Roasted Duck Breast

Welcome back!

Today, we have a new type of meat: duck! Even though duck and chicken are both poultry meat, there's quite a difference between the two, especially the layer of fat between the skin and meat that exists because duck is a waterfowl. Duck is very popular in Chinese cuisine (think Peking duck), but it's still consumed quite a bit in the US too, particularly in higher-class restaurants.

Roasted Duck Breast

Ingredients:

Duck breasts
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Score the skin of the duck. You can either do this in a cross pattern or in close parallel lines, as shown below. Make sure you don't cut into the meat.
Season the duck with salt and pepper.
Sear it in a pan with the fat side facing down for 6 minutes.
Flip it around and sear for 1 minute.
Remove the fat oil from the pan.
Put the duck into the oven and bake at 400°F for 7 to 10 minutes. If you were using a cast iron pan, you can just put the whole pan into the oven.
Before the oven
Once done, take it out of the oven and let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes to let the juices stay absorbed in the meat.

The taste is really quite unique; when seasoned with just salt and pepper like in this recipe, you can really bring out the flavor of the duck. The scoring is also very important to get a nice, juicy piece of meat, and the parallel scoring worked great, as the skin was kinda tough to get a good diamond scoring. Plus, it works great when you're cutting, as you cut along the scoring. You can also keep the duck fat to saute some vegetables, which will make them taste great.

-Chefpo

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