Bonjour à tous! Hello, all, and here we are again at Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog. Today, we’re sharing our experience with crispy duck legs, a French recipe we recently acquired from Mark Bittman’s now discontinued (L) cooking column in the New York Times. We have gotten many great ideas from him and we’re giving him full credit for the success of this one. On the other hand, even a great recipe can turn out badly if it isn’t executed well and that’s where my wife-chef shines.
Since our first cassoulet dinner over a year ago and especially since our first visit to France last year, we have become fans of duck. I might even call it “the other dark meat.” It is dark meat poultry, has the texture and satisfaction of red meat, can be prepared in a variety of ways, and renders a fat that is simply fantastic for cooking. Mary will talk about that below when she describes the parsley potatoes. Here in the Jackson area, duck is available only at specialty stores, not at regular supermarkets, but it is not hard to find.
This recipe is a bit of a twist on braising. The general idea of braising is long cooking with liquid to produce very tender meat, leaving the meat deliciously moist, but crispness is often out of the question. I won’t steal Mary’s thunder, but the basic idea with this recipe is to add only enough braising liquid to come about halfway up the duck legs. What is above the stock is roasted, so the recipe is actually a combination of braising and roasting. Who knew? So, here’s Mary to talk about ingredients, prep, and cooking. Take it away, mon amour.
I didn't take an ingredients picture this time, but it's really a fairly simple recipe. I bought a pack of duck legs for the recent cassoulet dinner (there is a post on that you can read if you like), but it had 8 duck legs! I used 4 in the cassoulet. We used the other 4 for this dinner. The other ingredients were just the vegetables for the mirepoix (carrots, onions, celery), homemade chicken stock, salt and pepper. That's it!
I put the duck legs into a cold, oven-safe frying pan and then heated them over medium-low heat for browning. That’s important because if the heat is too high, the rendered fat will burn and not be good for cooking the potatoes. Using lower heat renders nice, clear, colorless duck fat, which is what we want. Even on low heat, it doesn’t take long to brown the duck legs. As the duck was browning, I carefully poured off the fat into another skillet to use for the potatoes. That allowed me to increase the heat on the duck legs for a really nice browning.
After they were browned, I took the duck legs out of the pan, leaving only a little duck fat to cook the mirepoix. This part takes only 10-15 minutes. Then I returned the duck legs to the pan on top of the vegetables.
At this point I added the chicken stock, enough to come halfway up the duck legs. The vegetables are also covered, of course. Brian insists that I say that the homemade stock is so much better than using canned broth. I make stock from the carcass every time we roast chicken and freeze it for cooking. It’s easy, convenient, and makes such a difference. It’s also wonderful for gravy. Now, back to the duck legs. Put the frying pan into a 400 degree oven for a half-hour, then lower the heat to 350 degrees for another half-hour, undisturbed. You don’t have to touch it, no turning, basting, anything! The liquid reduces and the duck legs come out of the oven brown and crispy. Isn’t this pretty?
Now the potatoes. First, I chopped the parsley and about 6 cloves of garlic so they would be ready when the potatoes are almost done. I love to use fresh herbs when I can find them, which is most of the time, and parsley is always available. I prefer the plain curly parsley over the Italian flat leaf parsley. I just think it’s easier to chop.
I recently bought a mandolin and it makes cutting vegetables a dream! I paid about $20 for it at the grocery store. Stores like Williams-Sonoma have fancier versions that cost over $100, which I think is unnecessary. This basic mandolin has two blades, one for thin, one for thick. For the parsley potatoes, I used the thick blade. You could actually use both to have some thin and some thick, which would give a nice mixture of crispy and soft potatoes.
The potatoes are cooked in the rendered duck fat on high heat, turning for browning. Don’t worry about making them all the same. Some will be well done and crisp, some will be soft and moist. I think the variety of textures and doneness enhances the dish. Cooking the potatoes takes about 15 minutes. With just a minute or so to go, add the parsley and garlic, stirring to cook them and release their flavors.
Drain the potatoes on paper towels, plate the duck leg with the potatoes and, voilà! We shared three of these between us. Brian had a business dinner the next night and I had the leftover duck leg for dinner. I thought it might be dried out and tough, but it was still delicious with just microwaving!
Here’s Brian again to talk about the wine.
This is another classically French dish that would pair well with many red wines. I think it would be hard to go wrong. American wines would work well, too, but I recommend avoiding the big, very ripe, high alcohol wines that would overpower the complex flavors of the dinner. I chose a red blend from the southern Rhone commune of Gigondas. We visited there a year ago and loved the area and the wines. It is mostly Grenache and may include one or more of the other southern Rhone red varietals. This particular wine has Grenache, Mourvedre, and Syrah, a common cèpage. Gigondas wines often have nice red fruit along with savory herb, spice, and meaty notes. They are balanced, versatile, can be complex, and pair well with today’s dinner. Here are my notes on the wine.
Domaine Brusset Gigondas Les Hauts de Montmirail 2004. This wine was totally enjoyable with a dinner of crispy duck legs. The aroma profile showed dark berry and earth notes. The palate was smooth with low to medium acidity, medium body, and flavors of minerals, earth, dark berries, a nice, savory quality, and spiciness that I love in wines of the southern Rhone. Nicely balanced, moderately complex, medium in length on the finish, it was a very nice wine, especially with the dish. 55% Grenache, 25% Mourvedre, 20% Syrah, 14.0% alcohol.
Before signing off today, I want to alert everybody that Mary and I will be traveling soon to spend some time again in Burgundy, the Loire Valley, which is new to us, and a little time in Paris. We plan to blog frequently while we’re traveling to share our food and wine adventures. Stay tuned!
That’s our post for today. We hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting. We’d love to hear your comments and ideas about the blog and future topics. Keeping coming back to Cépage et Cuisine for more articles on food and wine. In the meantime,
Cheers!
Mary♥Brian
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