Duck à L’Orange
January 3, 2025 | By Jeremy Scheck | Leave a Comment
Duck à L'Orange
Ingredients
For the Duck
- 1 duck breast
- Kosher salt (to taste)
- Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
- 2 sprigs rosemary
For the sauce
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- 1 teaspoon white miso paste
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons chicken stock (divided)
- 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon potato starch
- 1-2 teaspoons sherry vinegar (to taste)
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small cubes and frozen
To serve
- 1 whole orange (supremed, and if desired, remove some peel, julienne and blanch for 1 minute to use as garnish)
- Prepared green beans or spinach (if desired)
Instructions
- Generously salt the duck breast on both sides and let sit in the fridge, skin side up and uncovered, 1-24 hours before preparing.
- Remove duck breast from the fridge while preparing the sauce so it can start to come to room temperature.
- In a small saucepan add the sugar and miso. Whisk over medium heat until the sugar starts to melt and brown. When it reaches an amber color, slowly add the 1/2 cup chicken stock while whisking. Whisk until all the miso paste is dissolved. Then add the orange juice and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
- Add the potato starch to the remaining 2 tablespoons of chicken stock and stir well to dissolve. Then add this mixture to the simmering sauce. Whisk it in well, then let the sauce simmer until it's thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Taste it for acidity and add sherry vinegar accordingly. You want it to be fairly sour and bright to stand up to the fattiness of the duck. Once the sourness is adjusted, lower the heat to your lowest flame, just to keep it warm while you cook the duck.
- Pat the duck skin dry with a paper towel and add freshly ground black pepper to taste. Add the duck skin-side down on a room temperature stainless steel skillet. Place another skillet on top and press it down firmly to make sure the duck skin is getting even contact with the pan. Turn on the heat and cook over medium to medium-low heat for 15 minutes while pressing down with the other skillet. After this time, the skin should have rendered most of its fat. Use tongs to flip over the breast and it should be very deeply golden brown. If it's not quite there yet, just return it skin-side down and cook a few minutes longer.
- After flipping the duck, add the rosemary to the pan and let it fry off in the surrounding duck fat to perfume the meat. Cook 6-8 minutes on the second side, or until it reaches an internal temperature of 130° F. Turn off the flame and let it rest in pan while you finish the sauce.
- Add the frozen cubes of butter to the sauce and shake the pan until it's incorporated and emulsified. It should be glossy and thick.
- Serve the duck as desired. I like to plate it with the sauce and green beans or spinach, slices of supremed orange, and the julienned pieces of orange peel.
Jeremy Scheck spent high school perfecting his signature cupcakes, making quiches and coffee cake by the dozen at a local bakery, and teaching cooking demonstrations at Williams-Sonoma. As a 10th grader in 2016, he began documenting his favorite recipes on a blog called The After School Bakery. In college, Jeremy learned to make 50 gallons of ice cream in the food science lab, how to prune grape vines in the teaching vineyard, the best way to milk a cow in Northern Italy, and why film photography is an art worth saving. As a sophomore in 2020, he traded blog photos for video and became a TikTok culinary sensation. Jeremy has been featured on the Today show, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, BBC Radio, People, and Access Hollywood, among others. Jeremy is a graduate of Cornell University with a double major in Spanish and Italian, and significant coursework in food science. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more about Jeremy.