Читать книгу The Vicar’s Wife’s Cook Book - Elisa Beynon - Страница 51

I assembled this dish the evening before, along with the gratin, to make Sunday a little less frantic. This also meant that I could scrape off some fat that was sitting on top of the duck. Fat is to duck as hormones are to teenagers: it oozes out of them.

Using duck legs is a good way to serve duck to more than a few people if you have an eye on the purse-strings: it’s much cheaper to buy all legs than two whole ducks, and there’s also no need to get the carving knife out. I served this dish with two root vegetable side dishes and some spinach for a flash of green. I don’t offer a recipe for the spinach: just wash it, drain it in a colander and throw it in a hot pan, lid on. It’ll only take a minute or two to wilt, then you just need to drain it of any excess water and chop it up a bit. Add a little seasoning, butter and maybe some nutmeg, if you wish.

6 duck legs

18 shallots, peeled and left whole

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1 tablespoon plain flour

450ml port

200ml chicken stock (fresh, or made from a good-quality liquid bouillon)

finely grated zest and juice of 1 orange

10 juniper berries, crushed

6 sprigs of thyme

200g cranberries, fresh or frozen

3 tablespoons ready-made redcurrant jelly

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

salt and pepper

Heat up a big frying pan without any oil and brown the duck legs (they may need to go in the pan in batches). Remove the duck legs to a large roasting tin, then add the shallots and garlic to the pan, stirring now and then in the fat emitted by the duck – you are aiming for a nice caramel colour. (Incidentally, if the thought of peeling all those shallots sends you reaching for the tissues, pop them in a pan of boiling water for a couple of minutes before you do so: it takes the sting out of them and the skins come off much more easily.)

Once the shallots and garlic have had their frying time, add them to the duck legs. Check the oil level in the pan; some fat will have come out of the duck, so pour off all but 1 tablespoon but don’t discard what’s been poured off. Pour it into a small bowl and pop it in the fridge – it’s a roast potato’s best friend. Add the flour to the remaining tablespoon of fat and stir for a couple of minutes before adding the port and the stock. Finally, add the rest of the ingredients and pour them over the duck in the roasting tin.

You can either cook the dish then and there at 200°C/Gas Mark 6 for an hour, or else refrigerate it and bring it to room temperature before cooking it the next day. The finished dish, with its sprigs of green thyme and flaming cranberry jewels, is a pageant to all the holly and berries that are still to come.