Step-by-step instructions on how to cook a restaurant-quality meal with duck breast
Seared Duck Breasts with vegetables, Smoked Labneh and an Orange & Port Sauce
Duck is something most people only eat when they have ordered it in a restaurant. Few people know how to cook duck. If not done well, duck can be tough or even dry. But when cooked well, it is delicious. This recipe has the step-by-step instructions that you may need to get a well-cooked duck without fuss. I plated it up in fine dining style for the photography with @home, but feel free to turn it into a family meal, everyone loves well-cooked duck!
Ingredients
2 Duck Breast
3 medium sized potatoes
100g butter
2 whole beetroots
2 baby carrots
2 small bunches of Maya mushrooms
2 large oyster mushrooms
4 large
100g labneh
5 drops hickory smoke liquid (or use a smoking gun if you have one)
1/2 cup orange juice
100ml port
1 cup chicken stock
1 tsp Cornflour
Olive oil for frying
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
How to cook the Duck Breasts
Score the fat in 1/2cm slices. Be careful not to cut into the flesh of the duck breast.
Season the duck breast both sides with cracked black pepper and salt
Set aside in the fridge for at least 4 hours open in the fridge to air dry the fat.
In a pan on medium heat, fat side down, fry the duck breast rendering down the fat and crisping.
Once crispy flip the duck to the flesh side and cook for no longer than 2-3 minutes to ensure it is cooked to medium rare.
Rest for 5 minutes before cutting.
Slice into 2-3cm thick slices.
How to cook the Vegetables
Slice the oyster mushrooms into 1/2cm slices.
Cut the baby carrots lengthways in half.
Using a splash of olive oil, pan fry the broccolini, mushrooms and carrots.
Season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper while cooking.
How to prepare the Beetroot
Boil the beetroot whole in salted boiling water for about twenty minutes.
The beetroot is done when you can pierce the beetroots with a sharp knife pierce.
Once cooked, empty the pan into a colander and leave the beetroots to cool down.
Once cool, peel the beetroots and then cut into 1cm x 1cm squares.
Season with salt.
How to make Smoked Labneh
If you do not have labneh, a good quality full fat cream cheese can also work.
Add 5 drops of hickory smoke liquid or using a smoking gun and smoke for 10 minutes.
The key here is add the right amount of smoke liquid / smoke with a smoking gun for the right amount of time. Too much smoke flavour overwhelms the whole dish so its key that this is a light smoke flavour.
Place into a piping bag or zip lock bag and cut the corner off to use as a piping bag for plating.
How to make the Orange & Port Sauce
Combine the orange juice, port and chicken stock into a sauce pot and reduce until it has halved in volume.
Mix 1tsp of cornflour in some water and add to the sauce.
Reduce further to a medium thickness
Plating your Dish
Plating is hugely personal, and this is where you can let your creativity come in. You can use the pictures as inspiration, but feel free to make your own work of art! Remember, we eat with our eyes first. The more you plate your dishes, the easier it gets so it’s one of those things where practice makes perfect!
Enjoy! Please tag me on Instagram if you’ve made this recipe, I’d love to see it!
This dish was created in partnership with @home and the recipe first appeared on the @home blog. Photography done at my house, using their MasterChef Elite collection of cookware and stoneware and the Taurus Foodie, which is a great piece of equipment!
See below more recipes made using the @home MasterChef Elite collection of cookware and stoneware
About Shawn Godfrey
Photo credit: Niki M Photography
Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.
Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.
It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.
On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).
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