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Salt-baked duck breast with root vegetable and red cabbage slaw

Salt-baked duck breast with root vegetable and red cabbage slaw

Wine to try
2007 Escarpment Pinot Noir, Martinborough, A$55/NZ$48
Duck and pinot – a classic (and wonderful) combination. But this isn’t just any old duck and certainly not your everyday pinot – but one of Larry McKenna’s Martinborough masterpieces. It comes from the tiny (yielding) 2007 vintage when Larry made just one pinot – incorporating the parcels of fruit normally set aside for his top-end wines. The intense flavours of dark cherry, wild raspberry and exotic spices interplay with the powerful flavours of the salt-crusted duck and the earthy rusticity of the slaw. A marvellous union.

This recipe appeared in the June/July 2009 issue of Gourmet Traveller WINE.

Salt-baked duck breast with root vegetable and red cabbage slaw

Serves 2
2   200g duck breasts
Salt crust
4 cups   coarse sea salt
2   eggwhites
Root vegetable and red cabbage slaw
2 cups   red cabbage, shredded
2   parsnips, thinly peeled
1 head   celeriac, julienned
2   carrots, julienned


1 Preheat oven to 240C. For the salt crust, mix salt with eggwhites in a bowl and set aside.
2 For the slaw, combine the ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
3 Heat a frying pan over high heat then sear duck breasts skin-side down for 1 minute. Turn over and sear other side for 1 minute. Remove from pan.
4 Spread half the salt-crust mixture in a baking pan and place duck breasts on top, skin-side down, then cover with remaining mixture. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for 10 minutes before breaking salt crust and removing duck breasts.
5 To serve, slice duck into thick pieces, combine with the root vegetable and red cabbage slaw, and season generously with freshly ground black pepper.


RECIPE Andy Harris PHOTOGRAPHY William Meppem STYLING Hannah Meppem and Sabine Schmitz DRINK SUGGESTION Peter Bourne

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