Last weekend I was taken duck flighting…
The aim was to step into our camo gear and switch on hunter gatherer mode. There were five hungry mouths to feed that night and we were relying on a “from field to plate” kill rather than a standard supermarket shelf purchase. As there were five of us eating that evening it would mean that we needed to bring down three ducks – 1 breast each with one left over.
Unfortunately when we arrived at the ponds the conditions weren’t looking good – little wind, clear skies and the water we were flighting over was mostly frozen apart from the end which had a small pipe of running water coming into it. Nonetheless we placed our 6 duck decoys in the water and as the sun disappeared and the darkness increased we took our stand and waited…a handful of mallard flew over in a short space of time before dark and I managed to shoot two mallard. My PIC/ instructor Edd Morrison stood by me working his dog Cara to pick up our supper from the icy cold water.
When we arrived back home we plucked the birds and debreasted them and although we only had four breasts it could still make a generous starter for 5 people.
Main Ingredients:
- 4 duck breasts with skin on
- Dry ingredients for skin seasoning: salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg
- Punnet of blackberries
- Merchant Gourmet – Quinoa, Grains and Red Rice Mix (or similar)
- Place the duck breasts (skin on) on a chopping board, using a sharp knife score diagonally across making sure not to cut the meat.
- Mix with pestle and mortar; cinnamon, nutmeg, salt & pepper and rub into the scored skin.
- Heat up a frying pan until piping hot and add the duck breasts skin side down
- Crisp up the skin in the pan and then turn the breasts over for a few seconds to seal the meat.
- Place the duck breasts on a tray, cover the breasts in the oil from frying pan and place in oven for 7 minutes at 180 degrees
- With all game it is essential to rest the meat for a minute or two once taken out of the oven and placed on a board, before carving.
- Boil/ Microwave one bag of Merchant Gourmet – Quinoa, Grains and Red Rice Mix.
- Once ready slice the duck breast into inch thick diagonal cuts and place on the bed of quinoa/ red rice. P.s. it should be blushing!
- Add the sauce on top and decorate with the blackberries
Sauce Ingredients:
- Butter
- Blackberries
- Red wine
- Dark Mascarvado sugar
- Redcurrent Jelly
- Blood Orange Vodka
- A healthy glug of red wine (1 glass) is added to the pot and brought to the boil.
- Add a knob of butter into the wine along with the blackberries once simmering.
- Add a heaped tea spoon on muscovado sugar, a tea spoon of redcurrant jelly and reduce down, not stirring but moving the sauce round with the pan.
- Once the sauce has reduced add a swig of blood orange vodka and keep the sauce simmering until the duck is ready to serve.
ENJOY!!!
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