Vanilla Duck

Close your eyes and inhale, with those vanilla scents wafting by, it’s just like you’re eating canard à la vanille on the Island of Réunion… Create your own illusion using this recipe from Eleanor Ford

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 3 hours
Makes: 2 portions

Ingredients

2 duck legs
1 small onion
200ml red wine
1 vanilla pod
1 clove
1 tbsp fresh ginger
1/2 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. What’s quackalackin’?

Heat the oven to 130°C. Season the duck legs with salt and pepper and brown in a casserole dish. We didn’t do this, but rather chose a frying pan which meant we just had to empty it to the casserole dish afterwards… Browning should take 10-15 minutes

Drain any fat that is left in the pan, except for about half a tablespoon. Chip chop the onion and soften in this fat with a pinch of salt

Once the onion is soft and translucent, add in 200ml red wine, 1 vanilla pod (split open carefully to not lose those seeds), 1 clove, 1/2 tbsp of honey and grate in 1tbsp fresh ginger let it bubble bubble toil and trouble for a couple of minutes

If you didn’t already do this all in your casserole dish now is the time to move it all over, along with the duck. Tear a piece of greaseproof paper and scrunch into a ball. Open it out again so it resembles Lady Cassandra in need of a quick moisturise and tuck it into the edges of the casserole dishes around the meat

Pop this into the preheated oven for 3 hours. It may be worthwhile keeping an eye on the dish as ours dried out rather a lot…This amount is half of the original recipe(which needs 3 hours cooking time) so it could probably do with a little bit less. Also use this time to prepare your side dishes. we did some roasted squash and easy peasy package lentils

Once the time is up, skim off excess fat and add your 1 tsp vanilla extract. Check the seasoning of your sauce and duck, maybe it needs a little more pep(per) in its step

Dink and sink!

Food for Thought