Roasted strips of fat duck breast magret with mirabelle plums

Chef Patrick Asfaux

Service for : 8 people

Ingredients:

5 nice moulard duck magrets
1 pound of mirabelle plums (fresh or deep frozen or even peeled and sliced apples if you cannot find mirabelle plums
600 grams (1 1/3 pounds)of peeled ferm potatoes
1 peeled and cored Granny Smith apple
16 thin slices of smoked duck magret
Butter, table salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the sweet and sour sauce ('gastrique' in French) :

1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
1 soupspoon of liquid honey
1/2 cup of orange juice
1 cup of prepared veal stock
5 grams (1 teaspoon) of allspices

Directions:

1/ Remove a little fat from the magrets and using a sharp knife, make a few crossed incisions (deep bu not all the way through the skin) in the skin of all magrets and remove the small nerve on the flesh side.
2/ In a large frying pan over high heat, cook the magrets (without adding any fat) skin side down and roast them during 8 minutes so that they are well browned then cook them 3 minutes skin side up, season them with salt and pepper.
3/ Remove most of the rendered fat from the pan (keep only a little to sauté the potatoes.
4/ In a casserole dish, out of the heat, place a soup plate bottom up, put the magrets on it and cover with a lid : the magrets will become tender while you continue to make the recipe.
5/ Cut your potatoes in thin slices, then in long and thin sticks then in tiny cubes and pour them into water.
6/ Do the same than in 5/ with the apple and keep it aside separatly.
7/ Prepare the sweet and sour sauce in a saucepan : pour the vinegar and the honey, reduce it and just before getting a caramel, add the orange juice. Make it reduce again (to half quantity), then add the veal stock and the allspices. Cook it very slowly during 7 to 8 minutes.
8/ In the meantime, heat a frying pan with a teaspoon of butter. Thoroughly drain the potatoes and sauté them during 7 to 8 minutes. Add salt and pepper only at the last moment, then add the apple and keep aside the whole (together) out of the heat.
9/ In the same frying pan, add another teaspoon of butter then pour the mirabelle plums (still frozen if you do not use fresh fruit)and let them melt during 4 minutes then add the sweet and sour sauce plus the juice rendered by the duck magrets. The sauce is now ready : keep it hot in a 'bain marie'
10/ In the bottom of 8 small individual 'crème caramel' moulds, put 2 thin slices of smoked magrets as a cross and put the potatoe/apple cubes (well packed).
11/ Heat the magrets during 3 minutes in the oven (390°F) and the moulds, then make quite thin slices with the magrets (cut in their width).
In the middle of each nice service plate, remove from a mould the potatoes/apple topped with the smoked magret slices, put around it the roasted magret slices and top them with the sweet and sour sauce.
And now look at your guest faces ...

You can prepare in advance the moulds and the sauce and you can roast the magrets just before the arrival of your guests. Just before going to eat, you only need to heat the sauce and the potatoes/apple, so that you can spend more time with your guests.