Duck breast salad with sweet potato recipe

A beautiful duck breast salad is a great way to eat game in the summer sun. This salad combines the duck with asparagus, sweet potato and pickled fennel and is rounded off with a raspberry vinaigrette that makes this dish as tasty as it looks.

This duck recipe takes one hour and serves four as a main.

Ingredients

Duck breasts

• 4 Duck breasts
• salt

Pickled fennel

• 1 bulb of fennel
• 100ml of white wine vinegar
• 50g of caster sugar
• 100ml of white wine

Salad

• 500g of mixed salad leaves, washed and dried
• 2 bunches of asparagus

Raspberry vinaigrette

• 1 punnet of raspberries
• ½ tsp of Dijon Mustard
• 200ml of olive oil
• 50ml of raspberry vinegar
• Flaky sea salt
• pepper

Sweet potato

• 1 sweet potato
• Olive oil

Method

1. Break down the layers of fennel, slice or shave them as thinly as possible. Add them to a heatproof bowl. Set aside.
2. In a saucepan, mix together the white wine vinegar, caster sugar, and white wine, bring to the boil. Remove this from the heat and pour straight over the sliced fennel. Leave this to cool and leave in the fridge until needed.
3. Peel and cut the sweet potato to 2.5cm cubes. Place a large frying pan over a medium-high heat. Fry the cubes in a good dash of olive oil until they turn golden in colour.
4. Transfer the golden sweet potato cubes to a large tray big enough for the duck breasts along with the potatoes. Set aside.
5. Cut off the woody ends of the asparagus, peel ¾ of the way up the spear. Throw them into a pot of salted boiling water to blanch for 2-3 minutes until they are tender. Strain and set aside.
6. Combine the raspberries, raspberry vinegar and mustard in a bowl. Whisk together gently while slowly adding the olive oil until combined. Season to taste and set aside.
7. Preheat the oven to 180˚C/gas mark 4.
8. Place a pan on a medium heat, sprinkle with some salt. Score the skin of the duck breasts lightly, place them skin-side down in the pan.
9. The fat will slowly start to render out of the skin. You should remove this fat from the pan with a spoon so the duck can crisp up without sitting in the fat. This should take about 4-6 minutes.
10. Add the duck to the tray with the sweet potato cubes. Place the tray in the oven and cook for 5-6 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for a further 5-6 before being ready to serve.
11. Combine the salad leaves, asparagus and fennel in a large bowl and mix in some of the raspberry vinaigrette.
12. Place the salad in the centre of each plate. Arrange the sweet potato cubes around the salad and scatter on some raspberries. Slice the duck breasts into fans and place on top of each salad. Drizzle over some more vinaigrette, adding some flaky sea salt, and serve immediately.

Recipe courtesy of Great British Chefs. Visit their site for more duck recipes.