• A day (or two) in advance of when you intend to cook this dish, trim off any excess fat from the duck breasts and set the trimmed fat aside.
• Use a sharp knife to gently cut, in a cross-hatch fashion, 90% of the way into the layer of fat that sits atop the duck breasts, almost reaching the meat with your knife but not quite.
• Cut into the duck breast fat in a length-wise and width-wise fashion, cutting in ½” strips, across the entire surface of the top duck fat layer.
• *Try to cut into the fat at a slight angle, to avoid cutting entirely through the duck fat layer.
• *By cutting length-wise and width-wise into the fat in a cross-hatch fashion, you encourage the duck fat to render more evenly, and contribute to achieving a crispy skin. The cross-hatch pattern on the duck breasts should look similar to grill marks on a steak.
• Salt the outsides of the duck breasts with kosher salt, and allow the duck breasts to rest for a day (or two) in the fridge, on a wire rack on a sheet tray.
• Once the salted duck breasts have rested, and you are ready to begin cooking your amazing dinner, take the duck breasts out of the oven to rest at room temperature while you begin to prepare your creamy mashed potatoes.

For the Creamy Mashed Potatoes:

• *You can make the mashed potatoes first, before you saute the duck, and keep the mashed P’s warm while you cook the duck and make the cranberry gravy.
• For the mashed potatoes, peel 2 Russet potatoes, and cut the peeled potato into ½” chunks.
• Place the potato chunks in cold salted water.
• Boil potato chunks until tender.
• *At this stage, taste the salted water that your potatoes are cooking in. If the water tastes like it has no discernable salt, add more salt. If the water tastes far too salty, remove a few ladles of the salty water and replace with a few ladles of fresh hot water until the potato cooking water tastes appropriately salty.
• When the potato pieces are tender, strain in a colander or chinois and return to pot.
• Add the 8 Tbsp salted butter that has been softened at room temperature.
• Mash the mixture together using a fork or potato masher.
• Add the 1/8 cup heavy cream that has been heated until it is warm.
• Mix until the butter and heavy cream are fully incorporated into the mashed potato mixture.
• *In a more classical, French-oriented kitchen, you would often pass the warm, cooked potatoes through a food mill or fine mesh strainer before adding the butter and heavy cream. The end-result will be smoother. But the approach outlined above will taste equally lovely with the easier, homemade method.
• Taste the creamy mashed potato mixture.
• Add kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste.
• Store warm mashed potatoes with plastic wrap covering the surface of the mashed potatoes, off the heat, until ready to remove plastic wrap, quickly re-heat, and serve.

For the Duck Breasts:

• Heat 2 Tbsp vegetable oil in a hot saute pan.
• Wait until the oil is hot, but before it is smoking.
• Add two of the duck breasts that have been sitting out at room temperature, fat-side-down, and reduce heat to between medium and medium-high.
• Slowly render the duck fat (cooking the breasts fat-side-down) on medium to medium-high heat until the skin is crispy and golden brown and the duck breast flesh is still rare.
• When the fat side of the duck breasts is about 70% cooked and beginning to turn golden-brown, add half of the rosemary and thyme sprigs to the fat, and begin to continually baste the top of the duck breasts with the hot rendered duck fat.
• *Basting here can be done with a large spoon, where you carefully scoop up the hot fat from the saute pan and spoon it over the tops of the breasts.
• When the fat-side of the duck breasts is golden brown and the duck breasts are barely cooked to rare, remove those first two duck breasts from the pan.
• Allow the duck breasts to sit on a resting rack on a sheet tray at room temperature.
• *As the duck breasts rest at room temperature off the heat, they will continue cooking for a few minutes.
• Pour out the excess fat from your saute pan, and repeat cooking process for the remaining two duck breasts.
• When the final two duck breasts are cooked, pour out and save the excess fat for later.
• Turn off the heat, and deglaze the saute pan with 1/8 cup of red wine.
• Save this deglazing liquid for use in the cranberry gravy.

For the Cranberry Gravy:

• To make the cranberry gravy, add the red wine deglazing liquid from earlier to a medium-sized sauce pot.
• Add the ¼ cup duck fat, from the duck fat you put aside earlier.
• Add ½ cup chicken or duck stock.
• Bring mixture up to a simmer.
• Whisk in the Wondra flour, or all-purpose flour.
• *If using all-purpose flour, you can cook your gravy for an additional 10-15 minutes to get rid of the floury taste. Wondra flour is pre-gelatinized, and doesn’t need to be cooked after it has been added to the boiling gravy.
• Use an immersion blender to blend in the cranberry sauce into the gravy.
• Taste, and add 1 tsp sherry vinegar.
• Season gravy with kosher salt & freshly-ground black pepper.
• Serve plates with the creamy mashed potatoes, sliced duck breast, and cranberry gravy.
• Garnish each plate with fresh chives, finely minced, as garnish.