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Food
Add Sizzle to Summer Salads
(Family Features) During the warm summer months, salad makes for a refreshing lunch or convenient dinner option that can be delicious and nutritious. With a variety of salad options available, they don’t have to be boring or monoto- nous.
For example, greens can instantly trans- form into a unique meal when you add creative options like duck breast to help elevate the dish. Because it’s a red meat, duck breast provides a hearty taste, similar to steak, while being leaner and lower in saturated fat than other red meats.
In this Cherry-Glazed Duck Breast Salad, homemade cherry vinaigrette glazes duck breast and dresses baby spinach while blue cheese and slivered almonds add tex- ture and flavor. As a bonus, you can save the duck breast skin to make cracklins for a quick snack or crunchy salad topping.
Find more salad recipes and tips for cooking with duck at mapleleaffarms.com.
Cherry-Glazed
Duck Breast Salad
Recipe courtesy of Chef Ted Cizma on behalf of Maple Leaf Farms
Prep time: 40 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Servings: 4
Cherry Vinaigrette:
2 cups dried cherries, divided 3 cups hot water
1/3 cup raspberry vinegar
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste 2 Maple Leaf Farms Boneless Duck Breasts
6 cups loosely packed baby spinach leaves, washed and trimmed
2 cups blue cheese
2 cups slivered almonds
To make Cherry Vinaigrette: In small saucepan over low heat, cover 1 cup cher- ries with water. Bring to simmer, cover pan and remove from heat. Let cherries soak in hot water 15-20 minutes. Strain cherries and reserve liquid.
In food processor or blender, puree cherries until smooth, adding reserved liquid as necessary. Add raspberry vin- egar to cherry mixture. With blender or food processor on low, slowly add olive oil, reserving about 2 tablespoons. Season mixture, to taste, with salt and pepper. Set aside Cherry Vinaigrette.
Heat grill to medium heat. Remove skin from duck breasts. Rub with re- maining olive oil and season liberally with salt and pepper. Pour some Cherry Vinaigrette into separate container to use as glaze; reserve remaining for dressing. Using pastry brush, coat duck breasts with Cherry Vinaigrette.
Cook duck until crisp and dark brown
(about 5-6 minutes), turn over and recoat with Cherry Vinaigrette. Con- tinue cooking until second side is crisp and brown, brushing with vinaigrette as needed, about 4 minutes, or until inter- nal temperature reaches 155 F. Remove to cutting board and let rest at least 5 minutes.
Place spinach in mixing bowl. Toss spinach with enough dressing to coat leaves. Add blue cheese, almonds and most of remaining dried cherries, reserv- ing some of each for garnish. Season with salt and pepper.
Divide spinach mixture among four bowls.
Slice duck breast thinly on bias, start- ing at one end of each breast with knife at 45-degree angle.
Fan slices of duck on top of each salad. Sprinkle each salad with crumbled blue cheese, almonds and dried cherries.
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