Duck a l'Orange and Saute Potatoes

Every once in awhile you have to pay homage to an old classic. This is a fabulous duck dish which we have been wanting to try for awhile. Here's a few alibis:

1) We were not able to score a whole duck on the day so we went with two duck breasts instead. I cooked them using the 6-6-6 method (6 minutes, skin-side down in a pan over high heat, 6 minutes, skin side down in the same pan in a 200C oven, 6 minutes rest before slicing) and it worked wonderfully. Just score the skin and season the breasts prior to cooking)

2) I should have reduced the sauce down more, but MAN, we were hungry. So I didn't. But the flavor was still amazing.

3) Wondering what to do with all of that duck fat left in the pan? If you don't use it to saute some potatoes, you're crazy. Just parboil off some potatoes for 20 minutes, then slice them into rounds. Take the duck fat, heat it up in a skillet on medium-high and add the potatoes. Season with salt, pepper and some thyme. When you flip them over after about 5-7 minutes cooking, put some crushed garlic cloves and a knob of butter in and start spoon-basting them while the other side browns of for another 5 minutes or so. Put them on the plate for the duck to rest on.

4) This is an Anthony Bourdain recipe. All of his recipes have been awesome. I will list it here as it appears in the Les Halles Cookbook; the original recipe calls for a whole duck.

1 fresh duck, trimmed of excess fat
salt and pepper
½ orange, cut into 4 pieces
1 lemon, cut into 6 pieces
½ cup red wine vinegar
56 g sugar
450 ml dark duck stock or chicken stock
75 ml Grand Marnier
28 g butter
zest of 2 oranges, confited
juice of 1/2 orange
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 oranges, peeled and segmented

COOK THE DUCK
Preheat the oven to 250°F/130°C. After thoroughly washing the insides (and removing the giblets), season the cavity and outside of the duck with salt and pepper. Place the 4 orange pieces and the 6 lemon pieces inside the cavity. With the kitchen string, truss the duck, just like I told you to truss a chicken (see page 182). Legs up tight against the body. And get rid of the wing tips; they scorch.

Place the duck in the roasting pan or on a baking sheet and cook for 25 minutes at the relatively low temperature of 250°F/130°C. Then remove from the oven and cool to room temperature. Crank up the oven heat to 350°F/180°C. Place the duck back in the roasting pan or on the baking sheet, but this time, elevate it from the bottom with a wire rack. If you don't have a wire rack, use duck bones, or carrots and onions, or English muffins to keep the bird from sticking to the bottom, and to allow for the copious amounts of drainage that'll be going on as all that lovely fat oozes out of your bird. Cook in the oven for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the skin is crispy and deep, golden brown. It's a good idea to spin the pan around to avoid uneven cooking.

THE SAUCE
Meanwhile, in the medium saucepan, combine the vinegar and sugar and bring to a boil. Using a wet pastry brush to keep the sugar from hardening on the sides of the pan, continue to cook until the sugar has completely dissolved and the liquid has the consistency of a light caramel. Do I need to remind you that this stuff is godawful hot? That it will stick to you like napalm if you touch it? Good. Remove from the heat and stir in your stock. Do this very gradually and carefully. Even if your stock is boiling, it is in no way anywhere near as hot as that sugar-vinegar mix. The stock could come up in a boiling foam and scald the living hell out of you if you're not careful.

Got through that without third-degree burns? Outstanding. Now simmer the sauce for 45 minutes on low heat. When the duck is cooked, remove it from the oven and allow it to rest. Discard the excess fat from the roasting pan (though using it to roast or saute potatoes is a superb idea). Place the now greaseless pan over high heat and add the Grand Marnier. Watch out, as it might well flame up and set your hair and eyelashes alight. When you've scraped up all that duck goodness, pour it all into the simmering sauce. Simmer until the sauce is reduced by half, then strain through the fine strainer into the small saucepan. Add the juices dribbling out of your resting duck if you like. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste and bring to a boil. Whisk in the butter and add the confited orange zest, orange juice, and lemon juice. Check the seasoning again.

SERVE
On the serving platter, arrange the orange segments around the duck, and pour the sauce over and around it. The rest of the sauce can go in a sauceboat or gooseneck if you like. Carve the duck like a chicken, but expect less meat. It's not a typo; one duck will feed two reasonably hungry adults.