Duck breast sous vide and cauliflower mash along with some cherry tomatoes and avocado.
I struggled this week to work out what I was going to cook this weekend. I had a few ideas in my head but couldn’t settle on one recipe. I’ve got an idea for a special recipe based on an interaction with a work mate this week but I need to think that through more carefully. I also got some inspiration from Lorraine Elliott of Not Quite Nigella fame.
In the end I saw duck breasts when I was grocery shopping so ended up with duck breast sous vide and cauliflower mash.
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Recipe
- 1 Duck breast
- Iodised salt
- Garlic powder
- Butter
- 1 bag Frozen cauliflower ‘rice’
- 1 cup Frozen corn, black beans, and capsicum
- 1 Avocado
- 4 Cherry tomatoes
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Remove the duck breasts from the environmentally unfriendly plastic packaging.
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Season your breasts with iodised salt and garlic powder.
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Put your breasts into vacuum bags (one breast per bag).
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Heat your water bath with your precision cooker to 76 °C (169 °F), put your bagged breasts into the water bath, and cook for two hours.
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Removed your bagged breasts from the water bath.
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Put the bags into your refrigerator.
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After ten minutes, remove one bag, leave the other for another meal.
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Open the bag and remove your breast.
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Pour the residual juice into a small container and keep aside for the end of the searing process.
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Pat dry the surfaces of your breast with kitchen paper.
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Try to get your breast surfaces as dry as possible to ensure a good sear. Don’t worry, the inside of your breast will remain moist, juicy, and tender.
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Heat up a frypan and add a little Queensland nut oil or any other high vapour point oil.
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Sear your breast skin side first.
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When you flip your breast add in some butter and baste the skin to keep your breast’s skin nice and buttery.
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Add in the leftover fluid from the vacuum bag and make a thin sauce.
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Remove your seared breast and allow it to rest on a plate.
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After resting your breast, with a sharp knife, I use my Dick™ butchers knife, cut your breast into thin slices.
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In a vacuum bag add the bag of frozen cauliflower ‘rice’, some frozen corn, black beans, and capsicum, plus some cream cheese, butter, iodised salt, and black pepper.
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Seal the bag.
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Place the bag into the water bath at the same time as your breasts.
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At the end of the cooking time, remove the bag and gently massage it to ensure mixing of all the ingredients and the formation of a mash.
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Open the bag and aliquot half into a Tupperware™ container and refrigerate for another meal.
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Put the remaining cauliflower mash into a bowl ready for plating up.
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Pay down the cauliflower mash on the dinner plate.
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Add slices of duck breast on top of the cauliflower mash. Obviously, if you’re one of those pretentious wanky cooks, you can use forceps. I use my fingers.
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Pour over the sauce from the frypan.
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Add halved cherry tomatoes and avocado cheeks.
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Shoot a photograph and a short video because Google now wants video on recipe cards.
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Eat the meal.
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Wash the dishes (hint, wash as you cook, it makes life easier).
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Write the recipe.
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Write the blog post.
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Hit publish and hope this blog post gets shared on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
Recipe Video
Disclaimer
I have no culinary training nor qualifications. This post is not intended to convey any health or medical advice. If you have any health concerns about anything you read, please contact your registered medical practitioner. The quantities are indicative. Feel free to vary the quantities to suit your taste. I deliberately do not calculate energy for dishes. I deliberately default to 500 Calories or 500,000 calories because I do not make these calculations.
Photographs
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Questions and answers
You really like duck breast sous vide?
Yes, I do. Duck is so good and unlike chicken, the breasts are really tasty.
What’s the idea you had running around in your head this week?
That’s a surprise. I may make it in one or two weeks.
How did the cauliflower mash taste?
It was okay. Using cauliflower ‘rice’ probably wasn’t the wisest choice. The water content was probably too high so it was more like cauliflower slop. I think next time I’ll use florets instead.
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Final thoughts
- Do you like duck breast?
- Do you have any ideas on keeping your mash firmer?
- Do you have cooking ideas running around in your head?
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— Gaz 🖖 (@garydlum) August 15, 2019
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Definitely a duck fan here too, and I can certainly imagine it working well sous vide as long as you crisp the skin afterwards as you did. Any reason why you had the duck so well done? I thought you were more of a rare duck person?
No, I was surprised by how ‘done’ it was. I used the same settings as before.
Are the bags you use to cook in environmentally ok?
I seriously want to try mashed cauliflower….
Unfortunately, I don’t believe the plastic bags are biodegradable.
I do like duck and I should cook it more often. Thanks for the reminder!
My pleasure
I know you like the sous vide method of cooking, but for one person I find it tedious and lengthy. If something is going to take a while to cook, I make a big batch of something to divide into individual serving by way of slow cooker or air fryer.
I know what you mean. Most weekends I cook a batch of chicken breasts or thighs and use the meat during the week in lunches.
Exactly. I learned to do that with your congee. Then a friend of mine gave me a quick & easy Mandarin Chicken, which I enlarged to divide into meals and pea soup w/ ham hocks, the same. You’ve made my life a lot easier! Thanks.
My pleasure 😃👍
Oh what a nice surprise to see my name! How did I inspire you Gary? 😀
The egg plant noodles really got me thinking about a recipe creation 😃👍
Nice! (Just out of interest, does frozen cauliflower stink? I bought the chilled stuff this week to have with a stir-fry and a curry, and that stuff smells really nasty. I mean, I could smell it through the plastic when I was taking it home.)
Hi Emma, no the frozen cauliflower doesn’t reek.