Day six: Duck, duck, no goose
Posted on | October 15, 2009
Today, I seared a duck breast. Perfectly. And I’m going to tell you how to do it, too.
And here’s the good part. Know how duck can be so greasy? Well, with this method you get a juicy, tasty duck breast that isn’t that nasty bit of slick meat we all remember from childhood.
This, instead, is a classy bit of meat for the adult who can appreciate it (at least, that’s what I’m putting on my menu, right under the $24 price!).
What does the richest person in the world make for dinner every night?
~ Reservations
I started all this by fabricating a duck. This means I cut it into pieces. Now, I’d love to tell you how to do that, but it would be impossible to explain with the type of clarity you need to actually do it. So, instead, what I’d like to do is recommend a great book to help you: Cooking by James Peterson. This is so good, I find it more practically helpful, and far better written, than our textbook.
So, let’s fast forward to a fully fabricated duck (and, hey, if you don’t feel like wielding a knife, get friendly with your neighborhood butcher, assuming your neighborhood has one, alas many do not, and have him or her do it for you) and all those duck pieces. This is what we did with them:
- Carcass was used to make duck stock.
- Skin and fat (and, let’s face it, on the duck, the skin is mostly fat) was rendered. The fat was used for confit. The skin will be fried to make cracklings.
- Livers will be used to make pate.
- Legs and thighs were turned into duck confit (poached in their own fat).
- Breasts are slated for sauteing; one today, the second the day after tomorrow.
So let’s get to that duck breast.
What did one knife say to the other?
~ Look sharp!
To prepare your breast for sauteing, you need to do three things.
First, trim the skin from the outside edges of your breast so it looks attractive. But, wait! Don’t trim too close to your meat. The skin will shrink when it is cooked, so, while you want clean edges, you don’t want them trimmed too close. Instead, leave them a tad bigger, say a quarter of an inch or more, beyond the meat.
Second, you need to score your meat. This is easy: You simply make diagonal cuts through your skin, first lightly cutting one way, then turning your breast and lightly cutting the other way. The goal here is to end up with a nice diamond pattern on your skin. Oh, and while you want to cut through the skin, you want to stop just short of the meat.
(Why do you cut the skin? To help render the fat.)
Third, liberally sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides of your duck.
Why did the man eat at the bank?
~ He wanted to eat rich food!
Excellent! Now you are ready to saute your duck.
Put your burner on high heat and plop your pan on it. No, hey, put that bottle of oil down. No need for any fat here. Remember, you are about to put a duck breast in that pan. And duck is the mecca of fat.
Okay, so is your pan starting to smoke? Good! Turn it down to medium heat and put your breast in it, skin side down.
This is hot work, so if you wanted to sip some wine as you do this, I couldn’t blame you. In fact, I could join you!
Now, once your breast is in the pan, you will notice two things. First, your breast is not sticking as I know you feared. Second, there is a lot of liquid accumulating in your pan. That liquid is the fat you are rending from your scored skin. And it is that fat that keeps your breast from sticking.
Which is why you didn’t need to add fat, earlier.
But you do need that duck fat. See, to cook a perfect duck breast, what you have to do is baste, baste, baste your breast with that rendered fat. This will cook the meat on top of your breast while the heat, below, will cook the meat on the bottom.
Give it about 5 or 6 minutes, total, then, when your meat is pretty rare, take it off the heat and let it sit for another five or six minutes.
Then slice and enjoy.
What did the salt say to the pepper?
~ Hey baby, what’s shaking?!
Finally, if you want a little something to go with your breast, today we made a potato gratin (I bet anything that we will make a sauce next, this being culinary school and all, so be sure to come back). It’s silly easy, if you want to try.
Thinly slice some potatoes (drag out the mandoline, if you have one), finely dice some onions, and grate some cheese (I used gruyere).
Get a garlic clove, dab of butter, and splash of cream.
Rub the crushed garlic clove around the inside of your pan (I used a loaf pan) and do the same with the butter.
Overlapping the potatoes, layer them, then salt, then a light dab of cream, then a pinch of onions, sprinkle of pepper, and drizzle of cheese in your pan. Repeat until you get to the top, finishing with a layer of cheese.
Pop it in the oven and let me know when it is ready.
I’ll bring my own fork!
Comments
4 Responses to “Day six: Duck, duck, no goose”
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October 15th, 2009 @ 7:49 am
Ah duck, what many splendored dishes come from one carcass
Duck breast prepared well so easily rivals steak.
Is it bad that I don’t have childhood memories of greasy duck? Nasty slick meat?
Though, when I was young, duck stock was quite the luxury, only made for special occasions, typically with dinner guests.
October 15th, 2009 @ 9:09 am
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October 18th, 2009 @ 6:49 am
These tips are just in time. I picked up a locally-raised duck yesterday at the farmers’ market. It’s not a typical protein in this house, so I don’t have a lot of experience cooking it.
November 8th, 2009 @ 11:51 pm
Your blog is more helpful than most and it contains information that has helped me to get to grips with a problem I have had for a while now. Thank you for the Day six: Duck, duck, no goose | post. Regards, Gregory