A classic with my twist, switching the orange for clementine gives a smooth freshness versus a sharpness to the duck sauce.
Game season is on in Belgium and I was lucky to test this recipe a few times with different duck breast, even wild duck (shot within the hunting season rules). As always I test my recipes on friends, I had no complaints, actually we were licking the sauce of our plates.
Duck sauce queue the song ” Barbra Streisand” oeoeoeoeoeoeoe.
TIPS & SWAPS:
- The duck I used was raised duck and yields a double palm size breast with a. thick fat layer. I also cooked it with wild duck breast much smaller, about palm size and with a very thin skin. Depending on type of duck breast you us, remove or trim the skin when the layer of fat is more than 0.5cm thick as it won’t cook through and be rubbery.
- I am not a fan of orange juice, but of course feel free to go classic and swap the cognac for cointreau ( orange liquor).
- Made too much duck sauce, just freeze it.
- Serve it with pumpkin mash, potatoes or bread to sop up the duck sauce.
My duck a la clementine
Yield 2 portions
Ingredients
- 2 duck breasts with skin
- 4 clementines
- 400 ml game stock
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoon cognac
- 30 gr butter
- 1 tablespoon honey
- salt & pepper
Instructions
- Remove the duck breasts from the fridge minimum 1 hour before cooking.
- Juice 2 clementines and slice in half the remainder 2. Place cut side down on a grill pan or griddle and cook for a few minutes.
- In a sauce pan add the clementine juice, stock, cognac and vinegar. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer to reduce by 1/3.
- Trim the skin and fat layer of the duck to half, reserve the removed skin. Cross cut the remainder of the skin on the duck breast.
- Slice the removed skin in long strips, season with salt and fry in a pan till golden and crispy. Drizzle some honey and reserve.
- Season the duck with salt and pepper on both sides and add skin down to a sizzling hot frying pan. Cook for a few minutes and flip. Some of the duck fat will render, discard if excess.
- Place in pre-heated oven at 180 C for 5 -10 minutes depending on the thickness of the duck breast. Take in account the duck will continue to cook when removed from the oven. Looking for a pink middle when serving.
- Sieve the reduced sauce and add the butter, whisk it in over medium heat.
- To serve slice the duck and douse with the sauce, add a half grilled clementine to squeeze over the duck. Top with some of the honey fried duck skin.
Notes
on www.leeksandhighheels.com by Sandra Slawinski
Written and photographed by Sandra Slawinski without commercial deals. I used my plates from H&M home, cutlery from ZaraHome and pan from E.Dillerhin.
