Pan Seared Duck with Red Chile Pear Sauce, Bourbon-Brown Sugar Asian Pear Relish and Potato-Blue Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

• 0.5 cup bourbon 
• 0.5 cup domestic cheese blue crumbled
• 8 cups chicken stock see homemade
• 2  new mexican chiles whole red
• 1  cinnamon sticks 
• 1 cup cooking wine dry red
• 4  duck breasts 
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar light
• 0.3 cup olive oil 
• 2 tablespoons olive oil 
• 0.3 cup panko bread crumbs for coating
• 3  asian pears diced peeled seeded
• 3  pears peeled halved seeded
• 2 cups potatoes cold mashed
• 1 large onion red finely chopped
• 4 servings salt and pepper freshly ground
• 2  star anise 
• 2 tablespoons butter unsalted cold

Equipment

• bowl
• frying pan
• sauce pan
• oven

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Season the duck with salt and pepper on both sides and cook, skin-side down, until golden brown, drain the fat, turn the breast over and continue cooking in the oven to medium-rare doneness, about 4 to 5 minutes.
3. Place 2 Potato-Blue Cheese Cakes on each plate.
4. Place one duck breast on top of the potato cakes, and drizzle the Red Chile Pear Sauce around the plate and on the ends of the duck breasts.
5. Place a few teaspoons of the Asian Pear Relish on top of each of the duck breasts.
6. Combine the potatoes, bread crumbs and blue cheese in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Form the mixture into eight 2-inch cakes. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Dredge the cakes lightly in more panko crumbs.
7. Heat the oil in a large saute pan over high heat. Cook the cakes until golden brown on both sides.
8. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
9. Add the onion and cook until soft.
10. Add the wine and cook until reduced.
11. Add the stock, chiles, cinnamon, anise, and pears, and cook until reduced by 1/
12. Strain the sauce into a clean saucepan and cook to a sauce consistency, and can coat the back of a spoon thickly.
13. Heat a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.
14. Add the pears and cook until lightly golden brown.
15. Remove the pan from the heat, add the bourbon and sugar and cook until the pears are lightly glazed.