Sous vide duck breast, duck skin crumble, and duck heart with chocolate and beetroot 3 ways

I'm on a mission to use up everything in the freezer and there's been a Gressingham duck in there for a while. Not anymore. That sucker has been defrosting in the fridge for the last 2 days. Time for a run on duckie. I’m thinking maybe 4 dishes over the next few days—one using the breasts, another with confit duck legs, and because there was a lovely bag of goodies inside the carcass, maybe a couple more putting the liver, heart, gizzards and neck to good use. Yeah, I’ll do that.

When we cooked duck at Le Cordon Bleu we invariably cooked the breasts with the skin on, in a pan then into the oven. This time I wanted to do something different—sous vide and naked. That is, skin off. I still wanted crispy skin though. I mean, who wouldn’t? So…LET’S GET READY TO CRUMMMBLLE. Oh no. The Ant and Dec song has just shot into my head. Now I’ll be humming it all day. Anyway, think little nuggets and dust of crispy duck skin.

Jointing the duck was straight forward. Singe and trim. Wings off. Bye bye Parson’s nose. Wishbone out. Legs off, carefully preserving the oyster meat. Fillets patiently peeled away from the breast bone. I removed the skin from the breast meat and cut away the excess fat from the underside of the skin. A carpet of skin was then laid out on baking paper, wrapped in cling film, and put in the freezer. I’ll tell you more later. The fillets were tidied up, removing any sinews and silverskin. I also detached the tenderloins—those thin strips of beautifully lean meat lurking beneath each main fillet. Lastly, the carcass was chopped up and reserved for a jus along with the wings, neck, wishbone and other trimmings.

Duck breasts and tenderloins vac-packed with olive oil and sprigs of thyme

Pickled Chioggia or Candy Stripe beetroot

Duck breast, here I come. Sous vide duck breast and duck skin crumble with dark chocolate and beetroot. We know beetroots can be used in chocolate cake. And haute cuisine masters have garnished duck with chocolate sauce forever. So combining beetroots, chocolate and duck makes total sense. Grin.

Onwards McDuck. The duck breasts and tenderloins were vac-packed with olive oil and sprigs of thyme then cooked in the water bath at 57C for an hour. The nice pink duck meat should look fab on the plate next to the beetroot.

Time to skin up. Now frozen, the duck skin went into the food processor. Pulse, pulse, into small pieces and into a pan over a low heat. As the fat slowly rendered out the skin fired and crisped up a treat. Once golden brown it was strained then spread out on kitchen paper. While still hot I added salt and a dusting of allspice.

I wanted to showcase 2 types of beetroot prepared in different ways but then I came across the concept of fluid gel. Here’s another funky video. It had to be done—another job for Beast. So I figured beetroot 3 ways. Roasted Boltardy beetroot. Pickled Chioggia or Candy Stripe beetroot. And a fluid gel, which I made using beetroot juice. What a cheat.

The Candy Stripes were sliced on the mandolin. You’ll never get the slices thin enough if you use a knife. Then into a solution of Chardonnay vinegar, water, sugar and salt—ideally for an hour, longer than that and the white rings start to turn pink. As I found out! Again!! Bugger.

The Boltardy were wrapped in foil with a little salt and roasted in the oven. Later, once they’d cooled a bit, the skin was scraped away and balls were scooped out using a Parisienne. To serve, the balls were warmed slightly in the oven and brushed with a little clarified butter to give them a shine.

Fluid gel looks great and packs a real flavour punch. It’s a bit mad scientist, but not too much. A mix of low-acyl gellan gum, xanthan gum and salt was dispersed in the beetroot juice laced with balsamic vinegar. The xanthan gum basically thickens the liquid into a gel while the gellan gum makes it smooth and shiny. I used my hand blender on its lowest setting with the the frother fitted being careful not to aerate the mixture too much. The mixture was heated to 95C over a medium heat to hydrate the gellan gum, then rapidly chilled over an ice bath. This is when the gel forms. I stirred slowly for a few minutes before placing the bath in the fridge to cool completely and fully set.

Once chilled it was over to the Beast. Blend on low. Blending too quickly sucks in air making the gel cloudy. This is bad because removing air bubbles gives serious grief to the gluteus maximus. You want a dense, translucent gel.

The last act was to pass the gel through a fine drums sieve. The resultant gel has a deep burgundy colour and coats the tongue with sweet, earthy beetroot flavour with an acidic tang. Yum.

It’s super stable and versatile on the plate. It keeps in the fridge for up to a week and can be frozen. FTW.

The last preparation was to melt some dark chocolate in a Bain Marie and load it into a piping bag. Yip. Choc-o-late. The bitter chocolate worked well with the duck. By hanging the sealed piping bag over the edge of the pan and in the warm water, the choc stayed melted until service.

When the duck came out of the bath it was patted dry and sliced into straight goujons. Seasoning was required. The tenderloins were chef’s treat. Nom.

At the last minute I decided to include the duck heart. This was divided into 2 and quickly sautéed in olive oil so it stayed pink in the middle.

A goujon went onto a warm plate with a generous sprinkle of crumble along the top. Then a couple of folded pickles and some mustard leaves to garnish. A carefully aimed squirt of fluid gel alongside plus a roast beetroot ball. A squirt of chocolate on the other side. 2 more beetroot balls. The duck heart came next. I also served some blanched spinach finished in butter with a pinch of cracked black pepper.

Roberta thought the recipe needed either chocolate or the beetroot gel but not both. She might be right. I tasted both together before plating up and thought they worked ok.

Duck, beetroot’n choc