Duck Miramonte
Tender duck breast slices are fanned over savory wine sauce enriched with bone marrow. Wilted spinach, enhanced with a whiff of nutmeg, is served as a side dish. There’s one trouble with the sequence of this and many, many other recipes — you trim the meat and save the trimmings and bones to make stock, but you need the stock immediately as you proceed with the recipe. The solution is to do the trimming early in the day and refrigerate the meat, bringing it back to room temperature later to complete the recipe. Meanwhile, you have all those lovely trimmings to make the stock.
Ingredients
- Duck
- Duck Breasts - 4
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
- Unsalted Butter - Wine Sauce
- Wine Sauce
- Unsalted Butter - 4 to 6 ounces
- Shallots - 5, peeled
- Peppercorns - 1 teaspoon, cracked
- Cepes - 5 ounces, dry
- Cabernet Sauvignon - 1/2 bottle
- Jellied duck stock, or demi-glace - 1 to 1-1/2 cups
- Tomatoes - 2, seeded and chopped (optional)
- Bone Marrow
- Bone Marrow - 7 ounces, chopped
- Salt to taste
- Spinach
- Spinach - 1 bunch, washed and stemmed, blanched
- Unsalted Butter - 2 ounces
- Garlic Cloves - 2 to 3
- Pinch of nutmeg
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
- Watercress - 1 small bunch
Instructions
To prepare the duck: Bone the duck, reserving unused parts for stock. Preheat the oven to 450 F. Trim the breasts and sprinkle well with salt and pepper. Heat the butter in an ovenproof saute pan. Place the breasts, skin-side down, and melt the fat between the skin and meat. Brown lightly. Place in the oven for 8 minutes. Remove; set aside.
To prepare the sauce: In a saucepan, preferably copper, melt 4 ounces of the butter and add the whole shallots and peppercorns. Cook 30 seconds. Add the cepes and Cabernet Sauvignon. Cook until reduced by one third. Add the duck stock or demi-glace and tomatoes. Simmer 20 to 30 minutes. Add the remaining butter, if desired. Strain the sauce through a fine-meshed sieve. Whisk briskly and set aside. Keep warm over tepid water or in an insulated container.
To prepare the marrow: Fill a saucepan with lightly salted water and bring to a boil. Add the marrow and cook 5 minutes. Set aside.
To prepare the spinach: Heat the butter in a large saute pan over medium-high heat and cook until the butter is lightly browned (beurre noisette). Add the spinach, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Cook, tossing, for 20 to 30 seconds. Drain and set aside.
To serve: Pool wine sauce on each warmed serving plate. Add the drained bone marrow to the sauce. Trim the bones from the duck breasts. Place the breasts skin-side down and slice very thin. Fan duck slices over the plates on the sauce. Garnish with watercress; serve the spinach as a side dish.
