Duck breast stuffed with pear, dried cranberries, raisins and hazelnuts on saffron quinoa with slow roasted tomato and kohl rabi chips

Created by: Me
Cuisine: French, Andes, German, Italian with a slight twist of Indonesian

 

This is a multicultural inspired dish and despite how complicated it sounds, it was actually quite easy. Stuffing the duck breasts is a simple procedure and the rest of the dish was quite straight forward. We were fortunate enough to have half a pot of chicken stock leftover from making Hainan Chicken rice last night. This made the beautiful sauce that went over the duck and quinoa.

 
Ingredients

 
Saffron Quinoa

1 cup white quinoa
¼ tsp saffron
½ red onion
1 clove garlic

 
Duck breast
2 duck breasts
2 tbs butter
1 cinnamon stick
1 pear, diced small
25 g raisins chopped
25 g dried cranberries chopped
60 g hazelnuts crushed
1 tsp fresh French tarragon

 
Sauce
1 red onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 small bulb of fennel
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 small bunch of French tarragon
1 tsp green peppercorns
2 litres of chicken stock

Kohl Rabi Chips

2 kohl rabi
Oil for frying
Salt
Balsamic vinegar
Kecap Manis
Red onion

Roasted tomatoes

Tomatoes
Salt

Preparation
Rinse the quinoa a few times before soaking it. I soaked it for around 8 hours. Crush the saffron in a mortar and pestle and add it to the water the quinoa is soaking in.

To make the sauce you will need to have 2 litres of stock. We were fortunate enough to have more than that from the previous night’s meal. Fry the onions, fennel and garlic with the fennels seeds in some butter. Add the green peppercorns and then the stock. Add the French tarragon to the stock and let it simmer. You want around 100ml left in the pot and for it to start to thicken.

Dice pear and add to a pan of butter and a cinnamon stick. Just before removing it add the raisins, cranberries and hazelnuts. Remove from the pan and cool.

Use your finger to make a pocked between the duck fat and the meat. Slide the stuffing into the pocket. Be careful not to pierce the fat as well as breaking the fat from the meat along the sides. If you do this the filling will fall out.

Slice the kohl rabi and fry in some olive oil/or duck fat 😛 At the same time reduce some balsamic vinegar and kecap manis in a separate pan. Slice some red onion for serving. The red onion looks like as the purple colour of the kohl rabi starts to disappear once being fried. The red onion brings the colour back to the dish. Plate up as showin in the picture.

Fry off the onion and garlic in a pan, then add the quinoa. This should take around 10 minutes or so for the quinoa to be soft but still a little firm. You don’t want mashed quinoa. I added some extra virgin olive oil at the end for some gloss.

Fry the duck breast fat side down in oil/butter for around 3-5 minutes, til the fat side becomes golden. Turn over and cook for a few more minutes. I then wrap the duck in aluminium foil as this cooks it through just a little more. The duck breast should be golden on the outside, medium rare in the middle.

When plating up, slice the duck breasts into around 4 slices and place on top of quinoa. Strain the sauce from the pan, then add the sauce over the top. Add a roasted tomato for a nice red colouring on the plate.
Here is the finished product:Duck breast stuffed with pear, dried cranberries, raisins and hazelnuts on saffron quinoa with slow roasted tomato and kohl rabi chips.