Ingredients
- 4 very fatty large duck legs
- Kosher salt
- Olive oil
- 4 large onions, sliced
- 2/3 bottle white wine
- 1 bundle thyme
- 10 bay leaves
- 1 bunch dandelion leaves
- Red wine vinegar, to taste
Directions
Season the duck legs with salt. Coat a large wide pot lightly with olive oil. Lay the duck legs skin side down, in a single layer, in the pan.
Cook the duck legs low and slow over low heat to render the fat. This process will take a while, don't rush it. It is really important to render as much fat out of the duck legs as possible. Once the pan is full of fat, turn up the heat and brown the duck legs on both sides.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Once the legs have rendered and are nice and brown, remove them from the pan and reserve. Add the onions and season with salt. Stir to coat with the duck fat. Cover and cook over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes. Once the onions are really nice and wilted, remove the lid and cook for another 15 minutes or until the onions start to caramelize. Taste to make sure they are very well seasoned, add salt if needed. Return the duck legs to the pan, snuggle them in with all the onions and add the wine, thyme and bay leaves.
Cover the pan and place in the preheated oven. Braise the duck in the oven for about 90 minutes. Stir the onion and duck every 30 minutes to be sure that the onions are not burning. When done, the duck should be incredibly flavorful, tender and falling off the bone.
Remove the tough lower stems from the dandelion greens, wash and spin them dry. Cut them into 1 -inch lengths. Place the greens in a large bowl with red wine vinegar. Season with salt and some of the warm duck fat. Strain some the onions out of the duck fat and toss them in with the greens.
Place a large mound of the dressed dandelion greens on each serving plate, lay a duck leg on the greens and top with a little more of the onions.
It's just ducky!!!
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By bethsmd
Olney, MD
on April 29, 2013
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The duck was fork tender and had spectacular flavor. In the interest of our heart and cholesterol health I did pour off about half of the duck fat before sauteing and caramelizing the onions. It tasted awesome. As it braised in the oven, I needed to add a little wine to keep the liquid at a good braising level, but for us, better wine than the duck fat . It did seem to take longer to render the fat than Anne said but I did it low and slow and then raised the heat to get the duck legs good and brown. I did this spur of the moment (yes, I have duck legs & breasts in my freezer and did not want to go out for dandelion greens but used arugula instead and it was delicious. I would definitely make this again, but plan to spend some time in the kitchen:
By powella1
Carlsbad, CA
on January 21, 2013
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Everyone loved this. The rendering step went a little long - I left it on the stove for almost three hours while we went to the beach, on low / small burner. The skin was not crisp but the fat was rendered and I ended up only needing to braise for 1 hour - a good thing since the onions took longer than in the recipe. I used a round enameled dutch oven - 9 inches across - and given the amount of wine, it took almost 45 minutes for the onions to even approach carmelization. Also - given that amount of liquid, I braised with the lid off for the last 30 minutes. All were skeptical of the dandelion greens but they ate every morsel. I had some rendered goose fat and used that since I didnt have any reserved duck fat - the recipe isn't clear on that.
By Gunner_dc
Washington, DC
on November 24, 2012
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Anne, this is simply phenomenal.
I made this in a dutch oven, but crisped the legs in small batches--I had 6 legs--towards the rendering end. My only modifications were to use one red onion, added a little cumin and a little red pepper flakes just to make it my own. Other than that, the recipe came out delicious and the meat fell off the bone. I had pumpkin orzo instead of the greens because the dandelion leafs were not available at my local store.
Big kudos for the recipe.
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