Our New Creation: Savory BBQ Duck Breast with Currant & Cherry Pinot Noir Sauce

Summer is the season for fresh black cherries, currants, and picnics by the pond.

While we love our Weber grill and Victor’s recipe for smoked meats (see his Infallible Smoked Turkey recipe which also incredibly well with duck and beef), for or a quick cooking set-up we use our Hibachi grill! It’s portable, easy to start with charcoal and fast to break down for picnics, camping trips and the like.

Duck breasts are a great alternative to chicken or beef and quite simple to cook on the grill. For a medium-rare duck breast, make hash marks in fat-side and cook them fat-side down for 8 minutes. Then turn them over and cook 6 minutes on other side.

We conjured up a special sauce with our Three Feathers Pinot Noir, red currants and black cherries to accompany this delicious meal. Sides were sweet potato purée, grilled pak choi and Cynthia’s special Summer Succo-hash (recipe included below).

Duck Sauce for BBQ Duck Breast with Currants and Cherries

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon rendered Duck Fat
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced fine
• 1 Valencia orange; peel and set aside peels, then juice and set aside the juice
• 4 sprigs fresh Rosemary
• 1 cup chicken stock (or Duck stock if you have it)
• ¾ cup Three Feathers Estate 2016 Pinot Noir or 2017 Cuvée Virginia
• 2 cups whole fresh black cherries, pitted
• 2 cups fresh currants
• 5 tablespoons butter

Preparation:

• Render the fat of one duck breast in a small fry pan.  Remove the duck breast and set aside for later.

• Add the shallots and cook them until they are soft.  Add the garlic and let it soften as well.  Transfer the onion and garlic mixture to a small saucepan.  Add the Valencia orange peels and the rosemary sprigs.  Leave the sprigs on the branch so you can remove them later.

• Add the stock, the Pinot Noir, and the Valencia juice to the saucepan.  Simmer briefly then add the fruit to the pot.  Allow everything to simmer for about 5-10 minutes, or until the cherries have softened.

• Remove the cherries carefully from the pot and set aside.  Allow the liquid to cool sufficiently then add the butter.  Once the butter has melted into the sauce, transfer the liquid to a food processor and blend until smooth.

• Re-incorporate the puree to a ceramic bowl with the whole cherries and cover the bowl with foil or a glass lid.  Allow the sauce to cool in the fridge until ready to serve with the cooked duck breast.  Warm it up prior to cooking in a sauce pan; be careful not to overheat the sauce when you reheat it.

• Spoon the sauce and the whole cherries over the sliced duck and serve with Three Feathers Estate 2016 Pinot Noir, 2018 or 2021 Cuvée Virginia. 

Cynthia’s Summer “Succo-hash”

Ingredients:

• 4 ears of fresh corn
• 1 butternut squash
• 1 yellow onion
• 4 slices of bacon
• 1/8 cup minced fresh parsley

Preparation:

Cook the bacon and reserve the fat. Slice into small lardons.

Cook the corn for six minutes in boiling water. Cool and cut off the cob.

Peel and cube the squash into 1/2” dice. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and roast the squash in the bacon fat until golden brown and toasty.

Dice the onion very fine (1/8” dice). Put about 1TB of the reserved bacon fat in a stainless steel fry pan and heat it up. Add the onion. And sauté until soft and translucent.

Add the corn, squash, and parsley to the pan and fry together until warmed through.

Serve with just about anything.