Tag: Orange

So I had some confit duck legs leftover, as you do. I’d love to say that I confit them myself but that would be a lie. I bought a few tins in France and we had 2 of the legs a couple of weeks ago, with celeriac and garlic greens, so the spare 2 were liberated from the freezer ready for an encore.

The nice thing about getting them in a tin, aside from the time saved, is that easily you get a jam jar of duck fat to use as you please for weeks!  

Back-in-the-day, they would have been baked in a hot oven until crispy before being shredded to be served with jarred plum sauce and Chinese pancakes, but for this encore I wanted to try something a bit different.

Ingredients:

• 2 x confit duck legs, excess fat wiped off
• 1 x large orange, zest and juice separated
• 2 tblsp honey
• 6 x small fresh figs, halved

Method:

Preheat oven @ 200°c (400°F / Gas Mark 6)

Heat a small frying pan over medium heat, without adding fat, and fry the duck legs skin side down. After 5 mins turn over and brown on the other side. Drain and discard any extra fat; pref into a jar for later, but most definitely not down the kitchen sink.

Place the duck legs in a baking dish, drizzle over the honey and sprinkle on the orange zest. Season with S+P and roast for 15 mins. [I did sneak a look and baste the duck with the honey mix halfway through – probably not necessary]. After 15 mins pour over the orange juice, add the figs to the dish and roast for a further 10 minutes. Serve. Simples 🙂

Could do this with raw duck legs, or even chicken legs, but give them longer to roast with the honey and orange as you need to actually cook them, as opposed to just heating through. Big fan of this “roast then add liquid for the final minutes” method as you get a really tasty result. I do the same with my garlic and rosemary chicken, creating a sharp lemon edge to the chicken pan gravy. Yum!