Crispy Duck

This is the main course i made for Valentines dinner for my special man,  taken from Ching-He Huang's 'Chinese Food Made Easy'.
It is definitely an adventure - from shopping for the duck breast, and end up buying a whole duck because it worked out cheaper to get the whole duck - so going home i had to tackle in calving the the meat out.  It was tricky, but i just got on and done it.  Thought i had lots of duck meat, but once cooked, it was just enough. 
Have to admit, when shopping i forgot to get fresh plums or apricots  so couldnt make the sauce in the recipe - but luckily in my cupboard i have a jar of plum sauce to save me!
 Once made the dinner - it tasted yummy and meat was very tender - i must say i had such a great sense of achievement, that i can not help to ring my mum the next day to tell her i can calve a duck haha.
From this experience, duck is definitely on my menu in my kitchen in the future and not just at restaurants.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 Duck Breasts, skin on, skin scored in a criss-cross pattern
1Tbspn groundnut oil

For the Marinade
4 Tbspns freshly grated root ginger
2 Tbspns Shaohsing rice wine or dry sherry
2 Tbspn ground sichuan peppercorns
1 pinch of sea salt
6 star anise
1 Tbspn dark soy sauce
1 Tbspn light soy sauce

For the Apricot & Plum Sauce
100ml water
2 plums, quartered and stoned
50g/2oz dried apricots, chopped
2 Tbspn sugar
1 Tbspn runny honey
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
juice of 1 lime

Method

1) Put all the ingredients for hte marinade into a bowl and stir to combine. Add the duck, cover with clingfilm and leave to marinate for 20mins
2)Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Heat a wok or pan over a high heat and add the groundnut oil. Place the duck into the wok or pan, skin side down, and fry for 4-5mins until the skin is brown and crisp. Transfer to a baking tray, skin side up, and cook in the oven for 3-4 minutes (depending on how well done you like the duck)
3)While the duck is in the oven, make the apricot and plum sauce. Put the water into a small pan and bring to the boil. Add the plums, apricots, sugar, honey, cinnamon and star anise and cook intil reduced to a sticky sauce. Take off the heat and stir in the lime juice.
4)To serve place a duck breast on each plate, pour the sauce over, and with some rice. 

Happy Cooking!