Classic For a Reason
Colorado Chefs Rob Hurd and Harrison Porter are celebrating the harmony of poultry and citrus.
Tender duck confit. A rich, sticky, sweet and sour sauce. Candied orange zest. When duck a l’orange is done well, it’s a master class in balancing fat, sweetness, acid, umami, and more fat. It may be a classic, but it’s also a great canvas for experimentation, and in Colorado, two chefs are doing just that.
Chef Rob Hurd of Frasca Food and Wine looks at the traditional poultry-orange combination through the lens of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. “This dish was inspired by the beautiful Coturnix quail we sourced from two places—France and Vermont,” he says. In order to maintain consistency in the quail’s flavor, he confits the tiny legs in duck fat and sears the breasts separately. “We decided to glaze the bird with [wild blossom] honey, which took us to thinking about seasonality, and citrus became top of mind.” So Hurd turned to kumquats, pickling them in a beautifully bright white wine vinegar.
At the French-inflected restaurant, Brasserie Brixton, Chef Harrison Porter turns to the Cantonese and Szechuan ingredients inspired by his time working at dim sum houses in Australia.“When I became chef [of Brasserie Brixton], a big question was how do we make French food, but also reach a little bit deeper into the bag of techniques and flavors,” says Porter. “Duck a l'orange is obviously a classic. I didn't want to necessarily make my own version of that, but I definitely pulled inspiration from it as a familiar base so that people identified with [the dish].” Porter starts with citrus and warm spice-cured duck legs, bursting with orange and lemon zest and Chinese five-spice. The plate is anchored with a sweet soy glaze, reinforcing the Szechuan flavor profile while playing off the prototypical a l’orange sauce. After the duck leg confit is seasoned with a tamari-forward “fry sauce,” it’s topped with a slow-cooked, sunny-side up duck egg. Rather than pairing the duck with fried potatoes, Porter prepares a dim sum-style fried radish cake: “The texture is pretty similar to the duck, because it’s crispy on the outside while being creamy on the inside.” The entire dish is drizzled with Porter’s house-made citrus chile crunch, packed with smokey chiles and orange zest.
