Christmas Recipes: Main
Dishes. No.9 of 12 - Duck with Cardamom Sauce
by: Paul Curran
Christmas recipe serves: 6
calories per serving: 400
preparation time: 15 minutes
cooking time: 2hours 30 minutes
suitable for freezing after step 3.
Christmas
recipe ingredients:
duck legs, 6,
about 2 kg (4.5 lb)
onions, 350 g (12 oz)
root ginger, fresh, 5 cm piece, (2 inch)
butter, 125 g (4 oz)
caster sugar, 15 ml (1 tbsp)
green cardamom pods, 8 whole
chicken stock, 1.7 liters (3 pints)
ginger wine, 300 ml (10 fl oz)
dry white wine, 150 ml (5 fl oz)
salt and pepper
orange juice, 45 ml (3 tbsp)
lemon juice, 15 ml (1 tbsp)
oil, 5 ml (1 tbsp)
sea salt, coarse 10 ml (2 tsp)
garnish, coarse fresh coriander
Christmas
recipe instructions:
1. Simmer the
duck legs gently in a large pan of boiling
water for about 2 hours.
2. To prepare
the sauce, fry peeled, chopped onions in 50
g (2 oz) of the butter for about 10 minutes
or soft. Add peeled and grated ginger, with
the sugar and cardamom seeds from one pod.
Cook until the color of the mixture turns
dark golden brown.
3. Add the
stock and boil until the volume is reduced
by half. Reduce by half again till syrup
like after adding the white wine and dry
ginger. Add salt and pepper and orange juice
to taste.
4. Stir in 25
g (1 oz) of the butter into the sauce at
boiling point. Separate the onions from the
liquid and combine with the rest of the
butter. Keep.
5. Remove
excess water from the duck and put over a
roasting tin on a rack. Brush the duck with
oil and sprinkle with salt and the remaining
cardamom seeds.
6. Roast until
the skin is very crisp. About 20 to 25
minutes at gas mark 8. (230 degrees
centigrade, 450 F). Add the reheated butter
and onion and serve the food with heated
cardamom sauce. Garnish with coriander.
