We made duck breast with a port reduction sauce for dinner tonight. It's been one of our favorite meals ever since we first ate something similar at the Tornado Steak House in Madison over 10 years ago. We always buy a whole duck and make the cuttings ourselves. If you read this blog regularly you know the drill, "buy the whole bird, feed the wings to the dogs, cut up the meat, and make a good stock with the the bones....to be used later"
The sauce is made with fresh garlic sauteed in olive oil. Add to the mix is port wine, then reduced, chicken stock, then reduced, a couple of tablespoons of dark berry jam, whatever berries you have on stock (tonight we used dried cherries and blueberries) and rubbed sage. The sage is from the garden and I hang it in the pantry to dry and use throughout the winter.
Our ever faithful and valiant guards watch carefully for any runaway duck. This is how most cooking sessions now go in our house, the damn dogs right at your feet. If you are not a dog person, this might scare you a bit, but trust us, the dogs don't actually get near the food, they just wait there drooling and hoping for something to drop.
Duck is very different to cook than chicken. Because of the heavy fat layer, the meat must cook in a cast iron skillet to render the fat out of the skin. The meat is best when done medium rare. I tried to get some pictures of the set plates, but they just didn't turn out. Maybe next time, I'll have better lighting.
The sauce is made with fresh garlic sauteed in olive oil. Add to the mix is port wine, then reduced, chicken stock, then reduced, a couple of tablespoons of dark berry jam, whatever berries you have on stock (tonight we used dried cherries and blueberries) and rubbed sage. The sage is from the garden and I hang it in the pantry to dry and use throughout the winter. 
Our ever faithful and valiant guards watch carefully for any runaway duck. This is how most cooking sessions now go in our house, the damn dogs right at your feet. If you are not a dog person, this might scare you a bit, but trust us, the dogs don't actually get near the food, they just wait there drooling and hoping for something to drop. 
Duck is very different to cook than chicken. Because of the heavy fat layer, the meat must cook in a cast iron skillet to render the fat out of the skin. The meat is best when done medium rare. I tried to get some pictures of the set plates, but they just didn't turn out. Maybe next time, I'll have better lighting.
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