Risotto with green curry and grilled duck breast

I regularly teach Thai cooking classes and it’s often that I end up with an extra spoonful or two of homemade green curry paste. I’ve been thinking about making a green curry risotto for a long time, because the flavors and textures blend perfectly, even though we’re not in anything traditional here, but completely delicious! For the duck, I really wanted to suggest this new cooking method that I think is great. I had seen it in a restaurant almost 3 years ago and put it in a corner of my mind. Here it is at last and it will allow you to obtain a very fine and visual cut grilled duck breast.

Recipe for 4 people:

25g of semi-salted butter
2 tablespoons of neutral oil (tye colza)
300g of risotto rice
100ml of white wine
1 liter of vegetable broth
2 heaping teaspoons of green curry paste (for a homemade recipe it is HERE)
100ml of coconut cream
1 teaspoon of brown sugar
a few leaves of Thai basil
salt pepper
2 duck breasts

Before starting anything, place your two duck breasts in the freezer for at least 3 hours. You will see in the continuation of the recipe the reason of this setting to the big cold.

For this recipe, I used homemade green curry paste. I actually got some of it from a Thai cooking class I had just given.

The nice thing about homemade dough is that I can control the level of chili. I put three whole chilies out of the 18 in the dough. You can use a commercial dough, but it will be stronger and you will need to use less.

For the risotto: put the butter and oil in a large saucepan over low heat.

Pour in the rice and mix well.

Cook for 1 minute then pour in the white wine.

Stir from time to time. Pour in a little vegetable stock.

Add the green curry paste. I only use two teaspoons. But you are free to use more or less. It’s better to use a little, and add more at the end.

As soon as the broth is absorbed, add a little more, stirring each time.

Halfway through the risotto, remove the duck breasts from the freezer. They are now hard, and you can cut them very thinly with a good knife.

Reconstitute the duck breast once cut.

Stick two wooden skewers into the duck breast to hold it firmly in place.

With only one spike, the duck breast will be able to turn around the axis, so two are needed.

Do the same for the two breasts.

When the risotto is almost done, heat a large frying pan over fairly high heat. Place the duck breasts on the fat side.

When all the broth has been drunk, pour in the sugar and coconut cream. Mix well. Salt to your taste. You can also salt with nuoc mam (fish sauce).

You can’t see it on the picture, but you can add a small bunch of finely chopped Thai basil to the risotto. A delight!

When the duck breasts are well grilled, turn them over. Then let them cook for at least 2-3 minutes on the flesh side. Checking for doneness with this method is simple, just open between two slices. For my part, I like it almost rare or at least pink. Feel free to cook it more.