Pan Fried Duck Breast with Orange, Thyme, Parsley, and Juniper Berry Rub with Blood Orange Relish - Valentine's Day Part 2

Ok, so Valentine's Day part 2, The Meal.
I don't think that I can get everything that we ate into this one little blog post so I'm going to explain the duck with its luscious Orange relish, then tomorrow I will go into detail about the side dishes. Yes, we totally went all out with this meal but it was oh so worth it. And come on, it's Valentine's day, I had to show my man how much I loved him by filling his pie hole with as much good food as I could muster up.

I love duck, and I adore it even more with a fruity sauce, but I have never had the guts to actually cook the bird. What if I screwed up, that’s a 12 dollar hunk of meat. But, when I went to the store early Valentine's day morning to get the sickie his Captain Crunch, I saw that there was a sale on Magret duck breasts and decided that if I screwed up, it wouldn’t cost us as much. I also saw Anthony Sedlak making this duck recipe a couple times on TV and he made it look quite easy, so I was feeling adventurous.

Really, it was just as easy as he made it seem. The key is to pan fry the duck at a low temperature and the fat literally melts away. If you keep spooning the fat out of the pan then the skin becomes delicious and crispy, giving you half a cup of duck fat to freeze and make all kinds of delightful dishes with. Then just pop the duck breast into the oven for another few minutes to finish it off, and you’re done! Plus, the juniper berries, thyme, parsley, and orange rub adds so much flavour to the duck.

I truly enjoyed the blood orange relish that accompanied the duck. This meat pairs perfectly with any sort of fruit and you really can’t go wrong. Actually, I was just really proud of myself for making orange relish, like really, who can say that they have made that.


Pan Fried Duck Breast
adapted from Anthony Sedlak's book The Main
serves 4

3 duck breasts
1 tbsp black pepper
zest of 1 orange
1 1/4 tbsp crushed juniper berries
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 tbsp thyme leaves
1 tsp coarse sea salt

Orange Relish
1 large orange
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Pan Fried Duck Breast
Score skin side of breast in criss cross pattern. Combine black pepper, orange zest, juniper berries, parsley and thyme and pat firmly onto flesh side of duck breasts. Let sit for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 400. Let duck breasts stand at room temperature for at least 10 minutes.
Season generously on flesh side with coarse sea salt. Place duck skin side down in a large cold, oven proof skillet and cook slowly over medium heat. Remove liquid fat from pan as it accumulates, until skin becomes crispy and golden, about 8-10 minutes. Finish cooking in oven about 7-10 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting thinly against the grain.

Blood Orange Relish
Cut off orange peel, avoiding white pith. Blanch peels briefly in boiling water; drain and chop roughly. Trim off and discard white pith from orange. Cut orange into small pieces and combine with chopped peel, sugar and white wine vinegar in a small pot. Simmer gently until liquid cooks down and relish becomes slightly syrupy, about 5-6 minutes; season with salt and pepper.

Baked Pears filled with chocolate, Almonds, and Orange in a Flaky Pastry Shell - Valentine's Day Part 1

So this is Ian's and my Valentine's Day Part 1, and of course why not start off with dessert? Today is also our first year anniversary (yay) and we had this amazing reservation at one of the top restaurants in Montreal that we had to book many weeks in advance. Unfortunately with all that was going on this week we had to cancel and spend the night inside, which was a lot of fun!

If you stick around for the next couple days I will be posting the other delightful aspects of our meal, but today we do dessert. And what a dessert it was. I was just flipping through this Jamie Oliver book called Jamie’s Kitchen that I took from home, and this recipe screamed out from between the pages at me. How could I say no? Chocolate inside a pear wrapped in flaky pastry, come on, there isn’t a person out there strong enough to say no.

Now, I don’t know how to accurately explain how marvellous the taste was, it was just so incredible. These little bundles were all you thought they would be, and more. Each flavour played perfectly with the others and came together to make this "Super Dessert". It’s probably what superman eats every day to keep his energy up. I think the key factor to keep in mind is to use good quality chocolate. In this I used Vhalrona Chocolate, but most quality 70% chocolates will do. To put it over the top I served them straight out of the oven with a huge scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on the side.

Now you might be like me and think that filo pastry is daunting and not worth the work. Let me tell you, it is so simple and easy to work with, just buy a package of frozen sheets and slather each layer in butter. This was actually the first time that I worked with filo and I am now saddened that I waited so long. I will be making many more recipes with these flaky tender sheets. Watch out world, I’m going to cover everything in filo!

So just to rub it in, on a day that is practically dedicated to chocolate, Ian and I ate the ultimate in chocolate desserts.

Baked Pears Filled with Chocolate, Almonds, and Orange wrapped in Flaky Pastry
adapted from Jamie's Kitchen, 2002
4 pears
3 tbsp. blanched almonds
6 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. sugar
Zest of one orange
2 ½ oz Vhalrona chocolate 70%
16 sheets of filo pastry, defrosted, 8x8 inches

Preheat oven to 350°F. Peel pears and cut core out from the bottom. In a food processor chop almonds, then chocolate. Place in bowl and add sugar, orange zest, and 4 tbsp. of butter. With hands, mix together until uniform. Put ¼ of mixture into bottom of pear, pack extra filling around the base. Repeat for three others. Take one sheet of filo and brush with heated remaining butter, then stack with another filo sheet. Repeat stacking and brushing with butter until there are 4 layers. Wrap pear in filo and twist at the top to keep the package closed. Repeat for other pears. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream.