I have not been eating meat long, but now that I do eat it, I try to eat all kind of it. I recently discovered duck. It's unbearably delicious, and surprisingly easy to do well. Until now I had stuck with this simple recipe I found for
sauteed boneless duck breast with wild mushrooms on Epicurious. It sounds fancy and delicious, which it is, but is so easy to make well.
About a week ago when I went grocery shopping I grabbed some more boneless duck breast, or so I thought. I had a good recipe, so why mess with perfection? When I got home I found that I had accidentally gotten bone-in duck legs. My first reaction channelled Ralphie from a Christmas story "Oh f*#$!" I don't want to learn a new recipe. Then I remembered something a friend of mine had said about how her family makes great meat dishes: Marinate it in italian dressing for at least 2 hours. So that is what I did, sort of. I had made some Italian dressing a few days earlier with a packet of spices from Whole Foods, and some fancy olive oil this same friend brought me from a trip to Italy over Christmas. It was delicious, but not enough to really marinate two duck legs. So I scoured the fridge and found half a packet of taco seasoning that I had gotten for my husband and daughter (vegetarians) only to discover it had fish sauce in it. I added the rest of that, which was a mild red chili flavored sauce. I can't remember the brand, but it was something organic and it had crushed tomato in it. I marinated it, and then roasted it in the oven for about 45-60 minutes at 400F. This was the result:
Here's a recipe, you can totally mess around with it, but this is essentially what I did and it was so freaking good, I can't even describe.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Rest time: 2-6 hours
Cook time: 45-60 minutes
Total time: 2h55m-7h
Serves 1 if you're greedy or two if you want to share.
Ingredients:
1 packet Italian dressing seasoning
3/4 cup Olive Oil
1 packet chili taco spice
2 duck legs, with bones.
1/2 yellow onion
3 cups Kale, chopped. (really any greens you have would work)
2 Dollops sour cream (optional, but really delicious)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbsp Butter for cooking greens
Follow the instructions on the seasoning packets. If you are making the taco seasoning instead of an already mixed one, I recommend adding some tomato to it for the liquid. Place the duck legs, fat side up, into a dish that has a lid and is also oven safe. Pour a 1/4 of the Italian dressing and 1/2 of the taco sauce overtop of the duck legs. Make sure that the marinate gets under the legs as well as on top of them. Cover the dish and stick it in the fridge. Marinate the duck for at least 2 hours, but longer is obviously better.
When you're ready to make dinner, take the marinating duck out of the fridge. Turn the legs over so the skin side is down and the fleshy side is up. Place the dish in the oven. Set the oven to convection roast at 400F and let it heat up with the meat inside. If you don't have a convection oven, that's fine, it just might take a little longer to get the desired crispiness at the end.
I suppose if you're using a metal dish you could just properly preheat the oven and the put the duck in, but I was using a glass dish and I'm terrified of exploding them so I was cautious and just let it heat up with the oven. Set a timer for 35 minutes, and then coarsely chop the onion and the kale. When done, go read a book or something.
When the timer goes off open the oven, take out the duck and turn the legs back over so that now the skin side is up. Place the dish back in the oven and set the timer for 10 minutes. While the duck is continuing to roast, put butter in to a deep sided sautéing pan. Turn burner to medium-high and put the onions into the pan. Sautee them until they start to turn translucent, about 3 minutes. Next add the kale in with the onions. Cover for about 2 minutes. once the liquid has started to sweat out of the kale, take the lid off and stir the kale in around with the onions. Add salt and pepper to taste and cook until the greens are as wilted as you like. Take the pan off the heat and add a spoonful of sour cream, if you want. Stir it around so that it disappears in to the greens.
After the 10 minute timer goes off, check the legs, the fat side should be golden and crispy. If it is not, put it back in and keep checking every 5 minutes until it is as crispy as you want. Serve up the wilted greens onto a place and then place the duck legs over top of it. Then add another dollop of sour cream and eat it all up.
Since I am the only one who eats meat in my house, I ate all of the legs and kale. It was super delicious and I will make this meal again. Next time, I think, I will only cook one of the legs at a time, so as to force some self-control. When it comes to food that is yummy, I have a hard time being responsible and stopping, but you could marinate the legs at the same time, and then just freeze one for another time.
