Duck recipe taps into maple season
Tempting new cookbook explores ways to cook with nature’s original sweetener
Maple season is in full swing, a good time for a new book about the maple and its colourful history — from its roots in China more than 130 million years ago, to the forests along the St. Lawrence River, where Jacques Cartier came exploring in 1557. The trees migrated to northeastern North America by way of Alaska, writes New York State maple producer Robb Turner, and Quebec’s First Nations first harvested the sap. Cartier’s travel companion, Franciscan priest André Thévet, compared this sap to fine French wine. Later explorers wrote about how the native peoples concentrated the sap into maple sugar, and used it to sweeten meat or fish, a tradition we maintain.
This recipe for duck with a spiced maple sauce is in Turner’s book, Guide to Maple Syrup: How to Tap and Cook with Nature’s Original Sweetener (Abrams/Canadian Manda Group). He offers a tempting collection of more than 50 maple recipes as well as a description of how maple products are made, from the old method with buckets, to the more modern use of tubing and evaporating. Score the skin of the duck breasts with criss-cross slashes, being careful not to cut through the meat. Rub skin with salt and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Using a spice grinder, grind together the fennel, star anise, coriander, peppercorns and pepper flakes. Place spice mixture in a bowl, stir in orange zest and rub the duck breasts with about 1 tbs (15 mL), of the blend. Preheat oven to 375 degrees (190 C). Heat an ovenproof frying pan over high heat for one minute. Add two duck breasts, skin side down, to the hot pan and cook for five to seven minutes without moving them, until the meat will come easily from the Cut four 21/2-inch (6.25-cm), squares out of each tortilla. Lightly brush one side of each square with oil. Press each square, oiled side down, into a greased mini muffin cup to make a ruffled tart shell. Combine asparagus and ham; spoon mixture into tart shells. Cut brie into 40 cubes, each about 3/8 inch (1 cm). Place 1 cube in each tart shell. Whisk together eggs, sour cream and hot pepper sauce until blended. Spoon about 11/2 tsp (7.5 mL) of egg mixture into each tart shell. Bake at 350 F (175 C) for 20 minutes or until set. Serve warm. May be frozen.
To make brie easier to cut, first place it in the freezer for 30 minutes. Makes 40. pan with tongs or a spatula. Transfer duck to a plate and repeat with the remaining two duck breasts. Lower heat to medium-low and pour off the rendered duck fat; store it for another occasion. Add butter to the pan and add the remaining spice mixture and the maple syrup, stirring to make a sauce. Working two breasts at a time, return duck to pan and increase heat slightly to medium. Cook for an extra six to eight minutes for medium-rare doneness (130 F/54 C), spooning maple sauce over the breasts as they cook. If duck is not medium-rare after eight minutes, transfer to the oven and roast for an additional five minutes or until it is medium-rare. Remove duck to a cutting board, skin side up and cook the remaining breasts. Let them rest on the cutting board for two minutes, then slice thinly and serve with the sauce on the side. Serves 4