Pan-seared Duck with Crunchy Salad (serves four easily)

2 bone­less duck breasts (these usu­ally come vacuum-packed)
sea salt
2 cups tightly packed baby spinach leaves
1 small pur­ple cab­bage
1 small white cab­bage
2 red bell pep­pers
1 avo­cado
1 dozen small toma­toes
hand­ful chives
dress­ing: juice and pulp of a lemon, 1 clove gar­lic, finely chopped, 1/4 cup olive oil, dah bal­samic vine­gar, tasp Dijon mus­tard, sea salt

Place the duck breasts on a cut­ting board (NOT the one you will later use for prepar­ing the salad; always use sep­a­rate boards for raw meat and veg­gies). Score the skin in four hor­i­zon­tal slices, till you can just see the meat beneath. Sprin­kle the skin with sea salt.

Heat a large skil­let till nearly smok­ing, then put in duck breasts skin side down and sprin­kle with sea salt. You would be wise at this point to cover the skil­let with one of those grease screens, since duck is very fatty and you (and your price­less Armani jacket) will get splat­tered. Turn heat down to medium and let duck cook for 8 min­utes. Resist the temp­ta­tion to play with it, poke it, and above all DO NOT pierce it.

Mean­while, pile the spinach on a large plat­ter. Shred the cab­bages finely (I cut them in quar­ters first to make small shreds) and slice the red pep­per into small strips. Halve the toma­toes. Chop the chives. Scat­ter all this over the spinach. It will be so pretty you’ll be tempted to take a picture.

Now, lift the grease screen and turn over the duck breasts. They will siz­zle madly, so quickly put the screen back on, and pre­pare to wait another 8 min­utes. Com­bine all dress­ing ingre­di­ents and whisk enthus­ti­as­ti­cally, but know that you will have to whisk again just before dress­ing the salad.

Remove the skil­let from the heat and, using tongs so as not to pierce the meat, lift the duck breasts from the skil­let and place on a plate. Pour off the fat and reserve in case you plan to fry eggs or hash browns any time soon (you can always throw it away later if you don’t use it). Wipe the skil­let with paper tow­els and place the duck breasts back in skin side down, then return to heat. Let the breasts siz­zle for about two min­utes, then lift them out of the fat and remove them to a fresh cut­ting board, where they can rest while you pour wine (or in our case, milk) and whisk the dress­ing one more time.

Now, you have a choice to make. Are you going to eat the delec­table skin and com­pletely ruin your res­o­lu­tion to eat less fat, or are you going to remove the skin and have a truly guilt-free din­ner? Your choice. I did remove the skin, and let me tell you, we didn’t feel deprived. Slice the duck thinly or thickly, whichever you like, and lay the slices over the salad. Whisk the dress­ing one more time and pour over the duck.

There is some­thing about the rich, ten­der, pink duck with a bite of crunchy, tangy cab­bage and tomato, and silky avo­cado, and vir­tu­ous spinach, that makes this dish just deli­cious. And so good for you!

Then, the next night we had com­pletely bor­ing, for­get­table fancy fresh ravi­oli from Sel­f­ridges. How­ever. With it I made an acci­den­tal sauce that turned out to be sub­lime. It hap­pened out of sheer neglect.

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