Spiced Orange Duck Tacos With Sriracha And Fire Roasted Corn Créma
This recipe comes from our friend, Nitin at NomNomaste. Nitin grew up in New Delhi, India and moved to the United States in 2002. His recipes, flavor explorations are composed of his grandmother's influence and his own take that he developed while cooking in many kitchens in the U.S. Similar to Nitin, we both find comfort in combining our heritage and flavors we are familiar with and mixing them with our American roots. Here, Nitin shares with us an amazing Spiced Orange Duck Taco made with our Barrel-Aged Sriracha. Enjoy!
Recipe and photography created by Nitin Budhiraja of NomNomaste.
From Nitin at NomNomaste:
And I'm sure today's dish is going to WOW you too. This dish is a real star! I've got three words for you. Taco. Crispy Duck. Sriracha. Rich, luxurious and crispy Duck. Sweet and spicy. Finished with Fire-roasted corn créma, all rolled up in a blanket of pure goodness. It is Taco heaven!
Ingredients for Marinade and Spiced Orange Reduction Sauce
Half loaf fresh Duck breast (skin on)
1 tsp Barrel Aged Sriracha
1 tbsp Srirachup
1 cup Orange juice + 1/2 cup more for reduction
1 tbsp brown sugar + 1/2 tbsp more for reduction
1 tbsp Coriander powder
1 tbsp Cumin seeds
1 stick Cinnamon
1 Star Anise
1 tbsp Chipotle powder
1/2 Jalapeño
1 clove of Garlic
Handful of fresh Cilantro
Salt
1 large Ziploc bag
Ingredients for Fire-Roasted Corn Créma
1 ear fresh Corn
3/4 cup Sour Cream
1 tsp Barrel Aged Sriracha
1/2 a Jalapeño
Juice of half a Lime
Salt
Pepper
Cilantro
8-10 Corn Tortillas
INSTRUCTIONS:
Before we fire up the pans, it's best to marinate the Duck overnight for full flavor, or at least 2-3 hours, and to do that let's first get the marinade together.
Take your Duck half-loaf (term used to describe Duck breast) and make 4 to 5 diagonal slits on it, so all the flavor travels deep.
Then in a Ziploc bag, transfer all the marinade ingredients—the Orange juice, the spices, the hot sauces, and the herbs etc—and seal it tight and give it several good shakes. Shake it good and get your arm workout in!
Once incorporated, transfer the Duck into the bag and seal it tight. Shake it well again, and with your hands massage the marinade into the crevices and slits you made earlier in the Duck, making sure it coats every part of the loaf.
Set it in the fridge and let it marinade overnight or at least 2 to 3 hours. Overnight is best!
The next day or the day of making the Tacos, bring out the Duck and set it on the kitchen counter for an hour or so, to bring it to room temperature.
While that happens, we can knock out the fire roasted Corn créma. Yum!
Take the corn, and peel away the husk. Fire up you stove on high flame and roast the corn for around a minute on each side, making sure, it's evenly roasted.
Once that is done leave it aside for a few minutes to cool down. In the meantime in a small bowl mix all the ingredients listed for the Créma above and incorporate well. When the corn has cooled down, stand it up on its end and shave off the kernels with a sharp knife. Break up any clumps to make sure we have loose kernels.
Transfer the fire-roasted Corn into the bowl and mix well. Créma is ready. Place it in the fridge.
Now the star of the show! The marinated DuckNow the star of the show! The marinated Duck.
Traditionally the Duck would cook like Steak, on high heat and quick, but due to the high sugar content from the Orange juice and brown sugar, we would get instant burning if we cooked on very high heat. So for this recipe we cook medium to low for a bit longer, but still making sure we get medium to rare meat.
Start a heavy bottom pan (quite important to get even heating surface) on low to medium heat, and let it heat up well for 3-4 minutes. Once the pan is place the Duck loak skin side down and let it for for 8 minutes or so. Make sure that the flame is set to low to medium. Soon, the skin will start to render out all the fat and get crispy and golden! So gorgeous!
Flip the loaf when you see some good caramelization on the skin side. Flip it and drool over the thing of beauty that sitting in the pan right in front of you! The kitchen is smelling amazing. Sweet aromas linger.
Cook it for another 3 minutes or so and remove from the pan on a clean dish and let it rest for at least 10 minutes before you steal a taste.
Now for the spiced Orange reduction sauce, drain out all the drippings from the pan and clean with a paper towel gently, just enough to get all the grease out. Transfer the marinade into the medium-high hot pan and add the additional 1/2 cup of Orange juice and brown sugar, and stir continuously. Keep stirring for the next 7 to 8 minutes till the sauce thickens or when you slide your ladle across the pan and the sauce doesn't collect back immediately. It should look syrupy. Remove and discard all the whole spices and Jalapeños. Turn off heat, and transfer into a bowl.
We are so close guys! now just fire roasting the Corn Tortillas—the last step!
Fire roast some corn Tortillas and wrap them in a cloth and store in a basket. Roast them enough that they get some color at the edge and are pliable.
And now we assemble the Tacos! The fun part :)
First put down the amazing fire-roasted Corn Créma. A spoonful across the Taco. Slice thinly the Duck breast with a really sharp knife making sure none of those juices escape! That's worth money! Place them over the Créma in a shingled arrangement.
Now drizzle a little (or a lot) of the spiced Orange reduction and top it off with some fresh Cilantro and squeeze some fresh Lime juice. And you're done!!
But before you dig in, let's take another worthy moment to just take it all in! And admire this thing of beauty that never existed before, or this thing you've never heard of. But here it is! And it looks heavenly! The Spiced Orange Duck Taco. Just like that we've created a Taco that is unique and bold!
