Always perfect crispy duck breasts with orange sauce...

I love duck. At my family home there's no Easter or Christmas without roast duck. My Dad always debone the bird, stuff it and roast. Then you just have to slice it and enjoy. Unfortunately my Dad is far away so we had ot do something else with our duck. We bought whole, frozen bird for eur10 when in the Chinese take away you'll have to pay eur16 for the half. I'd say it was a good deal ;) My Hubby loves duck breasts so he decided to make it for dinner. The result - fantastic - and he finally learned how to make perfect crisp skin on the breast (the tip was taken from John Torode's 'Chicken' book).



How to make it...


Ingredients:
- 2 duck breasts
- 1 whole orange, sliced
- juice from 3 oranges
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar



Take your duck breasts and score the skin all the way through the flesh. Season the skin (and only(!) skin) with salt and black pepper. Take a solid, heavy frying pan and turn the heat to 3/4 on your stove. Lay the duck skin down in the cold (!) pan and put over the heat and turn the heat down to 1/2. Now DO NOT touch anything. Leave it alone for good 10 minutes. The fat under the skin will slowly melt and the skin will go brown and crispy. You should have a good 1 cm of duck fat at the bottom. When the skin starts to colour around the outside you're ready to move on. Season the flesh side now and turn the duck breast down. Cook for 2 minutes and turn the heat to full, cooking the duck for further 1 minute. Take the pan from the heat and leave the breasts in the pan for 5 minutes.
You can keep the fat for further cooking - for example for roasted potatoes :)




For the orange sauce - put sliced orange on the pan and sprinkle with sugar, wait till it caramelize. Add orange juice, mix well with oranges and wait till it starts simmering. Reduce your sauce a little and... it's ready.
Serve for example with mash potatoes.

Smacznego!