This is a print preview of "Duck Breasts with Red Wine Sauce and Duck Fat Fried Fingerlings and Mushrooms" recipe.

Duck Breasts with Red Wine Sauce and Duck Fat Fried Fingerlings and Mushrooms Recipe
by Monte Mathews

As

most of my readers know, I am Canadian by birth and mighty proud of it. I am also mighty proud that Canada racked up

a total of 10 Gold Medals at the Sochi Olympics. This would be quite a feat no matter what

country achieved it. But to put it in

context, Canada, a country of 35,000,000 people came in third in the medal

count after Russia with 143,000,000 and these United States with a population

of 317,000,000. It was something I

wanted to celebrate. So as Andrew headed off the morning the Canadian Women’s

Hockey team won Gold, I told him to prepare for a Canadian dinner.

Montreal, Beautiful anytime but

especially in snow. To

break my ethnicity down even further, I am a Quebecois from a family with roots in the province of Quebec going

back five generations. We were Scottish

immigrants, Anglos to be sure, and I hate to admit that I was the first

generation of the five who actually learned French. My mother was hopeless in the language. Once,

answering the salutation “Comment allez-vous, Madame” (How are you Madam) she

answered “Combien” (How much?) instead of “Tres Bien” (Very well). My father was a quiet man which concealed his

complete lack of any French language skills whatsoever. He, at least, had an excuse: He was born in Winnipeg. The French-speaking Quebecers put up with

this language barrier for years and years.

Then came the “Quiet Revolution” which was not so quiet and all about

Frenchifying Quebec for future generations.

This had great success in sending legions of all-English-speaking

Quebecers out of the province in one enormous wave. The Bank of Montreal moved its headquarters

to Toronto. My parents moved to Atlanta. In truth, I didn’t go back to Montreal

for years and years. But when I did, I

could not get enough of the place. Or its food.

The food in Quebec is as hearty as

its winters are cold. It’s

French-inflected of course, and the best of it has distinctly peasant

roots. It’s more of what you would find

in Brittany and Normandy than in Paris or Lyons. That makes sense because the first settlers

were from those two northern provinces.

In Quebec, people hunted and fished and the fur trade flourished, as did

dishes with high fat counts—almost a necessity in the cold of winter. Today, Quebec has re-discovered its roots and

its culinary stars seem intent on keeping this wonderfully comforting food on

their restaurant tables. “Au Pied du Cochon” helmed by Martin Picard and “Joe

Beef” the culinary home of David

McMillan and Frederic Morin, are must stops on any serious gourmand’s trip to

Montreal. And then there’s Chuck

Hughes. Now 37, Hughes is likely the

best-known Canadian chef ever. His

presence on the Food Network and his series “Chuck’s Day Off” sent his

reputation rocketing. This followed

appearances on “Iron Chef” where he became the youngest Canadian Chef to win

(Chef Rob Feenie of Vancouver was the first Canadian to win). Chuck is also the only Canadian chef to beat

the legendary Bobby Flay. The ‘Secret

Ingredient’? Canadian Lobster.

Garde Manger, Warm and welcoming.It

seemed only logical to take out the four Quebec chefs’ cookbooks to prepare our

Canadian dinner. So I dutifully perused

“The Art of Living according to Joe Beef, a cookbook of sorts” (Ten Speed Press

2011) and Martin Picard’s “Au Pied de Cochon” (Douglas and McIntyre 2006) and

finally, Chuck Hughe’s own “Garde-Manger” (La Presse 2010).

Garde Manger is the name of Chuck’s first restaurant in Old Montreal. Andrew and I had met the man himself at his

second, “Le Bremner” and we have a lot of affection for him. Never mind that the edition of Garde Manger

was in French, if I was going to cook Quebecois,

I might as well cook in the language too.

I got a huge charge out of doing so.

And while there were plenty of things I really did want to sink my teeth

into, I chose “Magret de Canard, Foie Gras, Sauce au Vin Rouge” You’ll note that there’s no Foie Gras in the

finished dish. That would have really

put it over the top. So out went the Foie Gras but on to the table went this

amazingly rich dish with its crisp duck, its bed of duck-fat fried potatoes and

mushrooms and its somewhat incongruous but nonetheless delicious slice of

triple

crème cheese. I looked everywhere

for the Riopelle de l’ile cheese never

finding it. The cheese is named after a renowned Quebecois artist, Jean-Paul

Riopelle, said to be all of Canada’s most important modern artist. For each 3

lbs of cheese sold, one dollar goes to a foundation that helps the children of

Isle-au-Grues get a higher education. It

is where the cheese is made and where Riopelle died in 2002 at the age of 79. I substituted the much more easily found Saint

Andre which melts into the dish giving it a rich creaminess and flash of

flavor.

The

Red Wine Sauce in the original recipe was enough to stock Garde Manger, the

restaurant, for weeks so I cut it back drastically and the amount here would

have been quite enough for the four servings this dish serves. I cut the rest of the recipe in half too for the

two of us. And because Chef Hughes gives

you all kinds of permission to do so, I substituted Fava Beans for the Corn

kernels in the original which Chuck uses in season. My only question would be: who would eat this

rich and warming a dinner in corn season?

If this looks complicated, it is

not. There’s about 30 minutes of prep

and an hour of cooking time. You get the

wine sauce going, parboil the potatoes then using the duck fat from the

breasts, you make a sauté of fingerlings, mushrooms and fava beans. These form the bed for the cheese and the

duck breasts which you liberally lap with the sauce. It’s true comfort food and

a perfect salute to Canada and the cold. Here is the recipe. A votre Sante!

1.

First

make the red wine sauce:

Heat

the oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the mustard seeds and the

shallots and cook until the shallots are translucent.

Add

the wine, orange juice, vinegar and honey and bring to a boil. Lower the heat

and simmer gently until reduced to about 1 cup…about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile,

in another saucepan, bring

the veal stock to a boil, then let it reduce to about 1/2 cup over low heat, about 30 minutes.

Strain the wine mixture through a fine sieve set over the pan of reduced

stock, pressing down on the vegetables to extract maximum flavor; discard the

solids. Stir the sauce, then continue to cook over low heat until slightly

thick, about 15 minutes. Add the butter, whisking constantly. Season with salt

and pepper. Keep warm.

While

the stock and wine are reducing, in a heavily salted saucepan of boiling water,

cook the potatoes for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside

Preheat

the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

For

the duck breasts: Score the duck on the skin side. Remove the excess fat around the

breast, and remove the tip, if desired. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Place

the duck breast, skin-side down, in a room-temperature skillet with no oil. Set

the skillet over medium-high heat and cook for 5 minutes. Pour off the duck fat

and reserve. Transfer the skillet to the oven and cook until medium-rare, 8 to

10 minutes. Again, pour off the duck fat and reserve.

Let the duck breasts rest on a cutting board

for about 5 minutes.

While

the duck is cooking, heat the duck fat in a cast iron skillet and add the

potatoes, cooking until they are golden brown.

Add the mushrooms and the Fava Beans and cook for 5 minutes. Season the

mixture with Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper. Sprinkle half the parsley and

chives over the mixture and set aside.

Divide

the Duck Fat Potato mixture into four portions. Ladle some of the Red Wine Sauce over the dish, reserving the rest to use once the duck tops the potato mushroom mixture.

Lay

a slice of cheese on top.

Slice the duck

breast and lay one atop each portion of potatoes and cheese. Nap with the Red Wine Sauce. Scatter the

remaining chives and parsley over the top of the dish. Serve at once.