I wasn't planning to blog this meal as I was just experimenting with the sauce. Duck breast fillets are great because they are cooked quickly and can take really interesting sauces. This sauce came about as I had some blood oranges from our infant tree at Narooma that I had brought back to Canberra. They were very sweet and the colour was wonderful. Of course you can use any sweet orange available. I imagine tangelos or mandarins would be good as well. The verjuice was thrown in as I had been reading Maggie's Verjuice Cookbook earlier in the day. Love the Maggie. The fennel was sitting in the fridge. Orange and fennel go so well together, and the carrot was for extra sweetness. The spice rub can be varied to taste. My friend Jorge the chef introduced me to this kind of rub for duck. The good thing about this recipe is that the sauce can be made ages ahead, even frozen.
I served this with sauteed potatoes, unashamedly cooked in rendered duck fat (pour in a bit of the duck fat rendered from the spiced fillets). I had bought some purple carrots at the Markets so slung those in with good old orange carrots and some broad beans. I didn't bother peeling the skin from the beans as I grew up eating them with the skin, but you could please yourself. They don't look so pretty in the photo, in fact the photo isn't pretty, but it tasted great.
I was on my own for dinner so I had a fillet left over. The next day I sliced it cold, added some of the leftover sauce which had "jellyfied" and enjoyed myself thoroughly. I remember an old recipe I have written down somewhere for a cold roasted chicken dish with cubes of jellied stock. I think it was from Vogue or some such thing. I know where to find it. Mmm, another experiment.
Spiced Duck Fillets with Blood Orange Sauce
2 duck breast fillets
Spice Rub Mix
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
1 tsp whole coriander seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 cinnamon stick
2 juniper berries
2 cloves
Sauce
1 tblsp butter
1 tblsp finely chopped eschalots
2 tblsps verjuice (or white wine)
1 cup good chicken stock (cubes will not work)
1 carrot peeled and cut in chunks
1/2 small fennel bulb thickly sliced
1/3-1/2 cup blood orange juice
Heat the butter in a saucepan. Add the eschalots and saute gently until they are soft but not brown. Add the verjuice, simmer for 30 seconds and then add the chicken stock. When it comes back to the simmer put in the carrots and the fennel and half of the orange juice. Simmer for half an hour or until the vegetables are quite soft. Put a bowl under a strainer and strain the liquid from the vegetables and then with a masher push down on the vegetables to extract as much juice and flavour as possible from the vegetables. Discard the solids remaining. Return the liquid to the pan again, add the remaining orange juice (or to taste) and simmer until reduced by half or to your liking. Taste for seasoning. If you feel it needs a bit of sweetening add a pinch of sugar and simmer a minute longer. If your oranges are very sweet you may not need this step.
Trim duck breasts of any excess fat around the edges. Score the surface of the fillets to allow the fat to render out when cooked.
Put the spices in a mortar and pestle and crush coarsely. If you use a spice grinder don't grind too finely. Rub the spice mix all over the fillets. If you are able leave overnight do so but half an hour will be OK at a pinch. When ready to cook, wipe as much of the spice mix off the fillets as you can. Heat a pan over medium high heat and sear the fillets skin side down for 2-3 minutes until well caramelised and most of the fat has rendered out. Pour off the fat, turn the fillets over, cook for a minute to sear and finish in a 200deg C oven for about 5-7 minutes. Rest, covered with foil in a warm place for 5-10 minutes. This is crucial to let the duck meat relax.
Serve with sauce.
Serves 2
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