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My recipe
Duck breast with cherry sauce
Introduction
I wrote already several times that I love French cuisine, and every time, I come across a new recipe, I try to make it almost immediately. Some time ago I bought A.Willan’s book “Country cooking of France”. The book is very beautiful, with amazing recipes and photos. The recipe below is from this book, to make it you don’t need any exotic and hard to get ingredients. I will write the recipe in original and my adjustments in the comments.
- 2 duck breasts (330 g)
- Salt, black pepper, rocket salad leaves
CHERRY SAUCE
- 225 g cherries, stones removed
- 250 ml red wine (Merlot, Gamay)
- 2 tbsp redcurrant or raspberry jam
- 75 ml red whine vinegar
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 cloves garlic
- 45 g butter
- Chop finely the garlic and dice the butter
- In a small saucepan combine the cherries, wine and jam. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 3-5 min stirring occasionally
- Remove from the heat
- Score the skin of the duck breasts in a diamond pattern
- Heat a heavy-bottomed pan and place the duck breasts in, skin-side down. Fry for 5-7 min until the skin turns golden and crispy
- Turn the breasts and fry another side for 2-3 min (or more, until the breasts are done to your liking)
- Transfer the breasts onto a warm dish, season with salt and pepper, cover with the foil and keep warm
- Drain the excess of the fat from the pan, leaving the cooking juices from the breasts
- Add in the vinegar and reduce the liquid to 1 tbsp
- Add in the wine from the cherries and tomato paste mixed with the garlic. Allow to simmer until the sauce is reduced by half
- Add the cherries, and stirring constantly add gradually the butter. Season with salt and pepper
- Arrange the sliced breast on a serving plate, pour over the sauce and garnish with rocket leaves
Thoughts and Ideas
I love the combination of duck with the sweet fruits. When I made the sauce for the first time, I found it very sour, so I had to make some changes. For the next time I took shallot instead of the garlic, didn’t use the tomato paste at all, and reduced the amount of the vinegar. I took the blackcurrant jam and frozen cherries.
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