December 2003

The Fowl Taste of Duck

December seems to bring out the traditionalist in people. Every family, every group of friends, every person, seems to have some sort of thing they do for the holidays. For me, December means several things: it means my girlfriend will start to make toffee by the metric ton; it means we're going to have a Christmas party and we're going to have to come up with some fruit with which to infuse vodka for our guests; it means I'm going to my parents' early on Christmas day to bake scones for my family; and it means I'm going to eat a lot of fowl.

Generally, I like my birds roasted, but roasting has two great drawbacks: the first is that, if you roast a whole bird, you'll likely overcook the breast before the legs are done, the second is that roasting requires time, and, in December, we don't have time -- we have too many traditions to attend to. The obvious solution, of course, is chicken parts, and I resort to them often enough, but as good as they are, they don't really stand out in one's mind as the pinnacle of fine dining. They're fast and cheap enough and tasty to boot, but there's a hint of the mundane about them. Turkey parts are okay, I guess, but still not really what I have in mind. What I'm thinking, of course, is duck, specifically the packages of duck breasts I'm finding in grocery stores more and more often.

Duck breast is wonderful because it's so versatile. It's rich enough to stand up to sauces, flavorful enough to do without them, fatty enough to baste itself, and, if you remove the skin, lean enough to count as diet food. You can roast it, poach it, stir-fry it, grill it, or braise it, but my favorite method for a hurried weekday dinner is pan-frying.

Duck breast is best rare to medium, which is one of the reasons pan-roasting works so well; you have time to render and crisp the duck's fat without burning it, but you don't cook it so long that the outside is dry by the time the inside's done. The benefit of this method is that you get crisp skin and rich rare meat in less time that it would take to get a pizza delivered.

To start, place a cold pan on the burner. Next, take a very sharp paring knife and carefully score the skin of the duck breast, making sure not to cut into the flesh; this helps the fat render. Rub the duck with salt and pepper and place it in the cold pan, skin-side down. Next, turn the heat to medium. When the duck starts to sputter, listen: you want a steady sizzle, not too fast, not too slow. Any succession of loud pops means the pan is a tad hot and you need to turn down the heat. Check on the skin by using tongs to pick up the breast. If the breasts sticks, leave it be; do not force it. After 10 or 12 minutes, the skin should be darkly brown and crisp. Flip the breast over, and cook the flesh side for 2 or 3 minutes. Remove the breast from the pan, and let it rest for ten minutes before slicing. Serve with sauteed spinach and root veggies.