Tea smoked duck with Asian salad – Masterchef challenge!
Tea smoked duck
It was time again for our third challenge where Peter and Mary would be giving us a ‘Masterchef Australia‘ challenge to deal with. Our first one was a lot of fun, the second challenge was more of themed one (Vietnamese) and for this challenge we got both a mystery box AND a pressure test. Part of our pressure test was this delicious tea smoked duck. Gotta excuse me a bit for the rushed images but I had to run upstairs to shoot the duck and run back down to join the dinner again, so it was a ‘put down, shoot and go back to eat’ kind of picture. 
Our autumn table setting
The first pressure test recipe was this tea smoked duck and as luck would have it, we had smoked a duck the evening before for the first time at the cooking club, so that was a lucky coincidence and gave us a bit more confidence in making it this time. The recipe is originally from one of the masterchef contestants named Amina. She unfortunately is out of the competition (here in the Netherlands we’re now in the finals week of that particular series..) but she had some fantastic dishes and this is one of them. It involves quite a few steps in the preparation of the dish including infusing olive oil with tea. That takes about 45 minutes and I’ve got to say that the flavor disappointed somewhat (of the oliveoil, not of the final dish!) but it could be the kind of tea or the kind of olive oil we used. It was definitely and interesting dish to make and it was soooo much better then we had thought it would be!
It’s funny how you can taste the separate components of a dish but then once you combine the two it all comes together. LOVED this dish. Don’t be put of by the number of ingredients used. It’s not as hard as you would maybe think. Just go step by step and you’ll be fine. ofcourse this would be a brilliant Christmas starter (getting into Christmas mode already!)
For our mystery box we had a pork belly which was absolutely brilliant too but I might share that later. I think I’m gonna be making that again soon, it was soooo good. The dessert was Eaton Mess, so that’s a no brainer really… All in all we had great fun and can’t wait for the next one!
Tea smoked duck with Chinese inspired salad
Yield: 2
Prep Time: 25 mins
Cook Time: 50 mins
Total Time: 1 hrs and 15 mins
Ingredients:
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons black tea
- 2 tablespoon orange juice
- 1 teaspoonbrown sugar
- ½ teaspoon Szechuan pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon black tea
- 1 teaspoon rock salt
- 4 tablespoons brown rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 baby red radish, finely sliced
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 cup black tea leaves
- 1 tablespoon Szechuan pepper, toasted and ground
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 knob ginger, quartered
- 3 garlic cloves, halved
- 1 duck breast, skin on
- 1 cup woodear mushrooms, halved and quickly fried in olive oil
- 1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
- 1 small cucumber, deseeded, thinly sliced on diagonal
- 1 spring onion, thinly sliced on diagonal
- 1 red chilli, deseeded, thinly sliced
- 1 green chilli, deseeded, thinly sliced
- ½ cup coriander leaves
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. For dressing, combine the olive oil and tea in a small saucepan, place over a low heat, lightly simmer for 45 minutes, remove from heat, strain and cool. Combine the orange juice, sugar, Szechuan pepper and salt in a bowl, slowly drizzle the infused oil into the mixture whisking constantly until mixture emulsifies. Set aside.
3. Combine the tea and salt on a baking tray, bake for 8-12 minutes or until crisp, transfer to a mortar and grind with a pestle to a powder consistency.
4. For pickled radish, combine the vinegar, sugar and salt in a small saucepan place over a medium heat and bring to the boil, place the radish in a bowl, pour over the pickle mixture and leave to infuse for 10 minutes, then drain and set aside.
5. For duck, line the bottom of a wok with foil. Combine sugar, tea, Szechuan pepper, salt, ginger and garlic in a bowl and place evenly across the bottom. Place a bamboo steamer into the wok, cover the wok with a lid, once the wok is hot and smoking, place the duck breast skin-side up in the steamer, place lid back on wok and smoke for 6-8 minutes or until smoked to your liking.
6. Place the smoked duck breast skin-side down in a frying pan over medium-high heat and cook for 6-8 minutes or until skin is crispy. Turn over and cook for 1-2 minutes. Remove, rest, then slice.
7. For salad, place mushrooms in a bowl, pour over the vinegar, add the pickled radish, cucumber, spring onion, chillies, and coriander leaves. Combine.
