Dateline: July 3, 2021 Freezer Diving and Gold is Struck

In another freezer dive, I found some duck breasts, yes, plural!  I had two different providers and decided to do a "taste off".   One breast was a lovely Magret from D'Artagnan, and the other was a whole breast (both halves) from Fresh Direct.  While the Magret breast was much thicker, they both had an equal layer of fat.  Fat is flavor!

I decided to sous vide the breast and then pan sear afterwards.  I crosshatched the skin on all of the breasts, and liberally salted and peppered.  They went into vacuum bags and into 130° F water for 1.5 hours.

After coming out of the lovely bath, I dried them well and put them in a COLD pan to crisp up.  The results were beautiful.  The skin became a lovely burnish bronze color and the added benefit was all of the rendered duck fat.  Yum.

Served with this was a mix of black rice, black quinoa, and black lentils and a salad of greens from the garden.

In the taste off, there was not that much difference in taste of the meat.  To me, there was a slight difference in the taste of the fat.  The Magret had better flavor there.  But the difference was again so slight it might not be worth the huge difference in price.

finished crisped up duck breasts

almost finished plate

I really like the mix of grains and lentils, it was called antioxidant blend....whatever that means.... look for it, it's really good.  My only suggestion is to make sure that you salt it as it is cooked, otherwise it is quite bland.