Duck Breasts with Blackberry Sauce
Pechugas de Pato con Salsa de Zarsamora
Hacienda de los Morales, in Mexico City, once a magnificent colonial mansion, is now a renowned restaurant surrounded by beautiful gardens. This restaurant is in the upscale Polanco zone of the city where many new-style restaurants are located. The ambiance and service are top-notch, and the food has drawn my husband and me back on many occasions for more than twenty years. One of the Mexican specialties is roast duck, and I base my recipe on a wonderful dish served with tart-sweet blackberry sauce. Wild blackberries grow in Mexico, and farm-raised berries are also grown now. Maggi seasoning extract is popular in Mexico and is also widely available in supermarkets here.
Equipment
Ingredients
- Makes 4 servings
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped white onion
- 1 medium garlic clove thinly sliced
- ¼ cup unseasoned rice vinegar
- ½ cup thawed frozen unsweetened blackberries
- 1 cup canned fat-free reduced-sodium chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ teaspoon Maggi seasoning extract or more Worcestershire sauce
- ¼ cup seedless blackberry jam
- ½ teaspoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 teaspoon broth
- ½ teaspoon salt or to taste
- ⅛ teaspoon freshly ground pepper or to taste
- 4 boneless duck breast halves skin on
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, put the onion, garlic, and vinegar.
- Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and boil until reduced by half, about 3 minutes.
- Add the blackberries, broth, Worcestershire, and Maggi.
- Boil, stirring frequently, until the sauce is reduced to about ½ cup, about 10 to 12 minutes.
- Pour the sauce through a strainer into a bowl, pressing to extract all the juices.
- Discard the debris in the strainer.
- Return the sauce to the pan.
- Add the jam and stir until the jam melts.
- Add the cornstarch, salt, and pepper.
- Cook, stirring, until slightly thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Reserve off heat.
- Heat a large heavy skillet over medium heat.
- Arrange the duck breasts skin side down in the dry pan.
- Season with the remaining salt.
- Cook without turning until the skin is nicely browned, 8 to 10 minutes.
- (Fat renders as the duck cooks, and the skin becomes a bit crisp.
- Take care not to blacken the skin.
- ) Turn and cook the second side until medium rare, 4 to 5 minutes or medium, 6 minutes.
- Transfer to a plate and let rest 5 minutes.
- Reheat the sauce over low heat.
- Add to the sauce the juices that collected on the plate with the duck.
- Thinly slice each duck breast crosswise on a diagonal.
- Spoon a portion of the sauce on each of 4 serving plates.
- Fan the duck breasts on top of the sauce on each plate.
