Figs II

Fry some garlic along in the duck’s breast. When the meat is done (rosy… sometimes I add a splash of raspberry vinager which then turns this recipe into a kind of sugary/salty complementarity….. but beware of things getting too complicated. Tastes from the frying pan are better pronounced crisply & cleanly. If you want to stew it all together, go for a long, slow cook in a casserole, or a marinade), lift the garlic out along with the meat.

Then flash fry the figs & finish off with a flambee in Armagnac. Figs caramelise well; garlic doesn’t. As in cooking, as in art: you’ve got to get to know the tolerances of your ingredients.

It is so very, very easy to overdo something.