More than one way to have your duck

One of the things I like about living in NZ is the easy availability of duck. I could occasionally find it in Sydney supermarkets but not often, while in NZ whole duck, duck legs and duck breasts are readily available at the supermarket.
It happens though that buying either the legs or breasts separately is a rather expensive exercise. It's $20 for the whole bird, but $17.50 for the legs and $17.50 for the breasts.
What this means is that you either have whole roast duck each time or you learn how to cut the pieces off separately. Because it is expensive you don't want to waste any of that precious meat as you cut it up. However, this article is not about how to joint a duck as I am purely an amateur, but I did buy a whole duck last week and jointed it myself. I should have taken a picture of the results as I was pretty pleased with the effort
On an aside, being such a duck fan has got the neighbours worried as there are plenty of (live) ducks on the estuary fronting the house and feel their lives could be at risk (the same goes for the 20 odd quail on the estate). More pictures of the estate are here.

This is the recipe for the breasts:

Roast duck with red wine poached pears:

Preparation Time: 20 -85 minutes -
Cooking Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients (serves 2)
2 large pears, peeled
5OOml (2 cups) red wine (such as merlot)
250ml (1 cup) water
óOml (1/4 cup) creme de cassis (see note.)
2 tbs caster sugar
1 x 7cm cinnamon stick
2 (175g each) duck breast fillets, skin on, excess fat trimmed
Sea salt flakes
125m1 (1/2 cup) chicken stock
1 tbs balsamic vinegar

Method

Preheat oven to 160 °C. Use a small knife to remove the base of each pear so they sit upright.

Combine the wine, water, cassis, sugar and cinnamon in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Add pears and cook, turning occasionally, for 20 minutes or until tender. Set aside for 1 hour to cool.

Meanwhile, use a sharp knife to score the skin of each duck breast at 1cm intervals. Rub the duck with sea salt flakes and set aside for 15 minutes to develop flavours. Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the duck, skin-side down, and cook for 5 minutes each side or until golden. Transfer to an ovenproof dish and cover with foil. Bake in oven for 10 minutes for medium or until cooked to your liking.

Use a slotted spoon to transfer the pears to a bowl, reserving 125ml (1/2 cup) of the poaching liquid. Place 2 teaspoons of liquid from the dish used to cook the duck in a saucepan. Add the stock, vinegar and reserved poaching liquid. Bring to the boil over high heat. Boil for 3-5 minutes or until reduced by half. Add pears and cook for 5 minutes or until heated through.

Thickly slice the duck across the grain and divide among serving plates. Serve with the pears and sauce.

Notes & tips

You can prepare this recipe to the end of step 2 up to 1 day ahead. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. Continue from step 3 up to 1 hour before serving.
Note: Creme de cassis is a blackcurrant liqueur.
Be careful not to use too much salt. My version came out a little salty for my liking. You could safely skip the step altogether.

The accompaniment
I made a Potato Galette to go with this.

Overall Result
Nothing short of superb - let down by the salt so 9.5/10

I will leave the recipe I used for the legs for another post