Restaurant Duck, Made at Home
The single technique that separates good duck breast from bad is starting it in a cold, dry pan. Rendering the fat slowly over gradually increasing heat gives you glass-crisp skin and meat that stays rosy, whereas a hot pan seizes the skin and leaves a layer of soft fat beneath it. The cherry sauce then comes together in the rendered fat in under five minutes.
Ingredients
Serves 2 | Cost: $9.00 per serving | Total: $18.00 | Ready in 30 min
- 2 duck breasts, about 250 g (9 oz) each, skin on
- 150 g (1 cup) fresh or frozen cherries, pitted and halved
- 120 ml red wine
- 120 ml beef bone broth
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 2 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 tablespoon cold butter
- Sea salt and black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Score the skin. Pat the duck breasts completely dry. Score the skin in a close diamond pattern with a sharp knife, cutting through the fat but stopping before the meat. Season both sides heavily with salt.
- Render from cold. Place the breasts skin side down in a cold, dry heavy pan and set it over medium-low heat. Cook for 12–15 minutes as the fat slowly renders, pouring off the excess fat two or three times, until the skin is deep gold and crisp.
- Finish the meat. Turn the breasts and cook on the flesh side for 3–4 minutes for medium-rare. Transfer to a warm plate, cover loosely, and rest for a full 8 minutes.
- Make the sauce. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat. Add the cherries and thyme to the pan and cook for 2 minutes, then add the red wine, vinegar and honey and reduce by half. Pour in the bone broth and simmer for 4 minutes until syrupy.
- Mount and serve. Take the pan off the heat and swirl in the cold butter until the sauce turns glossy. Slice the rested duck thickly on the diagonal, plate, and spoon the cherry sauce around it.
Nutritional & Dietary Notes
Gluten-Free
Every ingredient in this recipe is naturally free from wheat, barley and rye. If you are cooking for someone with coeliac disease, double-check any stock, sauce or spice blend you buy in, as gluten-containing thickeners and malt derivatives are common hidden additions in commercial products.
Keto
Carbohydrates are kept deliberately low here. The bulk of the energy in this dish comes from quality protein and natural fats, so it slots neatly into a ketogenic day without pushing you out of ketosis. If you are tracking closely, weigh any starchy vegetables and adjust the portion to suit your own daily carbohydrate target.
Featured HOTRO.ca Product
This recipe is built around Duck Breast from HOTRO.ca. We source premium BC-raised and ethically farmed meats and slow-simmered bone broth, so the quality of the core ingredient does most of the work for you. Substituting a lesser product will change the result more than any other single change you could make to this recipe.
Crisp-skinned duck breast rested and sliced, with a tart cherry and red wine pan sauce.