Pan seared

First inspect your duck breast and make an assessment on how much fat there is under the skin. If there is a lot of fat, lightly score the skin with a very sharp knife. You can do a cross hatch pattern or just a few horizontal cuts. Make sure you don’t go all the way through the fat and hit the meat. This will allow more fat to render out as you cook it. If the breast has very little fat, leave it alone.

Next, season your duck breast with salt or any spices you wish on the meat side only. There is no point seasoning the skin because the seasoning will either fall off, or burn.

Place the duck skin side down in a cold, dry pan. Place over medium heat. You start in a cold pan to render out more fat before the skin gets crispy. If you start in a hot pan your skin will brown quickly but you’ll have a band of very unpleasant fat underneath. After a couple minutes you should see a fair amount of fat rendered out, now the trick to cooking duck breast is to nail the temperature of your pan. It should be hot enough to hear a sizzle the whole time but not so hot to burn the skin. But it also shouldn’t be so cold that the duck overcooks waiting for the skin to get crispy. So my methodology is to heat it up over medium and wait to hear a sizzle, then drop it to medium-low heat. I want to hear a sizzle the whole time but I do not want to see the pan smoking profusely. The smoke point of duck fat is 375f/190c. The ideal temperature of your pan is in-between 350f/176c-375f/190c so a few light wisps of smoke is fine. Once you have your pan sorted, wait until your duck skin starts turning golden brown. This could take 3-4 minutes. Tilt the pan and begin basting the duck with its own fat. Keep basting until you reach your desired doneness (chart below) remove from the pan and rest well. Slice and serve

Cooking a whole duck crown.

This method is very straightforward. If you came here from my YouTube video, you know how to break down a duck to a crown. If you don’t know what that is and stumbled upon this page accidentally, there is a link to my YouTube above.

The spice mix I used in my YouTube video is equal parts cumin seed, coriander seed, black peppercorn, and flakey salt. I just take the cumin seed, coriander seed, and black peppercorns and crush them with the bottom of a pot. It should be fairly chunky so they don’t burn in the oven. Then I take that and sift it through a sieve to remove the very small bits that will burn during cooking. Add the flakey salt and mix well.

First preheat your oven to 400f/205c. 375f/190c for convection-low fan. Brush the duck crown with a very thin layer of honey and sprinkle over your spices. I recommend using a wired probe thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast while it’s cooking. Place the duck in the oven on the middle rack and roast until you reach your desired doneness. Rest for twenty minutes before carving.

Duck temperatures

• medium rare 135f/57c
• medium 140f/60c
• well done 165c/74c

Now it’s important to remember carry over times. For example: if my target is a medium duck breast I will cook it to 133f/56c and rest it. As it rests, there’s still a lot of heat and it’s going to keep cooking. Sometimes a piece of meat can carry over by up to ten degrees. Which is especially true for the larger duck crown. After a ten minute rest the duck will reach that 140f goal and be a medium.