Duck breast

We love duck, so much so that we had a whole one a few Christmases ago. Not between the two of us, I'm talking one each. One duck, one potato, one sprout, some gravy. You'll need to buy bigger plates for that event. We've been doing confit duck legs the past couple of Christmases because every holiday deserves so much salt it takes your mind off the fat. In this episode, we tried breasts and it was a rip-roaring success.

Except it was May, not Christmas.

The question was always going to be how to get the skin crispy. Take it off and do it separately or fry the breasts in the pan hoping the skin crisps properly without leaving any floppy bits? No jokes please. As it turned out, frying in the pan was ideal giving crispy skin and perfectly rendered fat. Yumtastic.

Vital statistics : 57 degrees for 2 hours

These were still a bit frozen but as they weren't terribly thick, it didn't make a jot of difference. I knew the meat would be done in an hour but it was the fat I wanted to give a bit more time.

I went with the Anova for this one as it's part water bath and part water feature. I'm not sure if indoor water features are a thing but it's making me think of indoor fireworks. If you can still buy those, I want some.

I've got this setup on a towel to make sure the kitchen work surface doesn't get marked, I'm sure 57 degrees wouldn't trouble it but the kind of temperatures vegetables like could do. I'm just not willing to risk a 3k kitchen refurb for 95p worth of carrots, that's all I'm saying here.

If you're reading this outside the UK, you probably won't be aware of Ribena. It's a fruit cordial popular with those still lucky enough to be of school age, moderately less popular if you're in your 40s. If you're looking at the picture below thinking "That looks tasty enough to drink", buy some Ribena as it looks pretty much the same. Then get a test for diabetes. No-one should be that thirsty.

The pig on the left looks worried.

We're still taking frying photos from the other side of the kitchen by the way. The pictures suffer but the camera doesn't. 

Now given a duck breast is similar in size to a chicken breast, 2 hours sounds a bit excessive but I gave it that little bit extra to break down the protein in the fat a bit more. Because it wasn't going to spend very long in the pan, the risk was that you'd have a layer of unrendered fat so giving it a bit longer in the bath was an attempt to break it down a bit.

Having said that, the fat gives a bit of protection to the meat so you can turn the temperature down a tad without running the risk of overcooking the whole damned lot.

If you're going to try this at home, now's the time to admire the quality of your workmanship.

You can see a layer of fat under the skin which you may think wouldn't eat so well but because it spent a while longer in the water bath it softened up beautifully.

This, in stark contrast to the pigeon breast post, is the kind of pink I was longing to achieve. 

Now my girlfriend might have a different opinion but if someone asked me for the top 3 reasons to buy a water bath, duck breast would be in it. The meat was soft, pink and juicy and the skin was lovely and crispy. I'm not a huge eater (except for biscuits) but if I was going to do this any differently, I'd do 2 each, they really were that good.

This one's a keeper with no changes and I'd urge you to try it.