Tea-Smoked Duck Breast

Rating: 6-7 out of 10.
This dish was certainly an adventure! The adventure started last week when I had to source some of the more difficult to obtain ingredients. The breasts are smoked over a wonderful mix of Oolong and Jasmine tea leaves (which I found in an Asian supermarket but you could also get at a specialist tea shop), orange zest, dried orange rind (which you can buy but I dried my own by leaving sitting on a plate at room temperature for 4 days) jasmine rice, brown sugar, star anise, sichuan peppercorns (Asian Supermarket, also known as Peppertree Pricklyash) and Cassia Bark (I could have bought this on the internet or had a deli order it in but decided to use Cinnamon Bark instead which I found at the Asian supermarket and has a similar flavour). The smell of the orange and wonderful spices as the duck smoked was really quite amazing.
The duck was topped with a pate, water chestnut and pear ravioli and served with wilted spinach, orange sauce and crispy ginger. The recipe used blood oranges, which are not in season, so I just used normal oranges which meant my sauce wasn't as dark in colour but still very yummy and looked pretty on the plate.
We usually eat our meat well done but I followed the recipe and left the duck medium which meant it was very tender. I think I could have made the skin a bit crispier and rendered the fat a little more but overall it was pretty good. It was a very rich dish but the flavours all worked really well together and even my husband, who is not a great fan of duck or pate, went back for a little more of each! I would descibe it as a clever fusion of French and Asian flavours.
Would I make it again? Probably not as it was a reasonably difficult dish to make (think I had 6 pans on the go at one stage) and to be honest I don't tend to make dishes twice anyway unless they are sensational! If you like duck and want to try something new and challenging definitely give it a go!
Best go and check the Donna Hay Coconut Cake I have baking ready for our first Cooking Club get together today. I am not generally a "baker" as I prefer to cook savoury dishes and have very little will power when it comes to not eating nice food sitting around my kitchen! However, I thought I would give this one a go since Donna Hay is our inspiration this month and her books do contain a lot of desserts and cakes.