The duck breast was covered in a spice mix of fennel seeds and star anise. My favourite spices for duck (cardamon is great with duck too).
I reduced the jus till a glaze with a touch of sugar and sherry vinegar, adjusting the salt at the end. The leek puree was done with the green of the leek which is usually discarded. I don't know why it's usually discarded. I love it. The roasted leeks were pre cooked in duck stock to render them melting before a hot oven gave them a roasting.
The freeze dried blueberries is a new product here and I thought they would go well, I ground some and left some whole. They balanced beautifully in this dish.
The figs were poached in a little pommegranate molasses to give them a sharpness.
The duck - I do make an effort to get every single bit of sinew I can from the meat. I cannot stress enough how much this pays off. The meat (put in a cold pan and cooked on medium heat skin side until crispy and rendered, turned over for 30 secs on the flesh side then taken out of the pan to rest for as long as it was cooked for) was meltingly tender and quite frankly divine.
I pour the duck fat out of the pan and tip the reduced jus mix into this pan to reheat and scrape up any yummy bits and use this as my sauce. It's a personal preference to have the sauce ready to go (i.e. pre reduced, pre seasoned etc) so that a quick tip into the pan that was used for the meat becomes a quick deglazing job and it's all done. It's the way I do all my sauces because I like to relax at the end of cooking.
I reduced the jus till a glaze with a touch of sugar and sherry vinegar, adjusting the salt at the end. The leek puree was done with the green of the leek which is usually discarded. I don't know why it's usually discarded. I love it. The roasted leeks were pre cooked in duck stock to render them melting before a hot oven gave them a roasting.
The freeze dried blueberries is a new product here and I thought they would go well, I ground some and left some whole. They balanced beautifully in this dish.
The figs were poached in a little pommegranate molasses to give them a sharpness.
The duck - I do make an effort to get every single bit of sinew I can from the meat. I cannot stress enough how much this pays off. The meat (put in a cold pan and cooked on medium heat skin side until crispy and rendered, turned over for 30 secs on the flesh side then taken out of the pan to rest for as long as it was cooked for) was meltingly tender and quite frankly divine.
I pour the duck fat out of the pan and tip the reduced jus mix into this pan to reheat and scrape up any yummy bits and use this as my sauce. It's a personal preference to have the sauce ready to go (i.e. pre reduced, pre seasoned etc) so that a quick tip into the pan that was used for the meat becomes a quick deglazing job and it's all done. It's the way I do all my sauces because I like to relax at the end of cooking.
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