Duck à l’epoisses

Last night’s supper – I have to say – and I know perhaps I shouldn’t – was… magnificent. I love my food – but like all cooks I can be quite overly critical at times – but last night – everything tasted spot on and turned out just as I had imagined – just how I wished.

I wanted to mix a few of my favourite flavours from other dishes and see how they worked.

I had two wonderful duck breasts – plenty for this dish for 4. I scored them 4 or 5 times on the diagonal and rubbed the skin with sea salt and black pepper.

Next into my lightly oiled griddle pan on a hot heat for 2 minutes then down to a medium heat for 4 more minutes.

Then I flipped them gently over for 30 seconds before popping them in a preheated oven at 200c for 15 minutes. This is the great thing about the griddle pan because you can just out it straight from the hob into the oven. They came out perfectly cooked for us – medium. Adjust either side for rare or well done – but please don’t do them well done! Pop them onto a board and let them rest for a minute then slice them – each person got around 3 or 4 slices which was just right for a supper.

I served them on a half of toasted and olive oiled French bread – you could use ciabatta or focaccia. I have a glut of asparagus at present so I cooked them gently for 4 minutes tip al dente and arranged 4 spears on each plate alongside with a mix leaf salad of beet and lamb’s lettuce leaves with 25gm of pomegranate seeds on each and a swirl of crema al limone balsamic.

The best part was adding an epoisses sauce – a half round of this sublime cheese gently melted in 100 ml of double cream. Add a little black pepper half way through.

Drizzle over the asparagus and the duck and serve.

Nothing complicated here – just great flavours from good quality simple foods.

They all got on well and the result was mouth wateringly fine – one of those meals I did not want to end!