Pan-braised duck breasts with apples and dried apricots

Duck. Duck breast, to be precise. I could call it duck boob, but apparently cooking duck breasts means I’m taking Primitive Kitchen to Versailles. I love duck breasts. Come to that, if it’s duck, I love it.

Long ago, when I was still a complete ignoramus in the kitchen (no exaggeration), I went to China for the first time (around the year 2000). My cousin Olek and I asked a place there to make us Peking duck. We had to ask because you had to order it a day ahead. The woman who ran the place knew us quite well by then, since we’d been eating there every day for several days in Beijing. She asked us a rather unusual question: would we like the duck brought out whole or already portioned up on our plates? We both said on our plates. What did we want to look at a whole bird for? Well, imagine our disappointment when our Peking duck turned up in portions fit for a baby.

We felt cheated, especially as people in China had been trying to rip us off at every turn back then. “I bet the whole kitchen crew stuffed themselves with the duck we paid for,” we thought indignantly. Next time we asked for the whole bird, carved in front of us. And it turned out that this duck was practically a quail. A big bloke wouldn’t exactly fill up on it.

Breasts, though, are another matter. They’re boneless, so almost everything ends up on the plate once they’re cooked, and you can fit several in a pan. A pan, because this recipe is all done in the pan. No oven. I happened to have three rather large breasts and one guest. Perfect, I thought. Except more guests turned up, so it was the Peking duck all over again. Still, I reckon it turned out well, because my guests liked it.

Why the pan? I do whole duck in the oven (there’s one waiting its turn in the freezer, but I’m saving it for an occasion I’m looking forward to), and even that’s only because a whole duck is hard to fit into a frying pan. Pan-cooked duck certainly isn’t as dry as oven-cooked duck. Especially with plenty of wine poured over it.

Unfortunately you can’t see the apples or the apricots in the photo because, well, my picture came out blurry 🙁

At a glance:

Prep time: 200 minutes (otherwise it’ll be tough, and I like it so tender it practically melts on the fork)

Marinating time (that’s seasoning the meat before frying, roasting or boiling it): about 12 hours (you can do it the day before, just before bed)

Serves: 3 people

How many calories? Down by a brook, beside a bush, lived an odd duck with a funny little tush. Instead of sticking to her stream, she went straight to everyone’s rear, it seems (thank you for the applause and the dreadful rhymes. It’s got a…load of calories and then some).

Ingredients for the duck breasts:

• 3 duck breasts
• half a litre of dry red Bordeaux (I bought it for 15 PLN at that shop beginning with L where I went yesterday. I write about it so often you’ll start thinking I’m some sort of Okrasa)
• 4 medium apples
• 25 dried apricots (how I love those apricots)
• two long sprigs of freshly picked rosemary (if you haven’t got any, I reckon you’d need to tip in a whole packet of dried rosemary)
• olive oil
• salt
• mixed peppercorns (whole, not ground)
• hot paprika 

The recipe (entirely my own, as usual):

The day before my duck dinner (in the evening at the latest, that is, 12 hours before I start cooking), I marinate the breasts with fresh leaves from two long sprigs of rosemary (which I wash and dry with kitchen paper first), salt, pepper (crushed in my hands, no pepper mills) and hot paprika (just a little for flavour). I drizzle a few drops of olive oil over the meat (about half a tablespoon) and use my hands to mix the seasonings in well. I put the meat in the fridge in a bowl covered with kitchen foil.

The next day, 3 hours before I plan to serve dinner, I heat olive oil in a frying pan and, once it’s hot, lay the breasts from my ducks in it (there are three breasts, so I can safely use the plural). I start by browning the side with the thick skin (that’s where most of that delicious, deadly fat will render out). Importantly, I don’t wash the breasts or wipe off the marinade. They go straight from the bowl of marinade into the pan, making sure most of the seasonings (chiefly the rosemary) go in too.

After about 4 minutes (I’m frying over a medium “flame”, 6 on a scale of 1 to 10), I turn the boobs over and fry the other side for about 3–4 minutes too. Then I turn them skin side down again. I fry them for 3 minutes (taking care not to burn them) and pour in about 150 millilitres of dry red wine. When the wine has evaporated, I add about 200 millilitres more and start peeling the apples. I peel four medium apples (fairly firm and slightly tart. I don’t know my apple varieties, maybe someone can tell me which ones are best). I cut them into little strips (about 2 centimetres thick) and set them aside in a bowl.

Now I slice the apricots into little strips too (about 3–4 millimetres wide this time). Once I’ve cut them all and I can see the wine in the pan has evaporated, I add the apricots. After a minute of frying I throw in the apples. I fry them for about another minute and add 150 millilitres of wine. I cover the pan with a lid and braise everything over a low heat (3, occasionally up to 4, on a scale of 1 to 10) for the next 100 minutes. Now and then I turn the breasts over, covering them with the apples and apricots. When I see the “sauce” getting low, I add a little more wine. After roughly two and a half hours, the duck breast is ready.

Don’t panic if it turns very dark. On one side it’s protected by the skin, which I wouldn’t really recommend eating because it goes straight to your arse. On the other, you just have to make sure it doesn’t burn. A slightly crisp crust is ideal. I serve the duck with beetroot and kopytka potato dumplings, topping the dumplings with the apples and apricots and spooning that deliciously deadly duck fat over them. Enjoy!