Duck a l’orange is a traditional French dish that Julia Child brought to American households through their television sets. The sweet-and-sour sauce she shared was the classic Sauce Bigarade, the French word for the sour Seville oranges used. Making it requires preparing a caramel, several reductions, and loads of time, which is fine when you have a whole duck roasting in the oven. But when you’re working with boneless duck breasts that cook quickly like a steak, time is of the essence. Luckily, this sweet-tart bourbon-orange sauce is a simple five-ingredient medley of honey, orange zest, orange juice, vinegar, and bourbon. It’s extremely flavorful, so a little drizzle is all you need to brighten the palate and balance the richness of the duck. The bourbon is the secret to achieving what tastes like long-simmered complexity in a sauce that takes mere minutes to make.
This recipe relies on the cold skillet method for cooking the breasts. It’s an ideal way to slowly render the fat cap beneath the skin without overcooking the meat. The breasts take about 8 to 10 minutes to cook to medium-rare, but you’ll want to monitor the cooking throughout. Every 2 minutes or so, drain off the accumulated fat and rotate the pan a quarter turn on the stove to make sure the duck cooks evenly and the skin crisps up nicely. Then flip and cook on the flesh side for just a minute or two.
