Sometimes the Magic Works, Sometimes It Doesn’t

by wjw on September 11, 2021

I found some duck breasts at the market, and it occurred to me that I liked duck breast but had never cooked one, and that this could serve as the seed for another fine culinary adventure.

The label assured me that the duck breasts were antibiotic-free and had been raised vegetarian (which isn’t the case at all with ducks in the wild, who enjoy chowing down on a nice frog now and again).

So I looked up recipes online, and they were all basically in agreement, so I picked one, cooked the breasts sous vide for a couple hours, then seared the skin on the stove top till it was crackling, and served it with a sauce of apricots and oranges, couscous, and fresh sweet corn from the farmers’ market.

And the results were, well . . . okay. The corn was very good, the couscous was couscous, the sauce was a sauce. The duck skin was crispy, the breast was medium-rare, and the taste . . . well, it just didn’t taste like I expect a good duck breast to taste. The taste was a little muddy and altogether boring.

So sometimes the magic just doesn’t work. Since everything but the taste worked out I’m inclined to blame the duck breast. It wasn’t raised right, or just had bad taste genetics, or something. Clearly more experimentation is required.

Maybe it just needed more frogs in its diet.

Camille Flynn September 12, 2021 at 12:08 pm
wjw September 12, 2021 at 4:29 pm

Thanks! Looks impressive.

Susan B September 12, 2021 at 11:18 pm

I think this is the recipe I made for our Christmas dinner last year which we quite liked.
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/seared-duck-breast-with-cherries-and-port-sauce

Still have 2 breasts in the freezer. Probably ought to get them out and have this one again.

wjw September 13, 2021 at 11:12 pm

Ooh, another good one!

We had two additional duck breasts, and they became a very scrumptious Szechuan stir-fry tonight.

Susan B September 14, 2021 at 8:59 pm

Ooh, stir fried duck breasts sound good too. We eat a lot of Asian stir fries but I hadn’t thought about using the duck in one. And I don’t think either of us has any idea of what to fix for dinner tomorrow night…

wjw September 15, 2021 at 12:54 am

Let me know how it turns out.

Robert N Sulentic September 17, 2021 at 6:15 am

Another idea, one that intrigues me, but I haven’t tried yet:
https://honest-food.net/duck-prosciutto-recipe/

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post:

Contact Us | Terms of User | Trademarks | Privacy Statement

Copyright © 2010 WJW. All Rights Reserved.