Duck a la Cerise – or if I wasn't being poncy – Duck with Cherries

As you will see from this post, I am not very experienced at cooking duck.  This Duck a la Cerise worked out ok but I did learn some lessons for next time.

First I scored the skin of the duck breasts with the sharpest knife I had.  But even that wasn't really sharp enough.  My scoring as you can see was a bit haphazard.  You really don't want to cut right down through the fat.  I am not bad at scoring ham but this was a challenge.

I then seasoned the breasts with salt and pepper and a light sprinkle of dried thyme – I'm sure fresh thyme would have been better.

I heated a pan and then fried the duck breasts quickly in a mix of oil and butter.  The idea was to get them golden brown – which I only partially achieved.  Next time I would not worry about the butter burning and would really give each side a blast of heat.  While my duck looked ok, in fact not enough of the fat under the skin had cooked out.  It is a tricky balance because if you overcook duck it goes dry.

I then took the duck out and popped it into the oven, covered with foil while I cooked up the sauce in the pan.  First I fried one finely chopped red onion.  White would have been fine.  I then added chicken stock (about ½ a cup) and stirred it around to scrape any bits of stuff off the bottom of the pan.  Then I put in a spoonful of apricot jam (redcurrant jelly would have been better), a hint of chilli jam, a tablespoon of wine vinegar (I used white and added a little red wine to it).

After your sauce has come to a simmer, you put the duck back in and cover the pan and cook until tender – say 8 to 10 minutes.  You take the duck out again (it is a bit like a yoyo) and put about 200g of pitted cherries into the sauce and simmer it for a bit and check the seasoning.  I found it did need more salt and pepper.

Then you plate the duck and spoon the cherries and sauce over the top and garnish with chopped parsley.  Which I nearly forgot.

I liked the taste of the duck but ended up cutting off the skin which was not crispy enough and felt very fatty.  Oh well, hopefully I'll do better next time!