Cooking meats that are less common for everyday meals can be intimidating and there can be a learning curve when it comes to making venison or duck for the first time. Luckily, we live in an age of endless kitchen gadgets that can make cooking even the most daunting of meals a breeze which is why Look recipe developer Ksenia Prints utilizes an Instant Pot in her duck a l’orange recipe. The Instant Pot is a secret weapon since it tenderizes the gamey meat and infuses it with flavor, cooking for just 45 minutes.
Without this device, cooking a duck properly could take upwards of two hours. During traditional roasting, you have to pay close attention to your meat, continuously rotating it to ensure all sides cook evenly. However, the Instant Pot offers a mostly hands-off cooking experience. In this recipe, you make the sauce in the same pot, adding to its convenience. With all the time you save on cooking the duck, you can turn your attention to making delicious sides like creamy garlic mashed red potatoes.
Tips for cooking duck in your Instant Pot
One of the benefits of cooking this type of protein in an Instant Pot is all the delicious frond leftover in the pot. Frond refers to the carmelized bits left on the bottom of a pan after you sear meats or even vegetables. These brown crumbs contain lots of flavor and shouldn’t be ignored during cooking. Ksenia Prints recommends scraping up any leftover brown bits when you add the broth to the pot. This broth will become your sauce later on, so it’s important not to skip this step.
The Instant Pot makes creating pan sauces like this simple. All the leftover liquid from cooking remains in the pot and you then use the simmering function to cook it down. When making the sauce for your duck a l’orange, let it reduce enough to turn into a delightfully thick, flavorful glaze. One of the biggest mistakes people make when cooking a pan sauce like this is not letting it reduce enough.
The recipe calls to cook the sauce down for at least five minutes, but you can do longer if desired. Prints recipe calls for a cornstarch slurry to aid in thickening. Even though they both act as a thickening agent, the difference between a slurry vs. a roux is a slurry won’t add extra richness to your sauce. If you keep these tips in mind, you’ll be enjoying a flavorful dish in half the normal time.
