Smoked Duck with Spicy Litchi and Szechuan pepper sauce

This recipe involves lightly smoking the duck breast after it has come out of the oven and is resting. Do not worry if you don’t have a smoking gun to smoke the duck, as the dish will still be delicious.

Ingredients

• 4 duck breasts, skin lightly scored
• Cherrywood chips
• Salt and pepper
• Frozen/fresh lotus root slices
• 1 bunch bok choi
• Vegetable oil for deep frying

Sauce

• 1tsp Szeschuan pepper
• 1tsp dried chilli flakes
• 1tsp cumin seeds
• 1tsp coriander seeds
• 1 lemongrass stem, white part only, coarsely chopped
• 2 small shallots
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2cm piece of ginger peeled
• 2 Tblsp chopped coriander stem
• 1 Tblsp chopped coriander leaves
• 525g tin litchis in Syrup
• 2tsp Fish Sauce
• 200 ml Chicken stock
• 2 Tblsp lemon juice
• 100ml coconut milk
• 2 Tblsp Peanut oil
• Corn Starch

Rice

• I cup white rice
• 1 can coconut milk
• Water
• Salt

Method

• Turn oven on to 190deg C.
• Begin by making the sauce.
• Add Szechuan pepper, cumin, coriander seeds, chilli flakes, lemongrass, shallot, garlic, ginger, coriander stem and leaves, half of the tin of litchis and syrup, fish sauce and lemon juice to a food processor/blender and process for a few minutes until as smooth as possible.
• Pass the sauce through a sieve to remove unprocessed pieces.
• Heat the peanut oil in a pan and when hot add the sauce and fry for about a minute over a medium heat.
• Add the rest of the litchi syrup, coconut milk and chicken stock and gently simmer the sauce until reduced by about half its volume – +/- 20 – 30 minutes.
• Season (if necessary) and thicken sauce slightly with a little corn-starch added to a bit of water, and then stirred through the sauce.
• Chop remaining litchis into chunks and add to sauce – heat through.
• Set aside.

Lotus root

• If frozen, thaw the lotus root and dry on kitchen towel.
• Heat oil to 180deg C and fry lotus root in batches until golden brown.
• Remove from oil.
• Season with salt and set aside.

Rice

• Cook the rice on the stove top or rice cooker, substituting the equivalent water, with the can of coconut milk.

Duck

• Heat a non-stick pan over a medium heat and brown the duck skin side down until well browned and fat has rendered out +/- 5- 7 minutes. Take care not to burn.
• Turn duck over and briefly brown remaining sides.
• Transfer duck to an oven friendly pan and cook in the oven for about 6-7 minutes  (this will produce duck which is still slightly pink in the middle). Cook longer if you want more well-done duck.
• Remove duck and rest in a glass dish.
• Cover dish with cling wrap and add Cherrywood smoke.
• Seal dish and rest meat in the smoke for 3-4 minutes.

Bok Choi

• Steam/boil Bok Choi until softened.
• Set aside and keep warm.

To serve

• Spoon warm sauce onto a plate.
• Place bok choi leaves onto plate and top with coconut rice.
• Slice the duck breast and lay on top of sauce
• Top with crispy lotus root

Nice! and Tasty – Chris