Recipes / Mains / French Mains Seared Duck Breast with Cherry Sauce The fat comes off in a cold pan over a low heat, slowly, until the skin is glass-thin and crisp. Rush this and you get chewy skin over grey meat.
Time 40 min
Serves 2
Difficulty Medium Ingredients Servings
− +
Quantities for 2 servings
2 duck breasts, skin on (about 200 g each) 1 tsp flaky sea salt 1 banana shallot, finely diced 200 g cherries, pitted and halved 2 tbsp red wine vinegar 1 tbsp caster sugar 150 ml chicken stock 1 sprig of thyme 20 g cold unsalted butter, diced Black pepper
Treat this list as a starting point rather than a shopping order. Swap what you haven't got, leave out what you dislike, add what you love — this is exactly the kind of dish that rewards poking around in the fridge.
Method 1 Score the skin in close parallel lines, about 5 mm apart, cutting through the fat but stopping before the meat. A crosshatch works just as well; what matters is that there are enough openings for the fat to escape through. Salt the skin generously and leave the breasts uncovered at room temperature for 20 minutes — the salt draws out moisture that would otherwise steam the skin. 2 Pat the skin dry and lay the breasts skin-down in a cold, dry frying pan. No oil, no preheating. Set it over a medium-low heat. 3 Render for 12–15 minutes without moving them, pouring the fat into a jar every few minutes as it collects. The skin should go from white to deep amber and shrink to a thin crisp sheet. If it is browning in under 8 minutes the heat is too high — the fat needs time to melt rather than fry. 4 Turn the breasts and cook for 2–3 minutes on the flesh side, until a thermometer in the thickest part reads 54°C for medium-rare. Move them to a board, skin-up, and rest for 10 minutes. They will carry on to about 57°C as they sit. 5 Pour off all but a tablespoon of fat. Fry the shallot over a medium heat for 2 minutes until soft, then add the sugar and vinegar and let it bubble down to a syrup — about a minute. 6 Add the cherries, stock and thyme and simmer for 5 minutes, until the sauce coats a spoon and the cherries have slumped but still hold their shape. Take it off the heat, drop in the cold butter and swirl the pan until it disappears into the sauce and turns it glossy. 7 Slice the duck across the grain, about 1 cm thick, and spoon the sauce around rather than over it — sauce on the skin undoes the last 15 minutes of work. Tap a step to cross it off. Your place is saved on this device.
Cook’s notes Frozen cherries are fine and save a great deal of pitting. Add them straight from the freezer and give the sauce two extra minutes.
Keep the rendered fat. It lives in the fridge for a month and makes the best roast potatoes you will ever cook.
If you have no thermometer, press the thickest part: medium-rare gives like the pad of your thumb when your hand is relaxed. But duck breast is expensive enough to justify a thermometer.
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