- 4
Ingredients
- 4 SERVINGS
- • 1 whole pekin duck breast – split
- • 1/4 cup Shaoxing cooking wine, other rice wine or Sherry
- • 1 quart duck and veal demi-glace
- • 1 small stick of cinnamon
- • 1 piece star anise
- • 1 tablespoon Hoisin sauce
- • 4 fresh figs
- • 1 duck leg confit, meat and fat shredded and combined
- • 1 tablespoon green scallions thinly sliced on the bias
- • 4 Mu Shu wrappers (optional)
- • 4 strings scallion, blanched (optional)
- • Salt and pepper
Preparation
Step 1
1. Render the Ducks: score the skin to facilitate the melting of the fat (do not pierce the flesh). Season both sides of each breast with salt and pepper. Heat a sauté pan. When hot, add the duck breast skin side down and immediately turn the heat to the lowest setting. As fat accumulates, pour excess from the pan. You will need to degrease the pan several times before the ducks are fully rendered. When the skin is light brown and shrunken, but the meat is still raw, remove to a rack, skin side up to cool.
2. Make the Sauce: bring the rice wine to a boil and reduce by two-thirds. Add the demi-glace, cinnamon and star anise and reduce until thickened slightly. Season with Hoisin, salt and pepper. Strain, taste and adjust.
3. Make the Fig Beggar’s Purses: blanch 1 stalk scallion, refresh in ice water and shred into 4 long strings. Cut the tips off the figs and starting from the top, make 3 incisions two-thirds of the way down to the base of the fig to open the fig up like a flower. Mix the shredded confit meat and fat with the scallion and stuff each fig. Wrap in the Mu Shu crèpe and tie with the scallion string to form the purses. (to simplify, omit the crèpe wrapper).
4. Just before serving, heat a pan, add oil and when smoking add the rendered breasts skin side down. Recrisp to a dark brown, turn and finish to desired doneness. Let rest off heat for 10 minutes and then carve into thin, length-wise slices. While the meat is resting, steam the beggar’s purses over boiling water.
5. To Serve: place 1.5 to 2 ounces of sauce on each plate, place a beggar’s purse off center and fan the duck breast next to it.