Duck Legs braised in Red Wine and Port

The cold part of the year is a good time to eat hearty food. Duck is one of them. In November it often starts with a nice piece of goose at Saint Martin's Day on the 11th of the month. But my supermarket only sold whole geese and that was way to much for me. But in the same ice chest were a couple of organic sourced duck legs.

There are so many cooking methods for duck. It took me a while to get my inspiration.

I made a pot of red cabbage as a side and some potato dumplings to soak up the sauce.

Recipe for 2:

2 duck legs, 1 tsp duck fat

100 g leek, 60 g celeriac, 100 g carrot, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 tbsp rice syrup

150 ml red wine, 50 ml red, 150 ml chicken stock

Salt and pepper, 8 bay leaves, 1 star anise

1 tsp potato starch in water

season the duck legs with salt and put them in the pan with a little duck fat. Brown them on both sides. Take them out and toss the small veg cubes in. Roast them a little. Wen it tets some color, sprinkle the rice syrup over them and stir well and let it caramelize a bit.

Preheat the oven 150 C.

Ground some pepper into the pan.

In with the Port wine to deglaze the pan, then red wine and stock.

Put the duck legs back in with the meat juice from the plate. Add bay leaves and star snuse and bring to a boil. Cut off the heat, close the lid and put the duck into tge oven for 100 minutes.

Get the legs out to rest. Fish out the star anise and bay leaves and start to skim off some duck fat with a large spoon by getting it around the top of the liquid. Reduce the sauce. Use a potato masher and crush the veggies, check the seasoning.

If the sauce is too thin, use the starch slurry to bind it.