Autumn recipe: Roast duck with lavender honey

Served with crushed Jerusalem artichokes, roast garlic, choy sum, greengage & red wine sauce (serves 2).

A warming Autumnal dish of roast duck served with lavender honey, created by The Petersham Restaurant’s award-winning head chef, Adebola Adeshina.

 For the duck:

2 fillets of duck breast, with skin
2 tbsp. honey
5gr lavender, dried
200gr choy sum
1 head of garlic, sliced
500gr Jerusalem artichokes
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
1 tsp. chives, chopped

For the sauce:

3 shallots, diced
100ml orange juice
750ml red wine
2 beef bouillon cubes
5 greengages, cut into quarters
Thyme
2 bay leaves

To season:

Salt
Cracked black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 170C. Next, fry the diced shallots with the bay leaves and a pinch of thyme in a pan with vegetable oil for about 5 minutes. Pour in the orange juice and simmer to syrup and then add the beef bouillon and red wine until reduced by roughly two-thirds. Pass through a fine sieve, bring back to the pan and add the cut greengages. Simmer for 5 minutes.

2. Peel the Jerusalem artichokes and place them in a pan with 300ml water and the lemon juice to prevent them from browning. Add a pinch of salt and thyme and boil until soft. Blitz the artichokes and 150ml of the boiling water in a blender until smooth and puréed. Season to taste.

3. Score the skin of the duck in a diamond pattern and season with salt and cracked black pepper. Cook the duck skin side down in a medium-heated pan with vegetable oil for about 6-8 minutes or until the skin is crispy and golden brown. Then place them skin side down on a baking tray accompanied with the sliced garlic. Pour over the honey and dried lavender and cook in the oven for 10 minutes until the roast duck is cooked medium to medium well done.

4. For the choy sum, blanch in salty boiling water and season with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

5. Spoon the artichoke purée onto a plate and add the roast garlic. Add the roast duck and place the choy sum on top, before pouring over the sauce and sprinkling a bit of dried lavender and chopped chives.

Take a look at our latest Autumn menus, here, or click here to book your table at The Petersham Restaurant this Autumn.

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