water bath at 55 degrees Celsius for 1 hour.
4. In the mean time prepare your simple salad. Cut the pomegranate in half. Take out the seeds of one half (tip: hitting it with a spoon can be useful). And squeeze out the juice of the other.
5. To make the vinaigrette add the 0,5 teaspoons of mustard, 3 tablespoons of walnut oil, 4 table spoons of pomegranate juice, some thyme leaves, salt and pepper. Mix well.
6. Plate your salad. Put the tomatoes (cut in half), taugé and pomegranate seeds on top of the lettuce. Sprinkle some of your vinaigrette and crumble some of the walnuts of the salad. Et voilá!
7. To make the carrot purée. Peal the carrots and cut them in little pieces. Put them in a pan with some butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg and a little liquid (water). You can season it to your liking, but don’t go to strong right away, you can always add more later. But the lid on the pan and cook till soft. Make sure the carrots are not entirely under water, it is better to steam them a little.
8. When the carrots are soft, them out of the pan. Leave the cooking residue in the pan. You can put them in a food processor, but you can also use a blender or smashed them by hand. Mash or mix them till you have a nice purée. You can add some of the liquid still in the pan to change the consistency. Taste to see if more seasoning is needed and your carrot purée is done.
9. After the duck breast are done cooking. Take them out and put them in a cold water bath for 20 minutes. This will help with the sear and make sure your meat doesn’t start overcooking the middle.
10. Take the breast out of the back and pat dry with paper towels. Make sure they’re really dry otherwise they won’t sear properly.
11. Put some oil in the pan and raise the temperature. I used avocado oil because of the high smoke point, but feel free to use any other oil to your liking. Just use a little drop. You don’t need much as the duck fat will produce cooking fat itself.
12. When the pan is hot, lower the heat and put in the duck breast. You lower the heat so the duck slowly starts rendering the fat while not overcooking the skin.
13. Keep the duck on low heat until most of the fat is rendered and skin is thin. This will take about 5 minutes.
14. After turn up the heat for about 1 minute to crisp the skin. Make sure you baste the top of the duck breast with the fat in the pan.
15. Turn of the heat and turn the duck breast on the meat side. Leave it for 30 seconds and then take it out. Let is rust for a bit.
16. While the duck breast rests. Make a port sauce to go with. Remove the exces fat from the pan and add 1/4 cup of port and 3/4 cup of chicken stock.
17. Boil down till about half the amount. Add a teaspoon of cold butter to emulsify the sauce a bit. When it starts to thicken its done.
18. Cut the duck in slices (or however you like).
19. Plate the meal (again however your like) and your dish is ready. Enjoy!