What The Duck…!!

Ducks..!! There cute, they fly in formation until their bomb bay doors open and they cause a mess on your car windshield, or worse. We love them, we feed them bread at our parks and we stop on the roads so they can cross the street. They look beautiful and we have a bunch of them, but they are also one of the most hunted waterfowl in our society. So, a little about ducks. The word duck is a common name for a large family of waterfowl or water Anatidae, the biological name for ducks, which include geese and swans. The duck has a shorter neck than geese or swan, but like it’s brothers, these birds are adapted to floating and swimming on the water surface. Their breasts contain a layer of fat that helps them float and warms them from the cold as they float and swim in their environment. The general population of ducks has been estimated at 34 million in 2022, down 12% from previous years, but a large group nevertheless. As we hunt deer and other wildlife, we also hunt ducks, and no, they don’t taste like chicken, they taste better. So, our recipe for this day’s blog is? Yes, duck breast!

Let’s get started:

Ingredients – Duck Breast:

• Duck breasts, as many as you like, I used 4 or a total of 2 lbs.

• ½ tsp kosher salt

• ½ tsp fresh ground pepper

• ¼ tsp sugar

• ½ tsp grated orange peel, this is an option

• ¼ to ½ tsp fresh thyme leaves

• ½ Cajun spice, this is your option and your choice but I never leave a recipe without a little Cajun Zing

Prep and Instructions – Duck Breast:

• A day prior to your meal presentation, create a rub using the above ingredients, mix it together and shake it up.

• Rub the duck breast with the mix thoroughly, it doesn’t look like much but trust me it goes a long way, and let it refrigerate overnight.

• You can start the Port wine reduction below shortly after this prep., and refrigerate.

• The next day about 30 to 45-minutes before cooking, take the duck out of the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature.

• I love cast iron, so take out that wide, heavy-duty cast-iron pan and warm it up to medium heat.

• While you’re warming up your cast iron pan, start the oven and bring the temperature up to 400 to 425 degrees.

• It’s preferred that you DO NOT season your cast iron pan with olive oil or vegetable oil, as the fat on the duck breast, which you will be putting down first, will have enough natural fat to create a layer.

• For about 2-minutes let the fat bake into the cast iron pan, once the 2-minutes have expired, open the oven and put the entire cast iron pan into the oven for 1 ½-minutes for medium rare or 3-minutes for medium.

• Once the time has elapsed, open the oven and flip the duck breasts over to the other side and let that side cook for the desired amount in temperature of an additional 1 ½-minutes for medium rare or 3-minutes for medium.

• Once your desired temperature and flavoring have been met, take the cast iron pan out of the oven and let it rest on a platter or cutting board for up to 5-minutes. It will seem like a long time but trust me, it needs to rest and flavor in.

Ingredients – Port Wine Reduction Sauce:

• 750 ml bottle of Port wine, we used DOWS, Fine Ruby Port

• 2 shallots, sliced thin, (and if you have a vegetable slicing machine, I can tell you that the tears will not flow like they do in a soap opera!)

• ½ cup of chicken broth

Prep and Instructions – Port Wine Reduction Sauce:

• In a medium sauce pan, combine the shallots with the Port wine and bring it to a medium boil for 30-minutes. Make sure that there is no lid on the sauce pan. You should begin to get a thickening in the Port.

• Once you have reached a good point of thickness in the Port. Strain the shallots out of the Port into another sauce pan and add a ½ cup of chicken broth. Be sure you use ½ cup and not more, or you will get a watery mixture and then you will have to start over.

• Once you have drained the shallots out of the Port and added the ½ cup of chicken broth, re-heat to medium boil for another 30-minutes. It should have a nice thickness to the sauce.

• You can make in advance and refrigerate if you like or make it the day of, to serve.

Conclusion:

This dish is fantastic and if you like chicken you will LOVE duck breast. The seasoning is really nice. You can smell the dash of Cajun spice added, but don’t overdo it with the salt or the pepper, it might not seem like much, but trust me it’s perfect. You should complement with a side dish of either a vegetable or preferred greens. I did it with microgreens which I purchased from Mustard Seed, locally, but for sure I would stay away from a starchy vegetable. Stick with the greens, it was and will be my choice for this dish. I served this with a Pinot Noir from Willamette Valley Vineyards from Willamette Valley Oregon, the soft red paired nicely with the Duck.

Cheers! And live well!