Roasted duck breast with plum and apple port wine sauce

We have made enjoyment a top priority and love to seduce you with culinary delights. This time with the last hearty winter dish before spring comes. The key ingredients are tender duck breast, sweet half-cooked plums, juicy apple and lusciously sweet Ruby Port. Don't worry, it sounds difficult at first, but it really isn't!

Duck meat is lower in fat than many other types of meat and is high in healthy protein, magnesium and vitamin B1. In addition to many vitamins such as vitamins C, A and D, apples also contain some important minerals such as iron and zinc. The plums also contain a variety of vitamins and minerals that will prepare you for the winter and against the next wave of flu. They also contain a lot of fiber, which has a positive effect on digestion. If those aren't good enough reasons to try this recipe... Here we go!

Ingredients:

• 1 duck breast (available in our shop)
• 2 tsp gingerbread spice
• 2 tbsp rosemary honey
• 200 ml duck stock
• 2 small onions
• 1 firm apple
• 2 tablespoons Alziari olive oil
• 1 pinch fleur de sel
• ½ tsp allspice d'Espelette
• 100ml red port or any other port of your choice
• 5 half-cooked plums (prunes d'duck)
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 2 sprigs of tarragon

Preparation:

1. Begin by scoring the skin of the duck breast in a diamond pattern, avoiding the underside of the meat.
2. Mix gingerbread spice, honey and 2 tablespoons of hot water together and apply the resulting marinade to the duck breast with a brush. Leave the duck breast to marinate in the fridge for about 1 hour.
3. Reduce the duck stock by half. Peel and core the onions and apples and cut into cubes.
4. Heat the oil in a coated pan and fry the marinated duck meat on both sides. Fry on the skin side for about 3 minutes and on the underside for about 2 minutes. Then put the meat on an oven tray in the preheated oven and cook at 160°C on the second rack from the bottom for about 10 - 15 minutes.
5. Sauté the onions and apple in the remaining duck fat in the pan until soft and towards the end add the plums. Deglaze with duck stock and fill up with port wine. Allow the resulting sauce to reduce by about half. Finally, we add the cornstarch dissolved in water, the fleur de sel and the piment d'Espelette to the sauce and stir everything together properly. At the very end add the finely chopped tarragon.

Our wine recommendation consists of three different wines, both of which are excellent accompaniments for this hearty winter dish.

1. Christophe Pacalet's Moulin à vent 2016 , a light red wine with intense cherry aromas, made from 100% Gamay grapes. A real treat!
2. Quintessence Rouge 2015 from Château Pesquié is a powerful, soft red wine with gentle aromas of plums. A wine that will gently seduce you.
3. Bourgogne Irancy 2016 Moutard-Diligent is a smooth and fruity wine with aromas of cassis, cherry, raspberry, blackberry, some pepper and a hint of liquorice.

We wish you bon appétit!

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Photos and text by Christian Kuhn / www.image-01.com/

You can find all the ingredients at a glance here.

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The original recipe comes from the food & drink . We modified it slightly for our purposes.