I started out wanting to make duck a l’orange, but it was too hot to have the oven on for long, so my recipe morphed into this warm salad, which is just as delicious! Duck breasts are surprisingly easy to cook, or pick some up from a Chinese barbecue shop. Duck fat-roasted potatoes are optional, weather permitting! Make ginger juice by pressing finely grated ginger in a sieve. What better to drink with this than an ‘orange wine’. Also called amber, or skin-contact, these are wines made from white grapes in the way red wine is generally made, that is leaving the juice on the skins to develop a rich amber colour and great texture. The savoury notes (and slight fruitiness) of Cullen Amber Wine from Margaret River works perfectly with the sweet sour complexity of the orange sauce and the richness of the duck.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 4 duck breasts
- 3 large handfuls of small curly endive or frisee leaves
- 1 baby fennel, finely shaved, fronds chopped
- ½ small red onion, finely sliced
- 2 oranges, segmented (see below)
- Salt flakes, to taste
- Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
- Crusty bread, for serving
Orange Sauce
- 1 cup strained freshly-squeezed orange juice
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 teaspoon finely grated orange rind
- 1 teaspoon ginger juice
- 1 teaspoon Sherry vinegar
See Step 1 of Manchego, Fennel & Orange Salad for details on how to segment citrus.
Method
- Preheat oven to 200°C.
- Meanwhile make Orange Dressing: combine orange juice and honey in a small saucepan and boil for a few minutes until reduced to ⅓ cup. Stir in remaining Ingredients and set aside.
- Pat the skin of the duck breasts dry with paper towel and criss-cross skin with fine diagonal score marks all the way through without cutting into the meat.
- Salt generously.
- Heat an ovenproof frying pan over medium-high heat.
- Add duck, skin side-down, and cook for 4 minutes or so, pouring off the fat as it melts, until skin is golden.
- Turn duck over and transfer pan to the oven for about 6 minutes, until cooked to your liking. Remove from pan to a warm plate and set aside in a warm place for a few minutes.
- Meanwhile, combine frisée, fennel bulb and fronds, onion and orange segments with salt and a drizzle of oil and arrange on plates.
- Slice duck, arrange on top of salad and drizzle with some of the Orange Dressing.
- Serve with crusty bread and remaining sauce on the side.
