Gressingham Duck Breast, potato dauphinoise and a veal reduction

For an evening with friends I decided Gressingham duck breast was just the ticket.

Served with roasted beetroots, buttery Kale and a big dish of Dauphinoise potatoes all topped off with a veal reduction. So if you like the look of it here's what I did.

For the dauphinoise, butter a large dish and layer sliced Desiree potatoes with cream, grated garlic, and season with black pepper and salt. Only add half a clove of grated garlic to every second layer so that it doesn't over power the flavour of the dish.Cover the last layer with cream and some knobs of butter. Season well. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 200 deg C until golden brown and bubbling.

Boil whole beetroot for 8 mins. Once cooked, peel, chop and roast with balsamic vinegar, salt and black pepper for 15-20 mins. Blanche a generous amount of chopped Kale and toss in a little bit of butter (optional but worth it!).

Whilst the dauphinoise are bubbling away and have about 12-15 mins left cook the duck breast. For the duck breast, each side was pan fried in extra virgin olive oil for 2 mins each side until golden brown. They were then finished off in a pre-heated oven at 220 deg C for 6 mins. The breasts were loosley covered with tin foil and allowed to rest for 6 mins.

Serve and enjoy.

If you are anything like us the Dauphinoise make a great late night snack...if there are any left that is.

This weekend we took some friends from home to see the wonders of Borough market. We enjoyed an afternoon looking around the various stalls and sampling all of the good.

In particular I love the Spanish section with their fantastic carved off the leg Iberico ham. Not the cheapest but the tastiest cut of meat. One of which is matured for about 2 and half years. But on this occasion we saw one from the white pig and three back acorn fed pigs. When they slice this kind of ham the fat melts immediately on your lips which is just divine.
Luckily we also found a Comte stand which just so happens to be our favourite cheese de jour.

 As any foodie will know Borough Market is a fantastic place to find beautiful produce from all over the country and europe. We found ourselves by the New Forest Cider stand  where we tried their spiced mulled cider, which warmed the cockles a treat! We have included a few snaps of what you can expect to enjoy at our favourite food market in London to share the love of everything food related.