Pan Roasted Duck Breast with Lemon Herb Gremolata
If you can cook chicken, you can pan roast a duck breast–and likely enjoy the outcome even more than the usual “white meat”. So simple, so elegant, and so darned good that you’ll be looking for excuses to serve this “fancy” recipe.
Servings Prep Time
2people 15minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
15minutes 2-4 hours
Servings Prep Time
2people 15minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
15minutes 2-4 hours
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Dry duck breasts with a paper towel to remove any extra moisture. Cut crisscross pattern in the skin side of the meat.
  2. Mince 2 cloves of garlic, and add 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper to create garlic paste. Smear garlic paste all over skin side of duck, making sure to get the garlic into the cuts on the skin. Refrigerate for 2-4 hours.
  3. Remove duck from refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature, about 20 minutes. Preheat heavy iron skillet over high heat. Once skillet is blazing hot (you should not be able to hold your hand over the skillet for more than 3 seconds), place duck, skin side down, into pan. Be sure to have a splatter guard ready as there will be a lot of fat from the duck skin and it will surely splatter. (see recipe note below for alternative cooking method)
  4. Sear duck breasts for 6-8 minutes on skin side, and then turn and sear for 4 additional minutes, or until the duck is cooked through. Use an instant read thermometer and pull it off of the heat when it reaches 130-135 degrees. Remove from pan and allow to rest for 10 minutes to allow juices to resettle into the duck.
  5. While the duck rests, make the gremolata. Zest the lemon, and add additional clove of minced garlic, final 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of pepper.
  6. Add finely chopped parsley and half of juice from the lemon, about 2 tbsp. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil and whisk with a fork.
  7. Serve gremolata over the duck and orzo, or any other grain of your choice. Be sure to get those pan juices on the plate, too–there is a lot of flavor in there, too!
Recipe Notes

Recipe Notes:

1. Gremolata is a fancy word for a mixture of citrus, herbs and garlic.  There are many variations, but the one used here is closer to the classic recipe seen in many restaurants.  It’s super simple, and can be used as a salad dressing or as a flavor punch to nearly any protein.  Never zested a lemon?  So simple.  Get yourself one of these little kitchen helpers, and you’ll be zesting every citrus fruit that comes through your kitchen.

2. If you want to be very fancy schmancy, there is an argument to start with an unheated skillet, and allow the duck to come up to full temp slowly.  This allows the fat from the skin to “render”, and provides a different way to get a crispy skin on the duck.  The rendered fat can be kept in the fridge for quite a long time, and is AWESOME when frying other items like french fries or other starches.  People pay big bucks for duck fat, so making your own is a much smarter move if you’re able to do it!

3. I know that if you read the recipe, you are probably freaking out when I talked about the internal temp for the duck.  Don’t panic!  Duck is meant to be served medium to medium rare. No, really.  Anything beyond that and it becomes a dry, tasteless, stringy bird.  If you can’t take it with the duck at that temp, go ahead and cook it closer to medium well (if you just HAVE to), but I promise you will be OK–and become a convert.

Served with any hearty grain and a mixed green salad, this dish really does impress.  I used orzo because it’s what I had on hand, and it worked really well.

**This recipe is out of a recent magazine (although I cannot for the life of me remember which one it was!). I promise to post a link once I find the darned thing!**