The duck

Up until 3 years ago even $100 wouldn't get me to eat duck. But the weekend rolled around and with no way of getting into Hartsyard on Saturday night I decided I wanted to cook something 'different'... I let D go through a cookbook and decide what he wanted. The rules were: NO BEEF.

You see I am a complete mess when it comes to cooking beef - I have a meat thermometer but remembering it is there when I need it?  Too hard... So he chose duck. Thankful he skipped the confit duck and chose a simple recipe

Donna Hay's Duck & Spiced Beets

I decided to change the side dish as peeling 1.5kgs of beetroot was not happening.

So the beetroot was simple enough; beetroot (pealed), sliced ginger, pieces of orange peel, white wine, orange juice & brown sugar. As I was only using 1 bunch of beetroot I didn't measure anything and just put it in the oven, hoping for the best.

The duck.... I was a little freaked out, I had never cooked duck before and I tend to get a little anxious with new things. Opening the packet (yep Woolies bought duck breasts) the smell was over whelming. It was fresh but it stinks. blah.
I compared the cooking instructions in Donna's book to the instructions on the packet. They were quite different so I decided to pick somewhere in the middle.

In a hot non-stick pan:
- 5 mins on the skin side (I thought it took longer to render fat but they were floating after 5-6 mins so I just turned them over - was I wrong?)
- 2 mins on the other side
- 5-6 minutes in the oven

When I finally cut the breasts (I rested them for 10 minutes) I was impressed that they were not overcooked and still a little pink- D was happy but I think a little less time in the oven wouldn't hurt.

I served them with a quinoa, beetroot, spinach, red onion, pinenut & goats cheese salad. The beetroot was YUMMY!

D asked if we could have it twice a week. Always a good sign.

I won't be making it too often, the amount of fat that came off the duck was scary and the flying fat was even worse. I did manage to avoid burning myself this week so that's a good sign.

Here is the end result: