Recipe for duck breast lacquered with honey and Sicilian oran

Today we are preparing a historic and important dish, duck with orange!
Orange duck (in French, Canard à l'Orange) is undoubtedly one of the most iconic dishes of French
cuisine. A balanced dish, where succulent meat meets the freshness, acidity and sweetness of Sicilian
oranges. But what is the history of this dish? How did he become so famous? Let's discover together the
roots of this delicacy which has spanned centuries of gastronomic tradition.
Although it is considered a dish of French origins and is a very popular dish in France, many scholars
believe that orange duck has Florentine origins, in fact we already have evidence of this in Florentine
recipe books starting from the fifteenth century. The dish was called duck with orange apple and in fact
the orange apple, or sweet orange was the main ingredient. At that time, orange was considered a noble
fruit and was used in many preparations in courts throughout Europe.
Legend has it that Catherine de’ Medici exported the recipe to France on the occasion of her marriage to
Henry of Valois, future King of France, as she was dissatisfied with the French cuisine. Furthermore, it
seems that in France they did not yet use forks and it was Catherine herself who brought them from
Italy.
Truth or legend, it is certainly a wonderful dish that we will try to prepare! For this recipe we thank
Nicco from La Cambusa di Nicco, we invite you to browse his channel for this and other recipes!
To prepare this recipe it is important to use fresh and excellent quality oranges, which we recommend
you purchase from producer to consumer in the aranciabellino.com store, they will be collected and
shipped to your home. You can use both blonde and red oranges. Sicilian blood oranges, especially once
ripe, are sweeter and therefore can be more suitable for this type of preparation.

INGREDIENTS
1 duck breast
1 orange with edible skin
1 tablespoon chestnut honey
Garlic, rosemary and bay leaves
Salt and pepper


To begin with, you need to prepare a sauce over a low heat. In a small pan, pour the orange juice, honey
and a few orange peels. The sauce must thicken and caramelize.
At this point we can put it in the pan, on the fat side, with garlic, rosemary and bay leaves. After a few
minutes the fat will have toasted slightly and we can turn it upside down and add the orange sauce with
the peels which in the meantime will have reduced.
For an optimal result you need to finish cooking in the oven at 150 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. If
you have a probe thermometer, the ideal is when the heart has reached about 60 degrees. At the end of
cooking the meat will appear pink and juicy.