Breast of Duck or "Ménage à trios”

There are three components to this dish that are equally as important, hence the “Ménage à trios”. These components are the duck breast, a brown double chicken stock and finally the sauce. This is my favorite dish, and one that can be absolutely amazing or horrific.

What makes duck, duck is its fat. A properly cooked duck is succulent and so moist and flavorful you won’t believe it is poultry. Improperly cooked it is greasy, nasty and just terrible. If you chuck a duck in the oven and treat it like a chicken you are in for a nasty surprise. The fat must be reckoned with or it will turn the game against you.

First partner: Brown Double Chicken Stock – I use this stock if I have too. I prefer a good game stock or duck stock if I have it.

• Scrap chicken bones ( as many as you have ) – I buy chicken on the bone, and butcher it my self, storing the bones in the freezer to use in stocks.
• 3 lbs plus of Chicken thighs – remove the skin, cut the meat off of the bone and into smaller pieces
• 1 lrg Onion – coarsely diced
• 4 stalks celery – coarsely diced
• 3 large carrots – coarsely diced
• 4 cloves garlic – whole
• Several whole black peppercorns
• Un Bouquet garni ( see bellow )

Please Note, Salt is not on the list of ingredients. You can use pepper, but use whole pepper. A fundamental rule of stock making is DO NOT SEASON YOUR STOCK!! Season the dish you make with the stock.

In a large sauté pan, add some of the chicken fat, left after butchering, and the meat and leg bones. Sauté until cooked, and browning begins. It is important to give the ingredients room so that they brown and don’t steam. The goal is a nice brown font in the pan. When done they go into a stock pot with the rest of the ingredients. With water, deglaze the pan and into the stock pot with this Carmel colored mixture. Repeat until all the bones and meat have been browned.

Add cold water to the stock pot until the level is just below the top of the ingredients. Add un Bouquet garni of thyme, bay leaves, and sage, tied with a string, or better in cheese cloth. Slowly bring up to heat, and simmer for several hours. As the stock cooks, de-skum. You may use a special spoon that we all have and may not know what it is. It is flat round and has a ton of little holes in it. A better tool is a small fine hand sieve.

After cooking, strain the stock through a colander, a large sieve or best of all a chinoise or aka China Cap. (yes a great opportunity for a restaurant supply store shopping expedition ) Remove all of the fat from the stock. You can put it in the freezer and wait for the fat to congeal and simply lift it off the top.

You know have a Single Brown Chicken stock. To make it a double stock, repeat this entire process using new ingredients except for one. The water. To make a double stock you simply make a regular stock in the exact same manner except you add stock instead of water. You wind up with a stock that is twice as flavorful and intense and a regular old stock.

This is a fundamental and commonly misunderstood concept of stock making. To make a more intense stock you DO NOT REDUCE IT. Reducing a stock intensifies salt, and all the bad things. The flavor boils away. To make a stock more intense you make a double stock, or a triple stock. This process continues until you wind up with a “Glace de Viande” The ridiculous volume of ingredients is why this or its short cut “Demi Glace” are so expensive.

Partner Number Two: The duck breast. Take fresh duck breasts, skin on, and pat them dry using paper towels.

Using a sharp knife cut a diagonal cross-hatching across the skin of the breast. The squares should be about half an inch in size.

Liberally season both sides with good sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

Place the breasts skin side down in the bottom of an empty cast iron Dutch oven.

Slowly bring up the heat until it is about medium, and let the breast sit untouched. The fat will slowly render out of the breast through the cross hatching that you cut in the skin. This process continues for about 10 minutes until the fat has been mostly rendered and is now in the bottom of the Dutch oven and gently lapping up around the sides to the breasts. Officially this is a confit. Cover and let it cook for several more minutes. Test by touching the breast, is should be starting to get a little firm, but still very soft.

Check internal temperature. You are looking for about 125 Degrees for rare. Duck should be served medium rare or about 135 to 140 degrees internally. If you want it on the rare side, cook less from here out.

Remove the breasts to a plate and pour the fat into a small sauté pan. Return the breasts skin side down. Let the skin finish crisping up until nicely caramelized. Quickly flip the breasts for the first time and give the other side about a minute of cooking time.

Remove the breasts to a cutting board and let rest for at least 5 minutes.

The Third Partner: Red Current Sauce.

• 1 cup Brown Double Chicken stock
• 1 cup good red wine – a cab or a merlot or port no real guide lines other then a GOOD red wine
• 2 medium shallots – finely diced
• ½ cup malt vinegar
• ½ cup current jelly
• Duck fat
• Flour

In a medium sauté pan on high heat, add the stock, wine, vinegar, shallots, and a couple cranks of black pepper from the grinder. Begin reducing.

In a small sauté pan over high heat add the fat and enough flour so that when the two are mixed it is still a little runny. You do not want a very stiff roux. Cook the roux until it is almond colored, and starts to smell a little nutty. Take off the heat and retain for later use.

When the liquid ingredients have reduced, add the roux, and mix in hot. ( Hot roux into hot liquid) or (cold into cold) never mix hot and cold. Stir in let it thicken the sauce, add the jelly and let it melt in. Taste, re-season, and adjust with either wine if it is to intense or vinegar if it is too soft. The consistency should be thicker but not like gravy. This is why we used a thin roux.

Finally: The Duck breast is now rested, I use a very sharp filet knife and slice it in thin ( 1/8 “ ) slices, across the breast and fan it out on the plate. Sauce, and serve..