“Well grilled, just crispy, pink inside”: this chef reveals his tips for cooking duck breast for the holidays!

Many prefer to turn to very classic choices like turkey or capon for the Christmas meal. However, duck breast turns out to be a completely appropriate dish for the end-of-year celebrations. It allows you to twist essentials. But to appreciate it at its true value, you still need to master its cooking, its sauce, its cutting: in short, you will have understood, cooking this product is quite an art.

So that it is “well toasted, just crispy, pink inside”, chef Diego Alary shared on Instagram his many secrets to becoming a master in the field. And to prepare your festive menu without stress, find all our Christmas recipe ideas on our dedicated page!

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Before starting to cook the duck, Diego Alary explains that preparing the duck breast is essential. To do this, you must first remove the small nerves that are on the flesh. Turn the duck breast over and make small cuts in the fat, “taking care not to cut the flesh just below.”

Cooking side. Light the fire and get a frying pan. Place the duck breasts fat side down and season flesh side down with fleur de sel and pepper. Be careful, the chef makes it clear to start “with very gentle cooking to melt the fat. It takes about 8 minutes.”

Once you obtain a nice color on the fat, turn the breasts flesh side down to finish cooking. “still on low heat for 3 minutes. In fact, we are going to mark the meat of the duck breast to finish cooking.”

After 3 minutes, you can remove your breasts and delicately wrap them in aluminum foil so that they finish cooking for around 10 minutes.

While the duck breasts are resting in the foil, do not discard the duck fat. But keep it in a bowl to cook potatoes in to accompany your duck breast.

Once you have removed the fat from the pan, do not wash it. Save the juices to make a sauce to accompany your duck. To do this, add a star anise, a pinch of cinnamon powder and pepper. Deglaze everything with the juice of an orange and a few blanched orange sticks. Let the sauce reduce a little and then place the duck breasts to reheat and glaze them. The chef explains that all you have to do is cut the slices and serve everything with the sauce.

For other information on preparing duck breast, here is our guide to this product.