Recipes Collection: duck

Showing posts with label duck. Show all posts

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Duck Two Ways The Sum of the Parts are Greater than the Whole

Cooking duck is surprisingly easy if you give up on the idea of cooking it whole. Sure that whole duck a lorange looks nice on the magazine cover (except for that damn curly parsley), and your cookbooks are filled with seemingly simple roast duck recipes, but if you follow the technique shown here, youll be enjoying duck at its absolute best.

In the kitchen, a ducks breast and leg could not be more different. The legs need long, slow cooking to tenderize the succulent meat, while the breasts beg to be quickly pan-seared to a juicy pink. If you roast the duck whole, the best you can hope for is one of the two pieces to be okay, but usually what you get is a too-done breast and under-cooked leg.

By the way, the sauce youll see in the clip is a Black Currant and Balsamic Gastrique, and you can see how to make that recipe here.

I did this video for About.com a long time ago, but it just recently aired. Ill remind you again that Im no longer able to embed my videos from their site here (also no podcast) - so when you click the video player below, youll be taken to another window where the video will begin. Youll also get the ingredients and a complete transcript. Enjoy!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Stovetop Sous Vide Episode 1 The Best Duck Breast Ever

If you watch any food television at all, youve undoubtedly seen the "sous vide" (French for "under vacuum") technique many, many times. What was once a very unique procedure is now about as rare as a hung-over line cook.

Not so long ago, only a handful of pros using state-of-the-art sous vide set-ups, costing thousands of dollars, got to play this game. Today, there are many options for home sous vide kits, most costing hundreds of dollars, but what about the home cook who just wants to try this once and a while, and doesn’t want to invest that kind of money and space?How about a simple, almost foolproof, stovetop sous vide method that requires no special equipment? Too good to be true? Well, Im happy to report its so very true, and produced what Michele and I agreed was the best duck breast weve ever had.

The principles behind this sous vide duck breasts succulence is quite simple. Put the meat in a watertight, vacuum-sealed bag, and place it in a water bath held at a temperature exactly equal to the ideal desired internal temperature. After a certain amount of time, the meat reaches that temperature and stays there.
Thats it. Not only is there no real danger of overcooking the meat, but it cooks so gently, in a vacuum, that virtually no moisture is lost. The only real difference with our stovetop sous vide and the professional set-up, is the vacuum part.

Were going very low tech here; simply pressing or sucking the air from a ziplock bag. Its not a perfect vacuum, but as youll see, it doesn’t have to be. As long as your package sinks below the surface, and no water gets in, youre good to go.

After an hour in the 135 degree F. water, my duck breasts were picture perfect inside. I crisped-up the skin, drizzled over some sweet and sour peach sauce, and ate in stunned silence. I could not believe how amazing the texture was. I wont even waste time trying to find the adjectives, as most of the ones I need havent been invented yet.

Ive only done this with one other meat (a NY Strip steak, also very impressive) so I can’t give you any info on other recipes/times/temperatures just yet. I will, however, post the quick and easy peach sauce seen in this clip soon. Anyway, I really hope you give this spectacular sous vide duck a try. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
2 large duck breasts, boneless, skin-on
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

View the complete recipe