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Five-Spice Moulard Duck Breast

with a blueberry-ginger demi, potato-parsnip purée, and crispy parsnip peels

Crispy skin. Five-spice attitude. Give the duck some room and keep your tongs to yourself.

Five-Spice Moulard Duck Breast, plated, in the MackFoodie kitchen
Serves
2, generous
Active
45 min
Total
1 hr 15 min, with the sauce and purée going while the duck renders
Season
Year-round

Chef secret

Cold pan. Every time. Crisp skin comes from controlled heat and good contact with the pan, not from turning the flame up and hoping. And strain the ginger out of the demi before you blend; it has done its job by then, and ginger that goes through the blender takes over the sauce.

Ingredients

  • The duck

Method

  1. Make the demi and the purée first, both below, and keep them warm. Fry the parsnip peels last, while the duck rests.

  2. Pat the breasts dry. With a sharp paring knife, score the skin and fat in a crosshatch without cutting into the meat. We are rendering fat, not carving our initials into dinner.

  3. Mix the five-spice with salt and white pepper and rub it over both breasts, 2 tsp of five-spice each. If you season ahead, cover and refrigerate; the raw duck's two-day clock does not restart because you seasoned it. Pat away any surface moisture before cooking.

  4. Heat the oven to 400°F. Push a leave-in probe into the thickest part of one breast from the side.

  5. Lay the breasts skin side down in a cold, heavy, oven-safe pan, then set it over medium heat. Give the duck some room. This is a sauté pan, not the subway. Two pans if you have to.

  6. Render for 15 to 20 minutes, adjusting the heat to a steady sizzle that never burns the spice. You want deeply browned, crisp skin and the fat underneath gone to liquid. Do not shuffle them. The duck does not need a pep talk every thirty seconds. If the center lifts, press it down with tongs for 30 seconds.

  7. Pour the fat off into a dry metal bowl, never a glass jar, and keep it. Roast potatoes in it later and the duck has paid for itself.

  8. Flip the breasts flesh side down and put the pan in the oven. It is a short finish, about 5 minutes at most. Pull at 120°F for medium-rare or 125°F for medium, checking each breast on its own. Temperature decides, not the clock. The USDA's number for duck is 165°F; these are the chef's numbers, and that is your call to make.

  9. Rest skin side up for 5 minutes under a loose foil tent. Loose. You worked for that crunch. They climb another 5 to 6°F as they sit.

  10. Spoon the purée onto each plate and add the demi. Slice the duck on the bias, against the grain, and fan it over the sauce skin side up. Perch a small tumbleweed of crispy parsnip peels on the duck at the last second, out of the sauce.

  11. Optional: scatter a few freeze-dried blueberries over the plate. They echo the sauce and give it a little crunch and color.

Blueberry-Ginger Demi

makes about 1 cup, for two · keeps 3 days in the fridge; reheat gently

  1. Warm the oil in a saucepan over medium. Add the shallot and ginger and cook 2 to 3 minutes, stirring, without scorching.

  2. Pull the pan off the flame, add the Pinot, put it back and scrape up anything on the bottom. Add the blueberries, the honey if using, and the rosemary. Boil, then simmer until the wine is down by half.

  3. Add the demi-glace, bring it back to a boil, then simmer 10 minutes.

  4. Strain through a fine chinois into a heatproof bowl and SAVE THE LIQUID. That is dinner's supporting actor, not something that goes down the drain. Keep the solids too.

  5. Pick the rosemary and every piece of ginger out of the solids and throw them away. Put the blueberries and shallot back into the liquid, and all of it back in the pan.

  6. Off the heat, purée with an immersion blender, head under the surface so it does not spit. Back on medium, simmer until it coats a spoon. Too thick: a little more demi if yours is thinner than the sauce, otherwise a splash of water.

  7. Pass it through the chinois a second time into a clean pan, pressing gently with a heat-resistant spatula. Get that last bit of happy juice out without forcing the tough bits through.

  8. Season. It should finish naturally sweet with the ginger lifting it. Want more ginger? Hold back a piece in the straining step and blend it in a little at a time. You can always add more. You cannot take it out, and then you are screwed.

Potato-Parsnip Purée

makes 2 generous portions · keeps make it the day you serve it

  1. Cover the potatoes and parsnips with cold salted water by an inch. Boil, then simmer until a knife slides through both, 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Drain well and put them back in the warm pan over low heat for a minute, stirring, to drive off the water. Wet vegetables make a sad purée.

  3. Pass through a ricer or a food mill. Fold in the butter, then the warm cream a little at a time until it is smooth and spoonable; you may not need it all. Keep the immersion blender away from this one, it turns potato to glue.

  4. Season with salt and white pepper and keep warm.

Crispy Parsnip Peels

makes two small tumbleweeds · keeps minutes. Fry them while the duck rests

  1. Scrub and dry the parsnip. With a vegetable peeler, shave long, broad, paper-thin peels down its length, stopping before the woody core. Leave them as peels, do not cut them into strands. Pat them bone dry.

  2. Heat the oil to 350°F. Fry the peels in small batches about 4 minutes, until crisp, and pull them sooner if they color fast.

  3. Lift out with a dry spider onto a rack over a tray. While warm, toss with salt and a pinch of powdered ginger. A little goes a long way; this is a garnish, not a dare.

  4. Gather into a loose tumbleweed and set it on the duck at the last moment, out of the sauce.

Tools and pantry

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Made with

Duck Breast Parsnips

What to pour

Pinot Noir.

See the full pairing guide

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