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Confit of Duck with Braised Red Cabbage

They should be fat, juicy and smothered in heaps of garlic and herb flavoured cream. For a change I like to cook them on the barbecue over some hickory wood chips, which imparts a very subtle flavour to the dish.

Ingredients

  • serves: 4
  • time: N/A
  • oven temp: N/A°C / N/A°F
Ballystraw mussels

For the duck confit

  • 4 large duck legs
  • 100g sel gris or rock salt
  • 900g duck fat, or goose fat
  • 900 g/2 lb mussels, scrubbed clean

For the duck confit

  • 500g red cabbage, core removed and the rest thinly sliced
  • 1 onion, thinly sliced
  • 250g cooking apples, peeled, cored and sliced
  • 1 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
  • 1 1/2 tbsp muscovado sugar
  • 1/4 tsp mixed ground spices, such as cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • 15g Butter

Confit of Duck with Braised Red Cabbage

Make the duck confit at least 24 hours before you want to serve this dish. Place one duck leg in the bottom of a deep plastic, glass or stainless-steel bowl, sprinkle with a little of the salt, turn it over, sprinkle with more salt and add another duck leg. Continue until you’ve used up the duck legs and the salt. Cover and leave in the fridge for 6 hours, turning the legs over halfway through. Don’t leave any longer or the duck will become too salty.

Preheat the oven to 140C/gas 1. Rub the salt off the duck legs and pat them dry with kitchen paper. Bring the duck or goose fat to a gentle simmer in a casserole dish in which the duck legs will fit snugly. Add the legs, making sure they are completely submerged, cover and transfer the dish to the oven. Cook for 1 1/2 hours, then remove from the oven and leave to cool in the fat. Chill for at least 24 hours or until needed.

For the braised red cabbage

preheat the oven to 150C/gas 2. Layer the cabbage, onion, apples, vinegar, sugar, spices, salt and pepper into a small casserole dish, dot with butter and cover with a well-fitting lid. Leave to cook for 3 hours, stirring once or twice.

To serve, you can reheat the duck in one of two ways. Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7. Lift the duck legs out of the fat and wipe off most but not quite all of it with kitchen paper. Put them skin-side up onto a rack resting over a roasting tin and roast for 15–20 minutes until the skin is crisp and golden and the meat has heated through. Alternatively, sauté the legs in a frying pan over a medium heat until crisp, golden and heated through. Either way they are delicious.

Spoon some of the red cabbage slightly to one side of 4 warmed plates and rest a piece of the duck confit on top. Pile some of the frisée salad alongside and serve.

To Serve

Frisée salad