Grilled duck breast

How to make a duck magret .

This weekend I am planning a dinner with friends, I have thought as a main dish a simple, original and delicious recipe, which triumphs at home, almost with applause.

It is a  grilled duck breast,  I know it sounds too simple but the success of this recipe is in the choice of the garnish.

Since the duck is very fatty, it is preferable to avoid frying and choose an accompaniment that helps soften the whole, even giving it a sweet and sour touch that goes great with the duck.

The duck breast is a piece of lean meat, located in the breast the bird. Its meat is reddish and it has a skin with a lot of fat, since it comes from ducks fattened in an exaggerated way to hypertrophy their liver and obtain the precious foie. As the animal is supercharged, excess fat also accumulates on its skin.

This type of meat can be cooked in many ways, in this case we will prepare it on the grill, but it can be roasted, thus releasing more fat and is usually less caloric.

Remember that it is a perfect meat for a special occasion and its consumption must be exceptional.

You can accompany the duck breast garnish to your liking, if possible, light to balance the dish.

Citrus fruit is great, orange juice, tangerine and or grapefruit juice, sweet wines such as Porto or Pedro Ximenez are great. You can also find it with applesauce, look for contrasts in flavor, acid and sweet touches.

For this occasion I have cooked  a false apple risotto, caramelized onion and orange-flavored boletus, which in my opinion is a perfect company. We have used pump rice (in this case SOS pump reserve rice ) to keep the grain and not break it up.

Imagination to power and I hope you dare to try it at home.

Preparation of the false risotto

In this case I have not used special risotto rice, but high quality Deluxe Bomba rice. Being a rice that does not release much starch we are going to prepare it with a rather creamy broth. It is luxurious, I assure you, with a spectacular flavor.

1. All risotto is more or less similar at the beginning, we start from a basic recipe of similar preparation although the accompanying ingredients are different. In a low casserole or a wide frying pan, pour a good jet of extra virgin olive oil and gently fry an onion (very finely chopped) until it is translucent, almost transparent. We add the apple (thank you Felix for these green maiden of the apple trees of your house in Gustei, delicious) that we have cut into small squares and season everything. Cook for 5-6 minutes over medium-high heat, so that the sofrito releases all the water and joins with the flavors of the onion. Remove from the casserole and reserve.
2. To flavor this rice we are going to use a poultry stock and water with two tablespoons of cream of caramelized boletus, it will give an incredible little mushroom flavor. If you have the possibility of heating the liquids it is better, because we manage not to cut the temperature of the cooking of the rice.
3. We put the rice in the casserole and toast it with a little more extra virgin olive oil, 1 minute over high heat comes to spare. When the rice grains take on a translucent aspect, add a ladle of poultry stock.
4. The hot liquid must be incorporated little by little, stirring very frequently . We have to wait for this broth to evaporate before adding another ladle again, checking that there is never too much broth in the saucepan but that it is not dry either.
5. We repeat the process of adding liquid until the rice is tender but whole, a little al dente, harder than we are used to in Spanish cuisine. I do not put cooking times as it depends a lot on the type of cuisine, the temperature and the rice you use. Although the times vary between 15 and 20 minutes, do it calmly but without pause. Try once in a while to see how the rice and the point of salt are doing, in case it is necessary to add a little, we do not want it to be bland.
6. Remove from the heat and   add the onion and apple sauce that we have reserved. Mix well, helping the flavors to come together. We are also going to add the zest of two oranges (only the skin without reaching the white part) and mix. Let it rest for the time it takes to make the magret.

Preparation of the grilled magret

The measures chosen are for four servings. You have to calculate about 200-250 g per person. magret, half a magret per person approximately.

You have to cook it at the last moment to serve it freshly made and that it is ready. We will have to take it out of the fridge 2-3 hours in advance, so that the meat is tempered and the fat is softened. Before cooking we must make some cuts in the fat to make it more decorative, in diamonds like those in the photos or in lines resembling the marks of a grill. This is how we also get the spices we have chosen to enter well: Deluxe special meat poultry.

1. Season on the fat side (with the cuts already made) and add the chosen spices to give it more flavor.
2. Heat a large skillet over medium heat and put the duck with the part of the fat on the grill. We will have to cook it for about 6 minutes, halfway through the preparation we remove the fat that is released, which is usually quite a lot. It is very important to remove the excess fat during the cooking of the duck, since this type of bird loose a lot and otherwise it gets very hot and burns in the fire, distorting the flavor. So before you start marking the magret, make sure you have a container next to it so you can easily remove excess fat. The last 3 minutes we wait for the skin to brown, but without burning.
3. We turn it around and wait a couple of minutes more on the side of the exposed meat, and then if we see that there is something raw on the sides we give it a touch of temperature to seal the meat in this area, with one minute it is more that enough.
4. We remove it to a board with the skin up and cut (in the opposite direction to the cuts it takes) into fillets 1 cm thick. If we do not like it with the raw touch in the center, you can give the steaks a quick pass in the pan on both sides, to the taste of the guest. We place the false risotto inside a plating ring and place the magret fillets on top.
5. We cut the chives very fine and salt with Maldon salt flakes. Sprinkle with the chives and at the table.

I assure you that we are going to surprise our guests, nobody will imagine that we have only been 30 minutes cooking.