Duck with fresh cherry sauce recipe

Duck with Fresh Cherry Sauce served with Broccoli Rabe

Fresh cherries have been absolutely beautiful lately. This is a delightful way to use them in a sauce that’s savory and sweet at the same time and a perfect match with duck. This recipe can be done ahead of time and makes a good amount of sauce.

Either pit the cherries before or after cooking. If you’re making the sauce beforehand (never a bad idea), then it’s easy to pit them after they’re cooked and they’ve cooled a bit.

Duck With Fresh Cherry Sauce
(serves 2 generously)

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbl. sugar
• 1 cup vegetable or chicken stock
• 2 cups cherries, pitted before or after cooking
• 1 duck breast (magret)
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• ¼ tsp. dried thyme

Directions:

Bring vinegar, sugar and ½ cup stock to boil in medium saucepan.

Add cherries. Bring back to the boil and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Take the cherries out of the sauce with a slotted spoon and place in a glass bowl to cool faster. 

When they’ve cooled, using a little knife or your (very clean) nails, make a slit in the bottom of each cherry. Slide the pit out. Continue for all the cherries. Set aside.

Score the fat on the duck breast in a diamond pattern.

Salt both sides. Heat a medium non-stick frying pan on medium heat. Add duck breast, skin side down. Cook for 7 minutes. Turn over. Cook 3 minutes longer, then turn down pan to medium low and continue cooking another 4 minutes for VERY rare* or 6 to 8 minutes longer for less rare.

Pour out the duck fat occasionally and reserve it for finishing the sauce and any side dishes. (Sautéed potatoes and broccoli rabe make good accompaniments.)

Remove duck to plate and let rest for at least 5 minutes.

Place 1 tablespoon of duck fat back in the frying pan. Add onion and cook until completely softened. Pour in other ½ cup of stock and the vinegar mixture. Bring to the boil. Stir in the pitted cherries and dried thyme and simmer, partially covered, for 10 minutes.

Serve duck sliced on the diagonal with plenty of cherry sauce on top.

*If you’re making the sauce ahead, you can also do the duck breast in advance. Cook as directed to very rare (14 minutes total), then remove duck breast to a plate and let sit for at least 5 minutes or up to 45 minutes . Slice it thinly on the diagonal. Finish the sauce as directed and just before serving, pour the sauce out of the frying pan into a pitcher. Add the duck slices back into the hot pan and sear over medium to medium high heat for a minute on one side. Pour the sauce over, let it boil up and serve immediately. That will cook the duck a bit more, as well as heating it up.