Roasted Duck Legs with Asian Flavours
Ingredients
8 duck legs, fresh or defrosted - I used Saveur Duck Legs
6-8 chillies, roughly chopped
8 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
6 spring onions, white part only, roughly chopped
3 cm ginger, peeled and sliced
30g palm sugar
6-8 star anise
2 lemongrass stalks, bruised
10 coriander stalks
450ml freshly squeezed orange juice
115ml fish sauce
400ml good quality chicken stock - I used Essential Cuisine
leaves from coriander stalks, finely chopped
rind from 2 oranges, zested into ribbons
Description
Duck Legs would have to be the easiest way to serve duck for a dinner party. They roast in the oven, while you enjoy time with your guests.
Method
Trim excess fat from the duck legs and score the skin around the hock (this will expose the bone during cooking, for presentation).
Heat a frypan over a low-medium heat and put the duck legs in skin side down. (You may need to do this in batches - you don't want to crowd the pan). Render the fat from under the skin, by heating the duck legs, but not browning them. This may take about 10-15 minutes for each pan of duck legs. No need to rush this step, otherwise, you won't render enough of the fat or you'll over cook the skin. As each duck leg is ready, leave to drain on paper towels, until all duck legs are ready to go into the oven.
Preheat the oven to 180C.
While the duck legs are rendering, scatter the chillies, garlic, spring onions, ginger, palm sugar, star anise, lemon grass and coriander stems into a roasting dish just big enough to fit all of the duck legs, without crowding them.
When the duck legs have finished rendering, place them, skin side up, on top of the scattered ingredients. Mix the orange juice and fish sauce together and pour this mixture on top of the duck legs.
Cover tightly with tin foil or a lid and place in the oven for 45 minutes.
Remove the roasting dish from the oven, baste the duck legs and remove the cover. Put the dish back in the oven and roast for another 45 minutes, or until the duck legs are tender and the skin browned. If the skin browns too much before the legs are tender, loosely cover the legs with foil, until they have finished cooking.
Heat the chicken stock in a saucepan, and keep warm until ready to make the sauce.
When the duck legs are ready to remove from the oven, place the duck legs on a plate, pour over a little of the juices in the pan and cover and keep warm.
Sieve the rest of the pan juices into a bowl and skim as much fat off the juices as possible. Discard the solid ingredients.
Pour the sieved pan juices back into the roasting dish and bring to a simmer, stirring the roasting pan all the time. Slowly pour in the warm chicken stock, and simmer until you have a sauce reduced to your flavour preference. Add more stock or water as necessary. I made mine to a rich soup consistency.
Plate the duck legs on top of steamed bok choy or other greens and pour over the sauce. Garnish with coriander leaves and orange zest.
Categories
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