Finest duck breast with steamed noodles, oat root, salted plum & black truffle

Truffle reduction
Caramelize the sugar and deglaze with Madeira, truffle juice and port. Add the finely chopped truffle, season lightly with salt and reduce well. Set the reduction aside until ready to use.

Duck and truffle jus
Peel and roughly dice the shallots, onion, carrot and celery. Chop the carcasses and fry in a pan with classic frying oil and half the butter. Season with salt and sugar, then fry the vegetables vigorously. Add the tomato purée and continue to roast until everything has a nice brown color. Deglaze with a little port and red wine and reduce. Repeat the whole process once or twice. Now top up with chicken stock and veal stock.

Grate the raw potato. Add the juices, spices, remaining butter and a little grated potato to thicken. Slowly bring the sauce to the boil and simmer for approx. 2 hours. In the meantime, prepare the truffle reduction (see above).

Then mix the arrowroot starch with a little water and thicken the duck sauce with it. Cook for a further 20 minutes. Strain the duck jus and pass through a sauce sieve. Measure out 30 ml duck sauce for the mop and set aside.

Stir the truffle reduction into the remaining duck sauce, season to taste, reheat and reduce the truffle jus by a quarter. Finish with cold butter.

Mop sauce
Heat all the ingredients in a pan and cook to a glossy lacquer.

Duck breast and greaves
Heat a sous vide basin to 62 °C. Preheat the oven to 75 °C. Trim the duck breasts and remove the skin, then season with salt, pepper, lightly sugar and rub with quatre-épices, orange zest and melted butter. Lay the cling film and aluminum foil on top of each other, place the duck breasts on top and roll into a round sausage. Cook in the sous vide pan for 15 minutes until pink, then remove and leave to rest in the foil for 5 minutes.

Slice the foil sausages, glaze the duck rolls in the mop and leave to rest in the oven for 3 minutes. Just before serving, pass the breasts through the mop again and season with sea salt.

Pass the duck skin through a mincer (fine disc), mix with classic frying oil and fry in a pan over a medium heat until crispy. Degrease on kitchen paper and keep in a lukewarm oven until ready to serve.

Steamed noodle and duck filling
Preheat the oven to 160 °C (top/bottom heat). Peel and finely dice the onion, carrot and celeriac. Finely chop the truffle. Grease an ovenproof dish with half the butter and spread the vegetables in it. Season the duck legs generously with salt and pepper and place on top of the vegetables. Pour in half the port and a little chicken stock and cook the legs in the oven for about 1 ½ hours.

Remove and leave to cool briefly, then remove the meat and skin from the legs and chop finely. Strain the cooking liquid from the pan and keep.

Finely dice the shallots. Melt the remaining butter in a pan and sauté the shallots in it. Add the duck meat and season with salt and pepper for the first time. Add the tomato purée and honey and roast briefly, then pour in the Madeira and cooking liquid and reduce. Now add the egg and bread croutons and cook again. Season the mixture with mole, parsley and, if necessary, salt and pepper. Leave to cool and shape into 1.5 cm balls. Freeze until ready to use.

Filled steamed dumplings
Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl and make a well in the middle. Heat some milk to lukewarm, crumble in the yeast and dissolve. Pour the yeast milk and half the sugar into the flour well and mix with a little flour from the side to form a pre-dough. Cover the dough and leave to rise in a warm place for approx. 30 minutes.

Add the egg, salt, remaining sugar, bread spice and the rest of the lukewarm milk and knead everything into a dough. Then gradually work in the butter. Knead the dough until it comes away from the side of the bowl. Cover the dough a second time and leave to rise in a warm place for approx. 45-50 minutes.

Then knead the dough again and shape it into a thick sausage on a floured work surface. Divide into twelve pieces, make a hollow, place the frozen duck balls in it, seal the dough around them and shape into balls. Place them on a buttered tray, cover and leave to rise a third time in a warm place. The dough balls should feel like little clouds.

Cook the steamed noodles in the steamer at 90 °C for 25 minutes. Before serving, brush the steamed pasta with clarified butter and sprinkle with roasted panko breadcrumbs, finely sliced truffle and duck shavings.

Oat root puree
Peel and chop the oat roots. Finely chop the shallot. Heat the butter in a small pan and sauté the shallot in it. Add the oat roots and deglaze with chicken stock. Cook the roots until soft, seasoning with nutmeg, salt and cayenne pepper. Then mix in the milk, cream and crème fraîche and puree the mixture in a blender until smooth. Season the puree again with the spices and salt.

Glazed oat roots
Peel the oat roots and soak them in a mixture of half water and half milk, then heat with the stock, season lightly with salt and cook until done. Remove the soft roots and rinse them in cold water, then split them down the middle and cut them in half lengthwise.

In a small saucepan, make a glaze from the chicken stock, vinegar, brown butter and rapeseed oil and glaze the salsify in it. Season to taste with lemon zest, salt and pepper.

Marinated salted plums
Cut the plums in half and remove the stones. Heat all the ingredients except the plums in a small pan and reduce by half. Pour the marinade over the plums and vacuum twice or alternatively store in an airtight container. Store in a vacuum until ready to use.

Salted plum gel
Cut two marinated halves of salted plums in half again and keep warm until serving. Finely blend the remaining plums. Bring all the ingredients except the plum raisin juice to the boil in a small pan, then pour onto a tray and leave the gel to cool. Place the frozen puree in a blender jug with the plum juice and blend to a gel. Strain the gel as desired and pour into a spray bottle.

Sideboards
Arrange three pieces of glazed oat root on a preheated plate and place a steamed dumpling on top. Place a large dot of oat root puree next to it and use a spoon to make a small trench. Squirt two more dots of puree onto the glazed roots and draw a thin line opposite. Cut the glazed duck breast in half lengthways and arrange on the puree opposite the steamed noodle. Spread two dots of salted plum gel in front of the oat roots and place a lukewarm quarter of salted plum next to it. Place a buckwheat chip between the breast and the oat root and garnish with herbs. Grate the black truffle over the dish and pour over the strong truffle jus at the table.

Recipe by Alexander Huber from “Bayerische Küche vom feinsten” / Matthaes Verlag
Photo: Kirchgasser Photography