Duck

adenoma,
If you are using true magret. (duck that is force feed for it's liver)It will be a little larger than say Peking breast or long Island. The only reason I say that is the Muscovy/Moularde easily feeds two. So you will have some good duck hash in the morning.
Anyway. Trim the underside of the breast(meat side) Of sinew and silver skin. Try to keep the tenderloin in tact. Turn the breast over and and make a tic ta'c toe design on the skin, making sure not to pierce the meat.
season with Kosher salt,black and red peppercorns and let sit in the fridge for 1/2 hour or so. to have on hand for the sauce
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup Tarragon or champagne vinegar
1/2 cup triple sec or grand mariner if you so desire
1 cup white vermouth
2 cups Orange juice
2 cups Duck stock (or chicken stock)
2 table spoons slurry (equal parts water and corn starch)

Remove the Magret from the fridge and let sit out 15 minutes
As you are tempering the duck take the sugar and water and place it on medium high heat until it starts to caramelize (turn brown) at this point add the vinegar (don't hold your face over the pot)The sugar will seize for a second and then will melt back into solution.When it has melted add your Grand Mariner and vermouth and reduce by half then add your OJ and reduce by a third, then add your stock and simmer add some salt and white pepper, check for balance of sweet and sour then slowly add your slurry. This will thicken your sauce. Do not add all the slurry at once. you may not need it all. Just enough to coat the back of a spoon. set aside and keep warm.
preheat your oven to 450. on the stove top place the duck skin side down in a saute pan and render the fat until crisp.drain out most of the fat and turn the duck flesh side down. cook for 3 minutes then pop in your oven for about 6 to 8 minutes for medium rare. pull from the oven lest rest five minutes.then slice thin bias cuts and plate it up and sauce it.
wild rice with oven dried cranberries goes well
I would drink a nice pinot noir
cc

Hi cape chef,

I´ll try your magret recipe tomorrow. But I don´t have the white vermouth (I can´t either go out to buy it because it´s only found in special stores which there aren´t close by :-))
However, I have plenty of alcohol beverages at home. Do you have any other suggestion to replace the white vermouth?? Cachaça maybe??

Thanks

Sirlene

Another blast from the past. That really does sound good, though.

If you have any sake on hand it can substitute. But, in a pinch, any good, dry wine should work.

If you like a citrusy flavor with Magret breasts, Anne Burrel's Duck Breasts with Clementine Sauce and Kale is a really great dish. If you go over to the food network and do a search there you'll find it.

One thing I learned watching her prepare this dish is to work low and slow when rendering the fat. This runs counter to most instructions, but it works. You get rid of the fat (which, btw, gets poured off as it accumulates) and produces duck with a crispy, but not burned, skin. 30 minutes is none too long for the process.

You could easily use cachaca (a sort of rum).  Why not?  Or use any white wine you desire. Or a dry sherry.  Or a dry madeira.  Or aguardente.  Or cognac.  Or...

Don't worry too much about alcholic content, it's (mostly) going to cook off anyway. 

The nice thing about dry vermouth in terms of cooking is that, when cooked, it gives a very white wine quality along with some herbaciousness.   But the sauce is already so sweet with so much going on that the identity of the wine is not going to much of a difference. The orange liqueur and juice are and should be the dominant flavor components. 

BDL

Just a comment about Cachaça, aguardente and Rum

Cachaça is a kind of aguardente;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacha%C3%A7a

Rum is also a kind of aguardente but:

"Cachaça differs from rum in that most rum is made from molasses.^[3] Use of molasses allows for the use of the byproduct of sugar production and a smaller still but has the taste affected by heating. Cachaca can be classified as a "rhum agricole" which is rum produced directly from cane juice." I´m sure you know that, but as a brasilian I must make it clearer!


In time, I have prepared the duck replacing the vermouth with 1/2 cup Travarica  and 1/2 cup white wine. But in my humble opinion is too much sugar, 1/2 of it would be better and I would replace the starch by a brown roux...
But it was really good trying this one!!