Description
The celeriac mash creates a nice, slightly tart contrast with the rich, sweet sauce, but mashed potato with lots of butter is good too.
Ingredients
Scale
Duck and Sauce
- 4 duck breasts with skin
- 75g sugar
- 30g water
- -1 pint stock, preferably duck or chicken, but other meat stock will do
- 100g butter
- 75g red wine vinegar
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Celeriac mash
- 2 celeriac
- 2 tablespoons creme fraiche
- 3 cloves of garlic
- a pinch of nutmeg
- olive oil
Instructions
Sauce
- In a small saucepan dissolve 75 grams of sugar in 30 grams of water and cook until caramelised; the mixture will start to develop a slight brown colour, the bubbles get bigger and you begin to get a a slight sweet caramel smell.
- Watch carefully at this stage; continue cooking until the caramel has a good rich colour and a sweet, slightly nutty aroma; If you cook it for too long it will develop a deep mahogony colour and a bitter, burnt taste.
- If this happens, you start again (don’t worry if this does, it has happened to me and is always successful the second time around).
- At this stage remove the caramel from the heat and add 75 grams of red wine vinegar, (be careful as it can splash back at you at this stage).
- Cook slowly until all the caramel is dissolved.Add one pint of stock and reduce down to a rich coating consistency.
- Season with salt and pepper and add 100 grams of butter.
Duck
- Meanwhile, heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat.
- Add the duck breasts skin side down.
- Cook for 20 minutes, then turn over and cook for 3-4 minutes to seal.
- Season.
- Slice the duck breast and serve with the sauce.
Celeriac mash
- Remove the ugly skin from the celeriac (this is best done basically by chopping it off with a sharp knife, peeling is a horrible never ending task).
- Cut into 2cm cubes.
- Toss in olive oil.
- Roast with the garlic for 30 or so minutes at 180C until soft.
- Reserve a few cubes to scatter around each plate.
- Mash the rest using a potato masher or (preferably) a hand held blender, along with the peeled garlic cloves, creme fraiche and nutmeg.
- Season
- Serve the duck in slices on a bed of mash, with cubed celeriac as garnish.
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Category: Main