This is a simple preparation to do at home, and it will give you a very good product to taste as appetizer, and if you have guests at home they will be surprised to see it 🙂

All you need is a duck breast, salt and spices 🙂

The duck you need is that kind of duck raised for the famous liver, usually the Moulard duck, the salt you need is the rock coarse salt or the fleur de sel, and for the spices what you prefer: black pepper, sage, rosemary, thyme, Cayenne pepper, paprika, etc.or if you prefer the mixture called Herbes de Provence.

The first step is to remove the fat in excess around the breast, then we have to remove the possible nerves and remaining feathers. We must clean well the breast.

Then take a baking pot for example and prepare a “bed” of salt, then put the breast on it laying on the skin side and cover completely with salt (completely, in the picture below it was not covered yet).

Cover the pot with a plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. Most of the french recipes say to leave it in the fridge for a time between 12 and 24 hours, I left it for 15 hours.

The day after remove carefully all the salt (with a brush for example), dry the breast with some kitchen paper and then season it on both sides with your spices: I used freshly ground black pepper, with dried sage, thyme, rosemary and some paprika.

Now take a clean towel and wrap the breast in it.

Put it in the bottom of your fridge, and let it dry for a time between 3 and 4 weeks. I found someone saying that it’s ready when it has lost about 30% of its weight. I didn’t measure the loss, but after 25 days it was definitely ready and very good 🙂

I suggest to slice it thin, and before I also removed the exceeding herbs on the top, the meat has already got the flavors from them.

Once you start to eat it, keep it in a paper bag inside the fridge, and cover the sliced side with an aluminium foil.

PS: you can follow the same steps also to make a goose ham (Magret d’oie séché).