8. Spoon the salad onto a serving plate, place the sliced duck around the salad and sprinkle over tea salt with the dressing in a small jug to the side to serve.
Recipe by Amina Elshafei
Appetizer
Asian
Bread
Breakfast
Desserts & other sweets
Healthy
Oh this looks so yummy!
And I love the table setting, yet simple but very pretty!
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 18th, 2012 at 12:02
Thanks Jasmin. I thought it looked very autumny too…
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A beautiful dish! I have made something very similar once (smoked duck) and it was delicious.
Cheers,
Rosa
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 18th, 2012 at 12:03
Thanks Rosa. Yes I love smoked duck!
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Tea smoked duck sounds wonderful!
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 18th, 2012 at 12:03
Thanks Laura!
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I’ve tea smoked before but it never looked like this! Absolutely gorgeous photos.
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 18th, 2012 at 12:03
Thanks Maureen… The taste is rather awesome I think!
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I am absolutely puzzled that the Oz version of ‘Masterchef’ seems to be so wellknown around the world. Well, tho’ a more than somewhat busy gal, I DO watch both it and ‘Junior Masterchef’ in season: have had fun and learned an awful lot, especially since most of our ‘bestest’ chefs now take part! Don’t want to give ‘secrets’ away, but Amina seems in no way finished with cooking for the wide public: she has a monthly page in Oz’ most famous magazine and her name keeps popping up everywhere. Her warm sense of humour endeared her to many, methinks
!
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 18th, 2012 at 12:06
I guess if you’ve seen our Dutch version of Masterchef you would understand better why the Australian version is so popular! In comparison our Dutch chefs that run the show are just plain awful. Negative feedback rather then positive feedback. They are stiff and not warm human beings like Matt, George and Gary. I think the show is so good in Australia because of them and because of the level of the contestants. Again, if you compare that to the level of cooking here… you’d be pretty shocked. I’m sure! We don’t watch any other masterchef (and we have the Dutch version here as well as the UK one). Only the Australian one. And I know that I am not the only one. In fact; everone who has ever watched Masterchef Australia, stops watching all the other shows!
And I am glad to know that Amina is still cooking. Just loved her!!
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That is delightful to know
! Perhaps the totality of the scene has to do what a foodie blog friend from N America just last week said about the rather laid-back character of most Aussies: it isn’t ‘done’ to take oneself too seriously . . . this certainly is not a ‘formal’ country 
! Of course we are lucky as most of us also know all the other visiting chefs for real or by repute. I love most the Friday night Masterclasses: have learned such a lot!! The other factor methinks is the fact that our very multicultural nation has a large % from Asian countries with such wonderfully divergent cuisines: in Junior M’chef over half the kids keep on cooking Asian dishes: wonderful to keep them away from Maccas 
!
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 22nd, 2012 at 09:37
O yes, those masterclasses are brilliant. I always sit with pen and paper ready to take notes!
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I’d tried smoked chicken with tea leaves before and definitely love to try this smoked duck too. Your pics are always so lovely as usual
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 22nd, 2012 at 09:37
Thanks so much Ann!
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You just HAPPENED to have smoked a duck the day before?! Only you, Simone, only you! But this dish look marvelous! And sounds intriguing (and I love duck). And your table is beautiful!
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 22nd, 2012 at 09:36
Hahaha… True Jamie! But it was sort of a coincidence really.. And this is entirely delicious.
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So cool! Now I want to smoke duck myself too, never tried it but it’s been on my list. Great thing to keep challenging yourself, always good:)
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 22nd, 2012 at 09:36
It’s delicious to smoke it, just be careful to not smoke it for too long as it can be quite overpowering.
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We are in full Christmas mode here already too!
Have a lovely time in Rome Simone. We have several ducks in the freezer and I will try this recipe. It SOUNDS and looks amazing. xx
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 22nd, 2012 at 06:59
It is Mona… Try it on your lovely ducks and I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be amazing!
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Simone this looks so fantastic and I am so envious of your Masterclass evenings. I seriously need to find crazy foodie friends here to do this. Otherwise . how about coming to Weimar again?
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Simone (junglefrog) — November 22nd, 2012 at 09:35
O I’d love to Meeta! We could do our own Masterchef evening..
Lol…
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The recipe looks so cool!
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