Ingredients:
2 duck breasts
oil / duck fat
sea salt, black pepper
Sauce:
25g granulated sugar
2 oranges
100ml red wine
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 shallot
1 star anise
juice from one orange
chicken stock
To make the sauce:
Put the sugar and 25ml of water in a pan and cook over a low heat, stirring regularly, until the sugar has dissolved. Add the washed and cut oranges, and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove oranges from the syrup and set aside. Turn up the heat and boil until it turns the colour of caramel. Add the red wine, vinegar, shallot, and star anise and bring back to boil. Simmer until the liquid has reduced by half, then add the orange juice and chicken stock. Simmer until the sauce has reduced, and is rich and syrupy. Taste for seasoning and add salt if necessary, and plenty of black pepper. Add the oranges back to the sauce.
For the duck, cut a criss-cross pattern through the skin and fat of the duck breasts. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat the oil or duck fat in a pan. When it’s close to smoking point, add the duck breasts, skin-side down, and fry them until the skin is rich golden-brown and a great deal of fat has rendered out (this will take 6-7 minutes). Flip the breasts over and sear them for a further 4 minutes. Remove from the pan and leave them to rest.
Strain off most of the fat from the frying pan, then pout it into the sauce. Finally, add any juices from the resting duck. Simmer until piping hot and very syrupy, then serve the sauce with the sliced duck breasts.
Source: Book