Duck Breast With Braised Belgian Endive, Shaved Cauliflower and Green Peppercorns Recipe (2024)

What are shaved cauliflower pebbles?

steel or cast iron pan - or does it matter?

As she states in the accompanying article, scoring the fat is OPTIONAL. You will get much better fat rendering if you do score the skin in a 3/4 inch diamond pattern. Be very careful to NOT score all the way down to the meat. The skin & fat layer on duck breasts of this size is typically about 3/8 inch thick...so you want to score it only about 1/4 inch deep so you leave a 1/8 inch layer protecting the meat. Before scoring, the skin should be cold and dry and the knife must be VERY sharp.

I can't help but believe that this would be wonderful way to deal with these pesky Canada geese that abound around here, too. Thanx.

Use a grater (large hole) to grate the cauliflower to pebbles.

God, I love your writing. I haven't tried the recipe yet but just reading your writeup of it is a great pleasure.

I have found using a cold cast skillet renders duck breasts perfectly. Place ducks on skillet cold, warm to med and cook the skin as you would bacon. I typically finish on the meat side for a minute or two. Do not cook ducks anything past medium.

Learned to cook duck breast in France. My butcher sells them separetely, thank goodness. Just beat them with a heavy knife, score them lightly, put them skin down in a heavy pan, turn over after six minutes, six minutes on the other side, let them rest six to ten minutes. Serve with a savoury or sweet sauce, some celeriac puree simple potato puree, some vegetable in season: asparagus, or even stewed mandarin slices.Which is to say: the attached recipe is far too fussy and time consuming.

However, my favorite way to prepare a duck breast is in a slow cooker, done as confit (covered with and slowly simmered on low for several hours in duck fat). If you don't have enough, lard will do. And you can also use duck fat to do confit potatoes in the oven. Same idea -- cover very thick slices in fat, cook slowly at 250 for about an hour, then 15 minutes at 450. And it's an amazing way to cook sweet potatoes, too!

I would think a cast iron pan would be ideal for this purpose. Any reason why not?

use a utility knife (box-cutter) to score the skin. It takes no time at all, and they are always very sharp.

Cooking for two, used one moulard magret, followed the recipe and the duck was perfectly cooked. To reproduce the "pebbles" shown in the photo, "shaved" the cauliflower head with a knife. Roasted the remaining head (sans heavy core) with a Yukon Gold potato for 40 mins. at 375 (both cut up and tossed with EVOO). Pulsed them and a couple of garlic confit cloves in the food processor. No complaints about double servings of cauliflower! Endive was a nice touch.

It helps to use a sharp knife to cut a criss-cross pattern into the skin before it goes into the pan -- fat renders faster and you get an attractive pattern as the edges brown a bit darker.

Cook the breasts exactly as directed to render all the fat and they will be perfect. Turn your heat down if the breast skin is crisping up too fast. Letting the breasts sit while the veg cooked gave us plump and tender duck. We subbed sprouts and some radicchio for the endive because that was what we had and they worked well. I think you can be creative about what to pair the cauliflower and shallots with.

I used a smoked duck breast, skipped the cauliflower, and served it with an arugula salad. Everybody loved it.

I took inspiration from this recipe. I didn't have endive but had radicchio, which also has bitter notes. Subbed parsnips and turnips for cauliflower. Sublime, easy, colorful, romantic!

I love this recipe. I dried the skin with a hair dryer and scored it with a fresh blade in my lame; just dragged it over the skin. I find there's too much liquid in the pan at the end and will reduce the amount of broth to a half cup. Lusciously good!

Have made it twice now, again to rave reviews. directions are long and involved, but the second time you get the hang of it. Next time will be courageous and score the skin to release more duck fat!

This is one of those cheffy recipes that should only be had at the restaurant. It was tasty but not something I’d pay $45-$50 for at table

During the time of Covid, I couldn’t find either Belgian endive or green peppercorns so I used radicchio and capers. Next time I’ll double the vegetables, especially the cauliflower. We made this for our monthly FT dinner with friends in CA. We plan the menu and then cook together over FT. It took Covid to get us started but we will continue our FT dinners until we are too old to cook!

I think way too much liquid at the end to be absorbed. Would do half next time.

Cooking for two, used one moulard magret, followed the recipe and the duck was perfectly cooked. To reproduce the "pebbles" shown in the photo, "shaved" the cauliflower head with a knife. Roasted the remaining head (sans heavy core) with a Yukon Gold potato for 40 mins. at 375 (both cut up and tossed with EVOO). Pulsed them and a couple of garlic confit cloves in the food processor. No complaints about double servings of cauliflower! Endive was a nice touch.

Tried this method for the third time this week and I'm getting a little frustrated over my resulting rubbery skin...I understand the concept of scoring the fat and have had success when using a similair technique for pork belly but I'm thinking something is off about "medium-low" as a recommended temperature--has anyone had success cooking at a very low heat for longer? I really don't want to destroy another beautiful farmers market duck breast.

Learned to cook duck breast in France. My butcher sells them separetely, thank goodness. Just beat them with a heavy knife, score them lightly, put them skin down in a heavy pan, turn over after six minutes, six minutes on the other side, let them rest six to ten minutes. Serve with a savoury or sweet sauce, some celeriac puree simple potato puree, some vegetable in season: asparagus, or even stewed mandarin slices.Which is to say: the attached recipe is far too fussy and time consuming.

The best way to make this French standard, magret frites, is to dry marinade them for two days in the fridge, with a chopped garlic/pepper/salt/bay leaf marinade and then roast them for ten minutes at 240; rest for ten minutes, serve with hot salted allumettes

use a utility knife (box-cutter) to score the skin. It takes no time at all, and they are always very sharp.

I can’t help thinking that those “pebbles” are florets that have been rendered roundish by trimming their stalks. Grating would make them cook up into a purée. What does Chef say?

I would think a cast iron pan would be ideal for this purpose. Any reason why not?