Pan Roasted Duck Breast with Rhubarb Sauce

Pan Searing the Duck Breast

1. Lay each duck breast down on your cutting board and using a sharp knife, make 4 thin slices, diagonally through the skin, ensuring not to cut the breast meat.
2. Season each side of the breasts with salt and also season the meat side of the breast with pepper.
3. Put your saute pan or skillet on the stove and turn it on to medium heat.
4. After about 30 seconds, add each breast to the pan skin side down. Press each breast down into the pan to ensure the entire skinside surface area touches the pan. Turn the heat down to low and cook slowly for 5 minutes.
5. During this process, you will want to constantly check the heat to ensure the fat is rendering low and slow. The goal is to have the entire skin side be a dark golden-brown color with no white rubbery fat remaining.
6. After 5 minutes, check to make sure the skin is cooking evenly, if the coloration is darker in certain places, turn down the heat. Carefully pour out the duck fat that has rendered from the skin and set aside. You will want to leave about ¼ teaspoon of fat in the pan with the duck.
7. Continue cooking for another 5 minutes, pouring out the fat in the pan again after the 5 minutes.
8. Continue cooking for another 4-8 minutes or until the duck skin is a dark brown color and feels very crispy.
9. At this point, turn the heat off in the pan, add 1 teaspoon of butter to the pan and flip the duck so that the skin side is facing up.
10. Once the butter has melted add the 2 unpicked sprigs of thyme and swirl the butter around in the pan gently to coat the bottom of the duck with the infused butter.
11. Let the duck sit in the pan for 30 seconds then transfer to a cutting board to rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

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For the Rhubarb Sauce

1. While the duck is resting, pour out the grease, melted butter and thyme from the pan you cooked the duck in and turn the heat on to medium heat.
2. Once the pan is hot, add the stock to the pan and swirl to release all the bits from the bottom of the pan. Continue to cook on medium heat to reduce by half.
3. Once reduced by half, add the rhubarb gastrique to the pan and swirl to combine.
4. Continue to cook for 1 minute.
5. Once the sauce has reduced slightly and is evenly combined, add the lemon juice and a pinch of salt to season.
6. Turn off the heat and add the remaining 1 teaspoon of cold butter to the sauce along with the picked thyme and swirl constantly until the butter is melted into the sauce and forms a stable emulsion. Make sure the sauce is not too hot or the butter will separate from the sauce.
7. Taste the sauce for seasoning and adjust accordingly.

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Finishing the Duck Breast

1. To finish the duck, slice each breast with a very sharp knife into thin slices, starting on one side and working across the breast.
2. To plate, put a spoonful of the pan sauce on the base of the plate, then put each slice of duck on your plate, along with your desired sides, followed by another healthy spoonful of sauce on top of the duck slices. Enjoy!