Duck Soba Recipe (Kamo Nanban Soba)

I'm Yuto and today on Sudachi I'm going to show you how to make Kamonanban Soba, one of the few Japanese dishes made with duck breast. It's one of my favourites so let's get straight to it. I have about 300 grams of duck breast here and I'm going to start by scoring the fat. These shallow incisions help render the fat and promotes even cooking. Just make sure not to cut too deep. Once that's done, dry the surface with kitchen paper and sprinkle a few generous pinches of salt and pepper on both sides. Take a cold pan and place the duck breast inside with the skin side facing down. Turn on the heat to medium and fry for about 4 minutes. I'm using a gas stove so it heats up fast but if you're using electric or high heat then it might need a little longer. Starting with a cold pan brings up the heat gradually which allows the fat to render more slowly. This will make the fat extra crispy and delicious. I often use this technique for chicken thigh as well. With my method and timings the end result should be medium with a little bit of pink in the middle. Once it's crispy and golden like this, turn the duck over and fry on the other side for 30 seconds. After 30 seconds, remove it from the pan and wrap it in foil. We're going to leave it to rest in the foil for three minutes where it will continue to gently cook in the residual heat. After three minutes, place the duck back in the pan skin side down and fry for another three minutes over medium heat. As you can see the fat has rendered out so we're going to use that to baste the top of duck breast. Do this continuously for the whole three minutes. Basting will gently cook the meat and add moisture back in so that it doesn't become tough or dry. After three minutes, flip the duck breast over and fry for 30 seconds once more. Finally, we're going to remove the duck from the pan and wrap it with foil again. This time we will let it rest until it's time to serve. In the meantime, I'm gonna cut a green onion into five centimeter pieces. Nanban soba is always served with green onions but you could use leeks instead. I recommend starting cooking your soba noodles at this point as well. We're using the same pan so pour away the excess duck fat or save it for another recipe. Heat the pan on medium and char the green onion all over. Okay, these look good. Let's remove them from the heat and make our broth. Take a saucepan and add one liter of dashi stock, 40 milliliters of dark soy sauce, 40 milliliters of light soy sauce, 100 milliliters of mirin, and two teaspoons of sake. Finally, add the charred green onion from before. These are gonna transfer some extra depth to the broth and become very tender. Bring the broth to a boil and let it bubble for two to three minutes. 300 grams of duck breast is generally enough for four portions of kamonanban soba so we're making enough broth for four people. After a few minutes of bubbling, remove the broth from the stove and it's time to dish up. First, let's slice the duck breast. It's been resting for about 10 minutes so now is the moment of truth. Just as I intended, the fat on the outside is crispy while the middle is still a good shade of pink. Now, let's assemble the soba. Add rinsed soba noodles to the bowl and pour the broth over the top. Add two to three pieces of green onion and then add the duck breast slices. Finally, garnish with some finely chopped green onion and add the sprinkle of shichimi togarashi for the final touch. And that's it, delicious kamonanban soba. Thanks so much for watching. If you want to learn more about this recipe, check out my blog. The link is in the description below. Have a great day.