Gressingham Duck With Cherry Sauce

This roast Gressingham Duck is served with a Madeira and fresh Cherry sauce. For the braised side-dish we are taking a leaf vegetable which belong to the daisy family of plants called Endive, which can be cooked or used raw in salads. Fresh cherries are needed for this recipe to bring a beautiful flavour to the duck breasts.

Gressingham Duck With Cherry Sauce Recipe

Serves 4

Recipe Ingredients:

4 Gressingham duck breasts (the skin lightly scored)
2 shallots (finely sliced)
50g button mushrooms
250ml Madeira wine
100ml brown chicken stock
100g fresh cherries (stoned and halved)
small knob of butter
100g pak choi (shredded)
Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the braised endive:

2 large endives
50g butter
50ml Grand Marnier (or another orange liqueur)
50ml orange juice
Icing (powdered) sugar for dusting

Recipe Method:

Preheat the oven to 190˚C/Gas 7.

In order to make the reduced Madeira sauce first we need to sauté the chopped shallots in some hot olive oil, then add the mushrooms and cook through until golden. Once sautéed deglaze the pan with the Madeira wine (this is done by pouring a little fortified wine in the hot pan to release any flavoured bits). Allow the Madeira to bubble and reduce for a few minutes, then add the chicken stock. This then needs to be reduce down again, until thickened, and then strained though a sieve and set aside.

Heat a large, oven-proof frying pan until it is very hot. Season the duck breasts with the sea-salt and black pepper, and place, skin-side down, in the pan. Cook for 2 minutes until golden brown, then turn and sear briefly on the other side. Transfer the frying pan to the preheated oven – cook for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and set aside to rest in a warm place for 5 minutes for the meat to rest.

Using the frying pan which cooked the gressingham duck add the reduced Madeira sauce and the fresh cherries (stoned and halved). Cook until the cherries just begin to soften. Add a small knob of butter towards the end, to ad a bit of gloss, and stir well

For the Braised Endive: Strip off all the leaves – dust with a little icing sugar to coat. The leaves then need to be caramelised in a hot pan with a little butter. Deglaze the pan with a dash of grand marnier (or another orange liqueur) add the orange juice and simmer until the leaves are tender and the sauce has reduced and thickened a little.

In a separate frying pan stir-fry the shredded pak choi for 2 minutes in a little olive oil – season with a little salt and pepper.

Arrange on a warmed plate the endive leaves (drain them slightly from the pan) and then spoon on top some of the shredded pak choi. Slice the duck breast lengthways through the middle, to make 2 flat halves. Arrange the duck slices on top of the pak choi and drizzle the Madeira and Cherry sauce over the top and around the plate.