experimented on tea smoked duck breast on 2 occasions recently! ^^

first was oddly for the 5pax vegetarian dinner for my wife’s friends (which she does meditation with) on 12.4.2016.

i made a 4-course all vegetarian meal. wife thought we should add some protein since only 1 person is vegetarian. so i made a mock kurobuta & a medium rare tea smoked duck.

both were quite excellent that evening. 🙂

2 expereinc with duck breast previously –

1. i do a good carnard a l’orange (duck in orange sauce) too. that though was a different recipe & not smoked.
2. i also did a tea smoked duck fettucine previously but that time the breast was kind of too well done.

for the preparation, i used an internet recipe i saw some time back-

• add 3 star anise 1 cinnamon bark 1 tbsp brown sugar 1 tbsp rice 1 packet tea leaves on aluminium foil on a stainless steel oven-proof pan
• place duck breast on rack above foil (this time i bought a 200g ready fresh duck breast from sheng shiong for S$2.80)
• heat pan till smokes & roll up aluminium foil to trap smoke inside..for 10mins
• place pan in oven at 90degC for 1/2hr…repeat ie reheat pan to smoke every 1/2 hr (i did twice for medium rare, 3 times for medium)

aroma was excellent during smoking & afterwards.

duck breast is ready for crackling – frying to crisp the skin.. 🙂

i used gordon ramsay’s cold pan method.

(i did this again on 267.4.2016. this time i did the smoking longer ie 3times for medium)

place the smoked duck breast skin down on a cold non-stick pan w/o any oil & start low fire.

what it does is that the heat has time to slowly rendered out the fat. when fat is almost totally rendered out the skin is then able to crackle.

(sprinkle sea salt & black pepper over the duck breast & add herbs if desired).

it takes about 9mins.

the fat was almost totally rendered out, leaving just a thin skin so it could crackle.

now let the duck rest for 10mins.

& it was easy to cut.

place skin down & cut through to the skin.

i personally like the medium rare better (top & above photos).

and i was able also to cut easily with skin side up as i was cutting thicker slices that time.

it’s a wonderful dish. smokey tea flavours, crispy skin & tender, moist medium rare meat. quite excellent.

it was good experiment for me, lots of fun, though personally i may not usually want to spend the time doing the smoking. it works for small family meals & maybe with just 4 or 5 friends, not so convenient for large group – would be tedious & take the fun out of it.

c.h.e.f andy