Tag: Duck

Try a Terrine Tonight! Duck, Pork and Hazelnut Terrine

Duck and Hazelnut Terrine

Print Recipe
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Time in Oven 2 hours
Course Appetizer, Main Course, Snack
Servings 1 Terrine

Ingredients
  

  • 2 duck breasts
  • 1 set duck giblets (organs from 1 whole duck)
  • 450 g ground pork
  • 2 garlic cloves (peeled and shredded)
  • 10 peppercorns
  • 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
  • 3 whole cloves
  • 2 shallots (peeled and minced)
  • 1/2 cup whole hazelnuts
  • 1 cup fresh parsley (chopped)
  • 1 egg
  • 3 Tbsps panko crumbs
  • 3 Tbsps sour cherry preserves
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 Tbsps duck fat
  • 2 Tbsps cognac (or other brandy)

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 400ºF/205ºC. Separate skin from the duck breasts. Lay the skins along the bottom of the terrine mold/loaf tin.
  • Add the ducks breasts, giblets and pork to a food processor and pulse until mostly broken down and mixed, leave some of the pieces of meat intact.
  • Using a mortar and pestle, grind the peppercorns, mustard seeds and cloves together.
  • Mix together the meat mixture, spices, garlic, shallots, parsley, egg, panko crumbs, salt, duck fat, and cognac. Fold in the hazelnuts and cherry preserves. Spoon this mixture over the skins in the terrine mold, press it down and smooth out. Cover with foil, place in a water bath in the oven and bake for 1 hour.
  • Turn off oven, but leave terrine in the oven for 2 hours without opening the door. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. Slice the terrine and serve with crusty bread. Remaining terrine can be re-covered and stored in the fridge.
Keyword Duck, Duck Breast, Duck Giblets, Hazelnut, Pork

And now for the details…

I am sure I am not the only one, but I have been dreaming and reminiscing of travelling a LOT lately. One of the ways I have been trying to feed my travel bug is through food. I have been doing this a number of ways, like finding new and imported foods (I tried Spanish Lomo for the first time that I got from our local Italian grocer, soooo yummy), getting takeaway from different restaurants (for those in Calgary, I would be remiss to not recommend Bar Von Der Fels, UNA Pizza or Myung Ga), and the last way I have been feeding my travel bug is through trying to recreate foods that we have had when we have been travelling. That last case is where this recipe came from. I was reminiscing of our trip to France several years ago; in particular the spread we would set up for ourselves in the late morning from the goodies we picked up at the local marchés. One of the items I fell in love with there were the terrines. There would be a selection of different terrines, and could including a wide variety of meats, like duck, pork or rabbit. I would simply tell the vendor how thick of a slice I would like and they would cut off the generous slab of terrine and wrap it in thick butcher paper, and hand it over for us to take home. We would pick up baguettes on the way back to where we were staying and then have the terrine with the fresh, crusty bread and a generous dollop of mustard. Oh boy. I am drooling.

If you have never had a terrine before and are looking at the ingredients and thinking “this looks a lot like a meatloaf”… yep! Think of a terrine as a cousin to the traditional North American meatloaf. After all, they are both meat dishes made in a loaf pan and baked in the oven. But the terrine differs in a few ways, one of them being the type of meat used. Terrines often use a mix of different meats, and often use organ meat. In this case, we are using duck and pork, which leaves the delicacy in flavour profile to allow the spices and nuts to also shine. Another way that the terrine often differs is in the fat content. The terrine is usually higher in fat, which is one of the reason why it has some spreadability when smushing it over a piece of crusty bread, or scooping it up with crackers. In our case, we are getting some of the fat content from the pork, but also from the duck skin and the duck fat that is being added to the mix. Finally, terrines are usually served cold or at room temperature. I like to serve it on a plate with other delicious charcuterie bits with mustard and fresh bread, trying to mimic the experience we had (which seems so long ago) in France.

So let’s get to making this thing.

First things first: preheat the oven! Always a good first step, so we do not get to the end of preparation, and then need to wait for the oven to catch up. We are going surprisingly high heat here, 400ºF/205ºC.

Next step, let’s get to the ingredients. The good news: since we have a decent amount of fat here, there is no need to grease the pan! We start by separating the duck skin from the duck breast. The easiest way to do this is to start at an end that the skin is already “floppy” off the meat. You should be able to pinch the meat with one hand, and pinch the skin in the other and start to pull them apart. There will be some connective tissue, so when it starts to pull at the skin a bit too much and you see the skin tearing, use a small knife and cut through the piece connecting the skin to the meat, and then continue to pull apart. Place the skins in your loaf pan and spread them out so they are covering most of the bottom of the pan.

