Recipe for roasted spicy duck with winter vegetables

meI used used vegetable gin to make this goose and duck dish, but you may not have a friendly distillery nearby where you can afford it … so slice some juniper, bay leaf, cloves, dried orange peel and cardamom seeds, or any spice you like.

Hours

Preparation time: 2 hours 20 minutes, plus 48 hours of cooling

Cooking time: 40 minutes

Serve

two

Ingridients

• 1 x 1.2-1.5 kg duck, with legs separated from body and thighs carefully removed (ask your butcher to do this)

For the chest

• 3-4 tablespoons of vegetable gin or your favorite spices, chopped
• 3-4 tablespoons of pure honey

For confit legs

• a small piece of cinnamon stick
• 6 juniper berries, chopped
• ½ spoons of coriander seeds
• ½ teaspoons white pepper
• 4 cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• a few sprigs of thyme
• 6 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 200 g of duck or goose fat

Method

1. Start a few days before you want to serve. If the duck skin is wet, dry it with kitchen paper. Coarsely grind all breast spices with half a tablespoon of sea salt in a grinder or mini food chopper.
2. Use a heavy knife to remove the duck’s spine and leave the breast on the carcass. Remove the wings (reserve this and the cleaned spine for stock or soup). Use a sharp knife to cut the skin of the duck breast, then rub in the honey and apply the spice mixture all over the skin and press it in with your hands. Place the duck crown on a tray and leave in the fridge for a few days, uncovered, to harden and dry.
3. Preheat the oven to 160C / 140C fan / gas mark 3. Arrange the duck legs and any pieces of fat and skin tightly in a tight-fitting baking dish or small container with a lid. Cut about 20 cm square piece of muslin, put in it all the herbs and spices for the legs and tie it with string to make a bag. Insert it with the duck legs.
4. Melt duck or goose fat and pour over to cover legs. Season with salt. Bring the fat to a slow boil. Transfer to the oven and bake the legs gently with the lid for 1-2 hours.
5. Test your feet by removing one: the meat should be very soft and tender and the foot still intact. It is best to cool your feet in the fat before putting them in the fridge. You can also store the fat in the fridge to use it a second time for baked potatoes or confit. You can do all this the same day your breasts are ready.
6. On the day you want to serve, preheat the oven to 220C / 200C fan / gas mark 7 and allow the duck crown and legs to warm to room temperature. Place both on a baking sheet and bake for 35-40 minutes, then let rest before cutting.
7. The duck can be carved into bone or the breast removed completely; for sharing I prefer to cut slices from the breast during a meal.
8. This goes well with mixed winter vegetables like kale, or you can even flake confit stalks in a few salad leaves to sprinkle into a good vinaigrette.