Yum, yum, yum… Tonight we smoked some Quack! (Not something you’d normally do in Singapore!) We had two duck breasts in the freezer for God knows how long. Heather, in her attempt at clearing the deep freeze chose the duck tonight and well, it was up to me to figure out what to do. Tonight’s recipe…cherry smoked, orange and honey glazed duck breast…
So, here’s what you’ll need and here’s what I did:
2 duck breasts
60 grams of clarified butter
200 ml chicken stock
the juice of half an orange
3 tablespoons of honey
salt and pepper to taste
First, get your glaze ready by melting 60 g of clarified butter in a hot skillet. Add the chicken stock, orange juice, honey and salt and pepper. Bring this to a boil then reduce to a simmer and get the mixture to reduce by a third. Set aside 1/3 of the mixture once reduced for a finishing sauce. The rest, you’ll use as a basting sauce.
Prep your duck breast by taking a sharp knife and scoring the skin on a 45 degree angle. Don’t cut into the breast, just the skin. Salt and pepper both sides of the breasts and set aside. I used smoked sea salt and well, it was yummy!
Now go and set up the grill for REAL HOT! I mean cray cray hot… as hot as the thing will go. Add a fist full of cherry wood too…You’ll first sear the meat side for about 20 seconds, now flip the breasts and sear the skin side for about 40 seconds or until you get some nice grill marks across the breasts. Now take the breasts off the grid and set up the grill for indirect heat and stabilise the temperature at about 400F. Put the duck back on the grid and then start glazing it every 5 minutes or so. Flip the duck once in a while but try to keep the skin side up to get it to a nice golden brown. Keep basting until you hit an internal temperature of 140F. This will take about 20 minutes or so. Make sure you’ve got an instant read thermometer to keep a proper eye on things.
Once done, let the duck rest for about 5 minutes then slice thinly on a 45 degree angle. Place it all on a serving dish and drizzle with the remaining glaze. We served the duck with a simple apple, sprout and passion fruit salad and it was absolutely delicious!
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Overall Heather Rating: 8/10 (simply based on the duck quality….try this with fresh duck and it’ll blow your noodle!!!)