As all cooks know, sometimes things don’t really work out. It happens to Mrs J on a regular basis. No reason to despair though, all results are good results, if you learn from them!

Mrs J shares this recipe anyway because she believes the flavors are still good, even if she managed to rubber the duck. It’s kind of a good luck duck recipe…. Ba dam dam! Yep, I’ll be here all night folks!

Let’s blame the potatoes, shall we? Peeling potatoes numbs the mind. And we have to start with cooking peeled potatoes in salted water.

Fry the duck breast with salt and pepper until nice and brown on the fat side. Turn over for a few minutes to seal the meaty side. Then finish in the oven for probably 15-20 minutes at 125°C, depending on the size of the breasts, together with a few cloves of garlic. Then let rest. (This is where Mrs J failed. She’s not a very patient chef. She didn’t really let the duck rest long enough, so when she cut it, the juices just went all over the cutting board. And what remained turned to rubber. Don’t do that.)

Heat some precooked Danish red cabbage. Mrs J gets Christmas visions doing this even though we’re barely out of August.

Press the baked garlic into the potatoes, add milk and butter and mash gently. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Bring some beef stock to the boil with some port wine and soy sauce. Let reduce. At the end, add an unreasonable amount of butter and salt and pepper to taste.

Cut the well rested (ahem…) duck breast and serve with the garlic mash and red cabbage. Sauce on the side.

It’s going to be good! Really!