Coffee Cured Duck Breast

One of my latest fascinations has been with curing duck breast. It started when I cured some breast for duck pastrami for a wine dinner at the restaurant a few months back. The pastrami turned out better than I could have imagined (I will post it later on). But it wasn't until I started reading in the charcuterie books that I realized ducks potential to take on what ever flavor you throw its way without losing the duck quality of it. Having that said there will be plenty more duck curing post to come
My most resent of these was coffee cured duck breast from the CIA charcuterie book. I'm not a huge coffee flavored fan but it sounded interesting and was very simple to put together

The directions are simple:
Trim the breast, clean excess fat, and score the fat.
Mix the cure ingredients together.
Pack the breast in the cure mixture. (Leave for 12 hours)
Rinse and dry (dry in the fridge for 12 hours)
Hot Smoke. (@ 185 until internal temp is 150 about 1.5 hours)
Eat!

The recipe called for four moulard breast which are big and pricey (about 1lb each breast) I just subbed some regular ol maple leaf brand duck from central market.

4 Moulard duck breast (or regular... your choice)
1 Cup fresh ground coffee (I used already ground that was close at hand)
3/4 Cup kosher salt
1/2 Cup sugar
3 T grated orange zest

That's all! It turned out really nice and the coffee flavor is very light at the tail end of the finish. It will keep for up to two weeks when wrapped well and in the fridge but trust me you wont have it that long!

Enjoy!