How to Make Maple Glazed Duck & Candied Kumquat Quesadillas

I love quesadillas but sometimes I get tired of the old familiar triangle on my plate. For this recipe, I punched circles out of my tortillas to make mini quesadillas. These are an ideal size for an appetizer. 'What about the waste?" you cry. There's no waste here. Save the tortilla scraps, as you would pasta scraps for maltagliati, an Italian pasta dish that translates as poorly cut in Italian. For traditional maltagliati, the scraps from ravioli or other pasta preparations are gathered up and used as a pasta unto themselves. They hold the sauce beautifully and are perfect in their irregularity. Make a tortilla maltagliati by gathering up the scraps and frying them up. Sprinkle with a little cinnamon sugar and you've got yourself a quick and easy dessert. This recipe is a nice one to present when you need something unique, but quick and easy too. The sweetly robust duck lends a rustic appeal and the kumquats, those little gems of the citrus family, make it sing.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 duck breasts, skin and fat removed
• salt, to taste
• 1/4 cup maple syrup, plus one tablespoon
• 2 teaspoons lime juice
• 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 8 large or 12 small tortillas, punched out to produce 24 three to four inch circles
• manchego cheese slices
• one bunch baby turnips, cleaned and sliced thinly
• candied kumquat slices, about 12 kumquats

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Season duck breasts with salt. In a heat-proof sauté pan, heat oil until it is nearly smoking and sear duck on both sides until it is nicely browned. Glaze breasts on both sides with 1/4 cup maple syrup. Place the pan in the oven and cook for about fifteen minutes until the duck is cooked to about medium. Turn once while the duck cooks. Remove breasts from oven and let rest for several minutes on a rack, turning once as they rest to distribute juices evenly. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.
2. Once the duck is cool enough to handle, shred it and place it in a bowl. Combine 1 tablespoon maple syrup along with the lime juice and red pepper flakes and incorporate with the shredded duck meat. Season with additional salt is necessary.
3. Place a slice of cheese on a tortilla, top with about 1/8 cup duck meat along with a few slices of turnip and four or five kumquat slices. Top this with an additional layer of cheese and place a tortilla on top of this. Continue this process until all the quesadillas have been assembled. On a sheet tray or pizza stone, bake quesadillas for about ten minutes or until the tortillas have browned a bit and the cheese is melted.
   Yield: 4 servings of 3 quesadillas each

Tips & Warnings

• Japanese Mandoline: The Joyce Chen mandoline is a reasonably priced choice. It comes with a straight blade along with three shredding blades which will inspire you to create veggie ribbons of all shapes and sizes. There are perfect for garnishing, frying, pickling. The options are endless! Joyce Chen Mandoline