When I was an apprentice at Antoine’s restaurant in Auckland, my job was to cook the duck and orange sauce. Here’s another adaptation and a simple version using prunes and duck breasts for ease. Going with the duck theme, you can’t go past duck-fat chips and below is how we do them at Giraffe.
Ingredients
| ¼ cup | Sugar |
| 80 ml | Water |
| 20 ml | Triple sec |
| 60 ml | Creme de cassis |
| 250 ml | Orange juice, strained |
| 1 Tbsp | Cornflour |
| 100 g | Prunes, minced |
| 50 g | Prunes, roughly chopped |
| 4 | Duck breasts (Main) |
Duck fat chips
| 1 kg | Agria potato |
| 100 g | Duck fat |
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Directions
- For the sauce, make the caramel by placing sugar and water into a saucepan and bring to the boil.
- Do not stir, but swirl the pan, brushing the sides with a wet pastry brush a few times to prevent any sugar crystals forming and burning.
- Simmer till the mixture turns the colour of caramel, remove the heat and carefully add the triple sec, being careful not to burn yourself.
- Pour in the creme de cassis and orange juice and bring back to a simmer for 15 minutes.
- Combine the cornflour with 2 tablespoons of water and whisk into the sauce.
- Add the prunes and bring back to the boil.
- To cook the duck breasts, heat a frypan and place the duck breasts skin-side down.
- When the duck skin has browned enough and enough of the fat has rendered out of the breast (this could be 10-15 minutes) then turn the meat over to cook the other side.
- Remove from the pan and let the duck breast rest for 5 minutes.
- Drizzle over the prune sauce.
Duck fat chips
- Preheat oven to 220C.
- Peel and cut the potatoes into chip shapes.
- Place chips in a large pot, cover with cold water and bring to a simmer for 10 mins. Drain water off and dry the chips with a paper towel.
- Transfer to an oven-proof dish and top with duck fat.
- Bake for 30 minutes, remove from the duck fat and set aside until required. To reheat, place on a tray and cover with approximately 6 tablespoons of duck fat for 20 minutes or until crispy.
- Season with salt and pepper.
