Recipes

Recipe: Dry-Aged Duck Breast with Beet Pavé, Rainbow Chard and Blackberry Jus

Chef Harris Sakalis pairs crisp-skinned duck with jewel-toned beets, tender rainbow chard and a tart-sweet blackberry sauce.

By Kristi Alexandra /
Evaan Kheraj

Ingredients

Serves 2

Beetroot pavé

  • 3 to 4 medium Hannah Brook beets
  • 100 ml clarified butter
  • 10 sprigs thyme
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Duck stock

  • 1 kg duck bones or duck wings (well roasted)
  • 3 L cold water (enough to fully cover bones by 3 to 4 cm)
  • 600 g yellow onions, medium dice
  • 500 g carrots, medium dice
  • 400 g celery, medium dice
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • ½ cup tomato paste
  • 2 tbsp whole black peppercorns
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 6 to 8 sprigs thyme
  • 2 sprigs rosemary

Duck

  • 2 dry-aged duck breasts, skin on
  • Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper
  • 1 sprig thyme (optional)
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed (optional)

Rainbow chard

  • 1 bunch rainbow chard
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 small shallot, thinly sliced
  • Splash of lemon juice
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Blackberry jus

  • 1 small shallot, finely chopped
  • 150 g blackberries (fresh or frozen)
  • 1 tbsp port wine
  • 250 ml duck stock
  • 1 tbsp cold butter
  • 1 tsp honey
  • Salt, to taste

How to Prepare:

Begin with the beetroot pavé. Preheat oven to 350°F. Peel the beets and slice on a mandolin around 2 cm thick.

Cover a small pan with parchment paper and lay out all the beet slices in layers, ensuring that the slices overlap each other and that you end up with a flat layout of beet. Season each layer with clarified butter, salt and pepper and leaves of fresh thyme. Cover with parchment paper and cook for 1 hour or until soft in the centre. Remove from oven, place a weight on the beets to keep them pressed down, then set in the fridge to cool. When completely cold, flip the pan over and cut the beet pavé into your desired shape. Set aside.

For the duck stock, roast duck bones or duck wings in a preheated 350°F oven for 30 minutes. In a pot, sauté the mirepoix (diced onions, carrots and celery) in olive oil. Add tomato paste and the roasted bones/wings. Bundle peppercorns, bay leaves, thyme and rosemary into cheesecloth (a bouquet garni). Fill the pot with water enough to cover the bones and add the bouquet garni. Simmer on medium heat for 1½ hours. Strain and reduce down to half.

Remove duck from fridge 30 minutes before cooking. Score skin in a crosshatch pattern without cutting into the meat. Season generously with salt and pepper.

Place duck skin-side-down in a cold pan. Cook over medium-low heat for 8 to 10 minutes until fat is rendered and skin is crisp. Flip, add thyme and garlic if using, and cook 2 to 3 minutes more for medium-rare. Rest skin-side-up for 5 to 7 minutes.

To prepare the chard, slice the thickest part of the stem and blanch and shock the whole leaves. In a sauté pan with warm olive oil, add shallots and chard and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes. Squeeze over with lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper.

To prepare the blackberry jus, sauté shallot until soft. Add blackberries and wine and reduce by half. Add duck stock or and simmer, reducing further until glossy. Strain and return to pan. Whisk in cold butter and honey, and season to taste.

After duck has rested, slice on a diagonal bias against the grain.

Pool a small amount of the blackberry jus on the plate and set one piece of chard in the middle of the plate on top of the jus. Set a slice of the beetroot pavé to the left, with a slice of the duck on the right, touching the jus. Decorate with one or two blackberries.

RIGHT-HAND WOMAN: Sous chef Barbara Gregoire ensured the evening’s meal went deliciously to plan. Photo by Evaan Kheraj

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Kristi Alexandra

Kristi Alexandra

Kristi Alexandra is the managing editor, food and culture, at Canada Wide Media. She loves food, travel, film and wine (but most of all, writing about them for Vancouver Magazine, Western Living and BCBusiness). Send any food and culture-related pitches to her at [email protected].