Breast of duck in red wine, lentil and olive sauce with herbs

This is a very simple one pot recipe, but fantastic on the tastebuds and gorgeous to look at!

Recipe for 4-5 people

– 2-3 duck breasts depending on size
– 120 g of dried Puy Lentils
– ¼ bottle of a nice round red wine
– ¼ of a finely chopped onion
– 250 ml of water
– Thyme and Parsley

First of all you need a good big pan, large enough for 2 or 3 duck breasts.  We use our Le Creuset cast iron frying pan.

Put the duck breasts in fat side down and fry off the blubber for about 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of the breast.  Careful that you don’t cook it for too long, it should still be nice and pink in the middle (you’ll heat it up again later for serving).

Pour off the fat and leave as much of the juice behind in the pan as possible.  Add your finely chopped onion and fry it for a couple of minutes, then pour in your ¼ bottle of red wine and 200ml of water.  Wash and drain the lentils and add them to the sauce. Also put in  a few herbs, Thyme and Parsley are nice, as well as some de-stoned dried black Olives to give it some more depth and salty flavour.

Cook the lentils for about 45 minutes on medium heat so that the sauce can thicken (lentils do that all naturally for you) and the lentils are nice and soft with a bit of bite left in the middle.  Make sure you have enough sauce left towards the end and that the lentils haven’t soaked up all the liquid.  If they have add some more water,  as there should be a nice puddle of sauce left.

Then cut the duck into slices and place it back in the pan.  Heat it up for a few minutes before serving.  This dish would go beautifully with some roasted potatoes, creamy Polenta or just a chunk of crusty bread.

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