The next step will be to get our spices ready. If you have a spice grinder, feel free to use that, I have an ol’ fashioned mortar and pestle, so that is what I went with. Grind the mustard seeds, peppercorns and cloves until mostly broken down, but leaving a couple little chunks. I feel they add some character and make the dish a bit more charmingly unrefined.

Our next step is to get the meat ready. I got my pork ground so I did not have to mess with a grinder. For the duck, I threw the giblets and duck breasts all together in a food processor and gave them a few whirs to break them down mostly, but leaving a few chunky bits, to try and get that coarse element to the terrine.

The last step is to mix all the ingredients together. I left the hazelnuts and cherry preserves for last, and mixed everything else quite well with my hands. Then, I folded the nuts and preserves in so the preserves did not fully mix in with the rest and you could get occasional bites where the cherries shone through. Pout the entire mixture into the pan over the skins, and press it down.

Finally, it is time to cover the loaf with foil and place in the oven. We will be placing it into a water bath, or bain-marie, to keep the cooking consistent. Place the loaf pan in a larger pan, and fill the outer pan with boiling water until it comes at least halfway up the pan with the terrine. Make sure you do not overfill, we do not want water coming into the terrine pan! Bake the terrine for one hour, then, NO PEEKING, turn off the oven and let the terrine rest for another two hours without opening the oven door.

If you want to go really traditional, this last step is for you! Take the terrine out of the oven, and place a heavy weight directly onto the meat while it cools to room temperature. Some terrine pans have the press included, but there are other DIY options. You could use another loaf pan that is the same size, placing it on top and adding in some weight. You could wrap some cardboard in tin foil and put the weight on top. Or, I have even seen a suggestion to use a brick! What to use as the weight? You could use canned goods, literal hand weights or anything you can find that weighs a few pounds (Julia Child recommends up to 5 pounds!) and you can balance on top of the terrine and press while it cools. The purpose of this step is to compress the terrine as it cools to keep it from forming air bubbles, contracting, and losing its consistency.

Once the terrine has cooled, you can either cut it right out of the pan (this is what we did, no dinner parties for us right now, so let’s just eat!) or flip the terrine onto a plate to serve.

Happy eating

Instant Pot Duck Breast (from frozen) with Baby King Oyster Mushrooms

Instant Pot Duck Breast with Baby King Oyster Mushrooms

Duck breast with crispy skin, done from frozen in the Instant Pot and finished on the stove, with a currant sauce and miso glazed king oyster mushrooms.
Print Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Course Main Course
Servings 2 duck breasts

Ingredients
  

Duck Breast with Currant Sauce

  • 2 duck breasts (frozen)
  • 1 cup red currants (frozen)
  • 1/2 cup port or sherry
  • 1/2 cup chicken broth
  • 3 Tbsps roasted garlic jelly
  • 1/2 tsp salt (more if needed, to taste)

Miso-glazed Mushrooms

  • 11 oz baby king oyster mushroom
  • 2 garlic cloves minced
  • 3 Tbsps brandy, port or sherry
  • 1 tsp cane sugar
  • 1 tsp red miso paste
  • 3 Tbsps hot water
  • salt (to taste)

Instructions
 

Duck Breast with Currant Sauce

  • Pour the port, broth, and currants into the bottom of the instant pot. Add the rack into the pot, then place the duck breasts, skin side up, on the rack and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp salt. Cook on Poultry setting under pressure for 23 minutes (resulted in doneness of medium-well). Release the steam, take out the duck breast, score the skin in a crisscross pattern and sprinkle with more salt, then sear on a medium-high heat pan until the skin has browned, remove from pan and set aside. Pour the rendered duck fat into a bowl and set aside. Add the currants and liquid from the instant pot pan with the garlic jelly. Cook down, stirring regularly, to half the original volume. Remove from heat, strain out the pips, then pour over the duck breast and serve.

Miso-glazed Mushrooms

  • Add the garlic for the mushrooms to the pan into the rendered duck fat. Once the garlic starts to brown, add the mushrooms and some salt. Stir regularly, until the mushrooms have browned and started to soften. Then add the brandy and cook down. Mix the miso paste with the water, then add to the pan with the sugar, and cook until almost all the liquid is cooked out. Serve with the duck.
Keyword Dinner, Duck, Duck Breast, Frozen, Instant Pot, Mushrooms

And now for the details…

I was at a loss for what to make for dinner this past Sunday afternoon and decided to raid our freezer to see what I could find. I had some frozen duck breast tucked into the freezer and thought “sure, why not?”

