Fat starts to render – After a few minutes, take a peek and you’ll see fat has started to melt out of the duck.
So much duck fat! At around the 5 to 7 minute mark, the entire pan will be covered in duck fat.
Keep the pan weight on until around the 7 minute mark when the skin has started to go golden and has “set”. While it is still soft, it can still wrinkle/curl = rubbery patches = 😭
Golden crispy skin! Keep cooking until the skin because golden and crispy, around the 10 minute mark, or longer. You can turn the heat up towards the end, once there’s lots of fat in the pan.
Finish in oven – When the skin is golden, turn and cook the flesh side for just 1 minute to seal. Then transfer the pan to at 180°C/350°F oven (160°C fan-forced) and roast for 8 minutes or until the internal temperature is 60°C/140°F which is medium ie. light blush of pink. For medium rare (deep pink, like steak), aim for 54°C/130°F (6 minutes).
Don’t worry if you go over, duck breast is great even fully cooked to 68°C/154.4°F (ie no pink at all, like chicken breast). Think – Chinese BBQ duck. Fully cooked, and delicious!
Rest – Then place the duck on a rack set over a plate, or just a plate, and leave it uncovered to rest for at least 5 minutes while you finish the sauce.
Slice the duck breast just shy of 5mm / 0.2″ thick. Do this just before placing it in the curry sauce. It can rest for well beyond 5 minutes because the flesh warms up once placed in the hot sauce.
2. red curry sauce
The key step here is to cook off the curry paste, whether using homemade or store bought. It makes a massive difference to improve flavour. If you just stir it into liquid, the flavour is so unimpressive!
Cook off curry paste – Sauté the curry paste with the ginger and garlic for 4 to 5 minutes over medium heat. The curry paste will be quite wet at first but will dry out and deepen in colour which improves the flavour of the curry sauce.
Sauce – Add the chicken stock first and simmer to reduce by half. Then add the coconut milk, fish sauce, sugar and lime leaves (crush in hands to release flavour). Stir to combine then simmer for 2 minutes.
Green beans (or other veg) – Add the beans and simmer for 3 minutes until they are just about tender. (If using other vegetables, add them in based on the cook time).
Lychees or pineapples – Then stir the lychees or pineapple in and simmer for just 1 minute just to warm it though rather than cook it until soft. And just before serving, stir the Thai Basil leaves in (it wilts quickly and, like regular basil, darkens in colour with prolonged exposure to heat).
Plating up – Though we’re not aiming for super crispy duck skin in this dish, I still like to serve it with most of the skin above the sauce line because it gets less soggy than stirring it though. Visual purpose as well.
So I put a bit of sauce in the base of a serving bowl then lay the duck breast on top, fanning the slices out slightly to expose the pretty pink flesh. Then I spoon the rest of the curry sauce, lychees etc around the duck breast. Or, I gently place the sliced duck into the pan with the sauce in it, as pictured below.
Garnishes and serve! As with many South East Asian dishes, garnishes not only add lovely colour but also extra flavour! Extra Thai basil, coriander/cilantro and slices of red chilli.
Thai red duck curry
Look at it. It’s so beautiful! A riot of colour, the unmissable pearly balls for lychees, the golden duck skin peeking out above the red coconut curry sauce, and the hint of pink flesh on show which screams “I’m so tender and juicy, no dry duck here!!”.
Take it to the table with pride along with jasmine rice that you steamed earlier (despite a certain food blogger not including that instruction as step 1). Gesture grandly* and stand back for a moment to give your audience time to praise and lavish you with exclamations of appreciation before graciously allowing people to dig in!
