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Duck in Cranberry Sauce |
1 Duck
1 Onion
1 Carrot
1 Sprig of celery
Parsley, laurel and thyme
Marine salt
Black Pepper
3 Spoonfuls of chopped shallots
3 Spoonfuls of butter
½ Cup of port
3 Cups of duck soup
2 Spoonfuls of cranberry jelly
2 Spoonfuls of green pepper ground in a mortar
The duck is cooked for 45 minutes and finished off in a very hot oven for 30 minutes until it is brown and crispy. It may even be cooked the day before. Place the duck – if possible in an oval dish – together with the innards, the onion, carrot, celery and the rest of the herbs with salt and black pepper; cover with juice from the duck (or cold water if there is no juice). Bring gently to the boil and keep on the boil for 45 minutes. Take the duck out with care not to break the skin, cool it and keep refrigerated without any covering. Meanwhile, boil the juice at maximum heat and then reduce to half. Cool and refrigerate until the following day. The following day, take the duck out of the fridge three hours before cooking it so that it is at room temperature and decrease the juice (the juice will have formed a layer easy to remove).
To bake the duck, light the oven for 20 minutes at the highest possible temperature (the oven must be clean so that it does not smoke). Poke the skin with a fine needle in different parts to let out the grease still inside.
Place on a grill over a baking tin, add salt and pepper and cook at a high temperature for 30 minutes.
To make the sauce, cook the shallots for 2 minutes in a spoonful of butter careful not to let it brown. Add the port and boil until half has evaporated. Add the juice and continue cooking the shallots until about half is left. When it has the texture of a light sauce, strain through a blender and heat. Add the jelly, the pepper and the rest of the butter in small lumps to smoothen and make it look bright. When serving, separate the legs from the breasts and slice the latter diagonally so that everybody has a chance to try both meat and a little crackling. Accompany with candied shallots and fresh pea puree with mint.
Concha y Toro wishes to thank Ruth Van Waerebeek-Gonzalez for the recipe.