I assumed I would be able to find some kind of recipe online for an Instant Pot duck breast cooked from frozen, but all I could find was a recipe for a stew. It probably would have been good, but I was craving duck breast on it’s own, with that nice crispy skin… a little salty, a little fatty, mmmmmmmm…. *ahem* Anyhow, since I could not find a recipe… I made one up 😛

Now, I do say from frozen for the duck breast, but I did need to let them thaw just a little, since they had those soft, thin pieces in the package meant to absorb liquid; which were frozen solid onto the meat. I let it defrost just enough to be able to peel them off without ending up with a bunch of frozen plastic pieces adhered to my bird. When it made it to the pot, though, it was still pretty much rock-hard with the exception of a thin layer on the exterior (you can actually see some ice still on the meat in the photo!)

Place the breasts on the rack in the pot, skin side up, to keep it out of the liquid. Under the meat goes the port, broth and currants. Plus, of course, I sprinkled a bit of salt on top. Make sure your pot lid is set to “Sealing”, and then let it cook on “poultry” setting for about 23 minutes. This resulted in a doneness level of about medium-well. You could probably adjust to a little less or a little more if you would prefer a different level of doneness. If you are able to get the duck out of the package while it’s still frozen all the way through, I would add on a couple minutes.

While the duck is cooking, we can start to prepare the mushrooms. I found these baby king oyster mushrooms at T&T, our asian supermarket, where I went shopping with my husband and in-laws after we went for dim sum earlier that morning. As you know, I enjoy not just cooking and eating, but also shopping for ingredients. I love shopping at T&T, since the ingredient options are often quite different than the “standard western” grocery options. And I really love going there with my in-laws, since I will get all kinds of suggestions and advice from them on produce I am unfamiliar with, like whether the produce is is in good shape, if it is in season, or suggestions for different produce I would not know to take home. My husband finds these shopping trips amusingly frustrating with the three of us, since we tend to scatter and reform, which my husband, of course, refers to as “herding cats”. Mama and papa know that I LOVE mushrooms, particularly shimeji and king oyster, and brought over the baby king oysters. I was really excited to cook these. They looked so good; plump little morsels, ready to be fried up for dinner! Even though they looked fairly clean in the package, papa suggested I wash them and trim the ends anyhow, and so I did.

Attempting to maintain a pseudo-asian flavour for the mushrooms, I decided to fry them up and glaze them with some miso. If you cook your duck breast first, you can reserve the rendered duck fat (see below for more details) and cook the mushrooms in that after you’ve fried the duck breasts. For me, I happened to have some rendered goose fat in the fridge from foie gras I had made a few weeks before, so I melted some of that in the pan, and then started to sauté my mushrooms and garlic.

Add a pinch of salt to the pan and sauté the mushrooms and garlic. This will seem like a counterintuitive thing for me to say: but don’t add too much salt. The miso has some saltiness to it, and it is better to taste test and add a bit more towards the end than end up with too much salt. Cook the mushrooms until they start to soften and get patches of golden brown. Once that happens, add the brandy and allow it to cook down until there is almost no liquid left in the pan, stirring regularly.

While the brandy is cooking down, add the miso to the hot water and mix until the miso is mostly dissolved. Add the mixture to your pan, and sprinkle with the sugar, and again stir regularly while cooking down the liquid until a smooth glossy finish coats your mushrooms, and there is little to no liquid in the pan.

By now, the duck should be done. Allow the pressure to release from your instant pot, and open to reveal your beautifully cooked duck breast. Oh. Wait. Not so beautiful yet. The skin is all soggy looking and it appears as if the breast as been boiled. Ew.

We can fix that right quick. Remove the breasts from the pot, reserving the liquid, and score the skin in a criss-cross pattern with a sharp knife. Sprinkle the skin with salt, and then place in a dry pan at just below high heat. You may want to tilt and hold the meat in a few directions on the pan to crisp up the skin on all sides.

As you cook the skin and it starts crisping to a nice golden brown, it will be releasing a whole heck of a lot of fat. This fat can be used to cook your mushrooms, or you can pour it into a Tupperware and store it in the fridge to use as an olive oil or butter replacement in another dish later on.

Once the skin has crisped to your desired level of doneness, remove the breasts from the pan and let them rest to the side. Pour the fat from the pan into a container of choice, then pour the liquid from the instant pot (you almost forgot about that, didn’t you?) into the pan. Reduce the heat to medium high, and add the garlic jelly, stirring to dissolve the jelly in the liquid. Allow the liquid to reduce by about half, and then strain to remove the pips and skin from the currants. Then, slice the duck breasts across the grain into nice, moist (yes, I used the descriptor moist) slices, and spoon the sauce on top. Serve with mushrooms and enjoy!

Happy eating.