Try duck as an alternative seasonal meat for New Year’s feasting with friends and family…
SERVES 4
- 1 small duck, with liver
- 2 tbsp butter, plus extra for greasing
- 4 fresh figs
- 250ml red wine
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- Half a white loaf, sliced and crusts removed
- Juice of 1 lemon
- Salt and pepper
- Preheat the oven to 230C/gas 8. Set the duck liver aside. Season the cavity of the duck with salt and pepper, and truss with kitchen twine. Put the duck, breast-side down, onto a rack in a roasting pan. Roast in the oven for 30 mins and then turn over so the duck is breast-side up. Reduce the oven temperature to 200C/gas 6 and roast for another 1 hour.
- Half an hour before the duck is cooked, cut the figs almost in half and open out slightly. Grease another roasting pan with butter, add the figs and put a small piece of butter in each. Bake in the oven until lightly browned.
- When the duck has finished cooking, remove the duck and figs from the oven. Cut off the wings, breast and legs, and break up the carcass with a meat tenderiser. Drain the fat from the roasting pan into a heatproof container. Stir the red wine into the roasting pan, add the carcass and cook in the oven for 10 mins. Remove from the oven but do not turn off the oven.
- Pass the cooking juices through a food mill into a small saucepan and stir in the lemon juice. Chop the liver and add to the sauce.
- Melt the remaining butter in a frying pan, add the slices of bread and cook until golden brown on both sides.
- Carve the duck legs into slices and cut the breast into fillets. Place the fried bread and duck in the middle of a warm serving dish, arrange the figs around them and spoon the sauce over the duck.
Recipes from an Italian Butcher: Roasting, Stewing, Braising by The Silver Spoon Kitchen, published by Phaidon Press