Brine That Duck, Render That Fat, And Do It Right

More to the point, here's the first step to doing a duck breast right, the first time, and without all the nonsense of having to deal with overly fatty meat (as though there is such a thing- but still, crispy-juicy-fatty is fantastic, flabby fatty is generally NOT.)

In this case, I made panseared duck breast with an outrageously yummy potato gratin on the side; the gratin is a post all its own and we're talking about duck here. My stepdad, Larry, is one of the most culinarily-adventurous souls I know, and one of my favorite people on the planet- he's well-traveled, and he's not afraid to subject his tastebuds to the occasional assault in the interests of experimentation. As we were killing time one day, the conversation turned to grub (as it often does) and I mentioned making a rotisserie duck once that was pretty fabulous. He peered at me over the magazine du jour and said "You know, I really don't care for duck." I recall being somewhat gobsmacked, here was a fellow culinary Expeditionary, confessing what I perceived to be a huge gap in his gustatory habits. After some conversational poking and prodding (consisting largely of me looking generally flabbergasted and puffing my cheeks like a landed fish and saying 'b-but-but why not?!?'— very suave, I think you'll agree), we narrowed it down- the duck he'd tried was too fatty. Now, by fatty, he wasn't saying "juicy, unctuous,  delicious goodness" but "ensconced in a massive layer of flab." So there we had it- his culinary world had been shriveled that little bit, not by poor product (as can often be the case) but rather by poor technique! Well, I can't stand for that, so here goes.

Well, Donald here doesn't actually need it, and I want to point this out posthaste- a duck breast, salted and made crispy in its own fat, is the Avian kingdom's answer to bacon, and requires no culinary backflips to achieve. All the same, a little brine can set up your meal in a more long-term way- remember, we are striving for a balance in our meal, not only within the duck dish but across the entire meal. I'll be trying to get some savory into the mix; the bitter should be handled by the watercress, but we'll need to get our spicy/ salty in early, particularly since I'm hitting the duck with a Black Plum Sauce (for those of you in the SoCal area, there's a dried-foods store attached to Shun Fat Supermarket, off Beach in Westminster- you will be mobbed by about 6 cute little Vietnamese ladies plying you with samples of EVERYTHING they sell- green tea, cuttlefish jerky… but the dried fruits are magnificent. Buy them.)

Heat briefly in a small pan, until you smell the spices. Add:

(Note: I use the "about" [~] thing quite a lot. I'm not a fan of hard-and-fast quantities, unless what we're doing is being baked- then I get persnickety)

Remove from heat, set aside.

I'm going to assume that you've already boned out your duck, or bought precut breasts (and if so, shame on you. Learn to butcher a bird! It's easy, cheap, and you get to make whatever creative cut you want. That's probably a whole other blog post though). Using a spectacularly sharp knife, make diagonal slashes through the skin and the fat, try not to cut into the breast muscle itself- move slowly and deliberately, don't try to be all Iron Chef about it. Make the slashes about 1/2" to 3/4" apart. Set the meat in your brining container. Add:

Seal this up for at least 2 hours, 4 is better- 8 or more will probably be overkill.

Time to render that magnificent duck fat. Conventional wisdom tells you to stick that duck in a hot pan, skin side down, and all the fat will come running out of it like Lindsay Lohan out of community service- but they'd be wrong. What you'll actually get is burned duck, with a thick layer of flabby fat, and rare-ish meat. Sound appetizing? It really, really isn't. Here's what you're going to do: Start with a cold non-stick skillet. Lay the duck in, skin side down. Set the heat to medium-low. Set your timer for 5 minutes, and go do stuff. Write a blog or whatever- when the timer goes off, check it- if you see more than 1/8" of fat in the bottom of the pan, pour the fat off and SAVE it. 

Set the timer for 5 more minutes; repeat. This whole procedure will take probably 30-45 minutes, at the end you should have a beautiful, relatively thin layer of fat; golden and crispy and dying to be eaten. Crank the heat to medium-high, flip the duck, give it 3 minutes. Get Donald off the heat, out of the pan, and onto a plate pronto- you'll have beautiful, salty-sweet, crispy-skinned duck, done perfectly to medium. If you want more well-done, give him 4 minutes at the last flip over medium-high, and tent with foil for a few minutes before serving. Always serve skin-side-up, topped with the sauce of your choice- Fig, balsamic, black cherry, black plum… any sweet-tart combo will do! Hope you enjoy.