Sous Vide Duck With Mango Chilli Sauce – The Market Gets What It Will Bear.

I’m a sucker for fruit. I love the taste that makes me feel so alive and that feeling of fresh fruit juice, dribbling through my unkempt beard. One of my absolute favourites is mango. Living here in Ireland, I don’t get that feeling too often as we tend to get a pretty poor substitute for the real thing. The supermarkets conspire with international fruit companies to supply what is oft referred to as ‘market appropriate produce’ to different countries. They also charge ‘what the market will bear’ when setting prices. Hence, we in Ireland end up with mangos that would be more use in a civil disturbance than they are as a fresh fruit. I believe that we overpay for the privilege too. 

Yet, I still love the taste of mango. I also love duck. So, I decided to prepare a duck with mango and chilli sauce. Thankfully, the rubber bullet-like mangos sold here can be sliced and cooked to make a half decent sauce.

I kept the mangos in the shade for fear they might ripen…

Ingredients

• 6 duck breasts
• 4 rock hard “ready to eat” mangos from your local supermarket
• 2 red chillies
• 2 stalks of lemongrass
• Juice of two limes
• Salt and pepper
• Udon (or similar) noodles

Sharpen a knife and cut through duck skin as shown. Don’t cut through the flesh.

The duck skin will render quickly in the pan, after it has been cooked sous vide.

Season the duck generously with salt and black pepper.

The seasoning will add a lovely taste to the skin (and the meat).

Vacuum seal the duck breasts and cook sous vide at  54C for 2 hours.

I wish I could afford a chamber vacuum. The vacuum can squash stuff.

While the duck is cooking, sharpen a big knife and attack the leather like mango fruit. Get the flesh away from the skin as best you can and remove the large stone. Discard the stone and skin.

The different colour of fruit is from different mangos – some very hard, some not so.

Add the juice of the lime. Bash the lemongrass and add whole. Slice the chillies and add them too. If you like heat, leave the seeds in.

Plenty of chilli heat to balance the sweetness of the mango.

Heat the mango bullet sauce over a medium heat until the fruit breaks down and the flavours meld. When the duck is cooked, heat a cast iron pan to medium hot. Place the duck skin side down on the pan and leave for about three minutes. The skin will render quickly. Turn the duck and brown quickly on the flesh side. Remove from the heat and slice along the lines of the incisions in the flesh. Serve with plenty of the delicious mango sauce.

I like a lot of mango sauce. You will too.

I suppose I have the supermarkets to thank for this delicious recipe. They charge what we will bear. I don’t know what others do with the cricket ball-like fruit. We don’t play a lot of cricket in Ireland. However, as long as there are duck available, I’ll bear with the quality and pricing to make this lovely sauce.