Duck Breast with Cherry Jus and Celeriac Puree

Ever since I went to the awesome duck cooking school hosted by Luvaduck, I began to start experimenting different ways on how to cook duck. My most favourited method so far is by confiting the duck, followed by roast duck. I just love the result of the crispy skin and the tender flavourful meat inside. No sauce or side dishes needed, although sometimes they make things a little bit fancier.

I do love eating duck but in Australia duck is fairly expensive, about twice more expensive than chicken. That is probably the reason why people are not familiar with cooking duck and also although I love eating confit duck, I don’t necessarily fancy cooking it. It takes a really really long time to confit and lots of duck fat as well as oven time involved. So if I’m not making it for a party or something I would rather skip on it or eat it in a restaurant, or buy the pre-marinated one from the supermarket.

The good thing is, there are a couple of ways of cooking the duck that doesn’t have to be frustrating or taking a long time at all. Take one example – crispy skin duck breast, probably the simplest way to cook duck. It takes less than half an hour to cook and the difficulty level is similar to cooking a piece of steak. The result is also, awesome! Nobody that I know of dislikes a piece of decadent duck breast that is tender inside and crispy outside. Nobody, except a vegetarian or someone who dislikes duck in general.

I don’t know about you, but I love having duck breast that is cooked medium or medium-rare with good citrusy/red wine sauce. So in this post I’m gonna share my favourite recipe – Crispy skin duck breast with cherry jus and celeriac puree.

I think the dish sounds fancy, isn’t it? Such a long sentence to describe a duck dish. It looks fancy too, which is perfect to surely impress your loved one as it looks pretty good on a plate. But trust me, if you know how to cook steak and mash potato very well, I wouldn’t think you would have any difficulty nailing this dish at all.

The celeriac puree part is actually an accident as I didn’t think of making celeriac puree as a side dish, but it was sitting in my fridge for almost a week that day and I assumed it couldn’t wait for one more day anymore, so it could probably be a great side dish to the duck, and I was right. Celeriac puree is probably almost as versatile as mash potato, so delicious and goes well with everything!

Step-by-step

To make celeriac puree, boil celeriac and potatoes in a lightly salted water for 10 minutes or until very tender when pierced with a fork. Drain water and place celeriac and potatoes in a food processor. Add nutmeg, butter, milk, salt and pepper. Blitz for 1 minute or until the texture becomes smooth and there is no lumps.Season duck with salt & pepper and score the skin of the duck breast with a knife evenly, but be careful not to pierce through the flesh. Place duck breast on a pan with skin side down and heat the pan to high heat, as the pan is gradually heating the duck fat is slowly released. When the pan is on high heat the fat is rendered so no touching and moving is involved, sear for 2-3 minutes or until the skin is brown and crispy. Flip to the other side and sear for another 1 minute.Place the pan in a preheated oven of 200 degrees and cook for 5 minutes. Remove duck breast and place on a chopping board, let it rest for 5 minutes before slicing into thick pieces. Reserve two tablespoons of duck fat on the pan that was used to cook the duck.To make the cherry jus, heat the same pan that has two tablespoons of duck fat reserved in medium-high heat. Add beef stock, chicken stock, cherries, red wine and thyme. Cook for 5 minutes or until liquid has reduced to half. Add butter and stir to combine. Taste if extra seasonings is needed.To serve, place a generous amount of celeriac puree on a plate and top with sliced duck breast. Spoon the cherry jus over the duck and garnish with thyme.

103k30