Booths Confit Duck With Pickled Red Cabbage & Sticky Fig Glaze recipe

This is a wonderful recipe for an autumn Sunday lunch – rich duck teamed with piquant red cabbage and a sweet, sticky glaze.
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Serves: 2 l Prep time: 4 hours l Cook time: 90 minutes

Ingredients

2 duck legs

Confit Duck With Pickled Red Cabbage & Sticky Fig GlazeConfit Duck With Pickled Red Cabbage & Sticky Fig Glaze
Confit Duck With Pickled Red Cabbage & Sticky Fig Glaze

200ml vegetable oil or melted duck fat

6 cloves garlic, sliced

4 juniper berries, crushed

4 sprigs fresh thyme

BoothsBooths
Booths

25g salt

For the glaze

25g fig jam

1 tbsp red wine

For the cabbage

200g red cabbage

1 star anise

Quarter of a teaspoon allspice

200ml cider vinegar

1 bay leaf

3 whole cloves

Quarter of a teaspoon whole black

peppercorns

Quarter of a cinnamon stick

Pinch of dried chilli flakes

100g sugar

10g coarse sea salt

Method

1. Rub the duck with the salt, thyme, juniper and garlic and marinate for three hours.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 120°C/fan 110°C/gas mark 1. Brush the salt off the duck , place onto a baking tray and cover with the melted duck fat or oil.

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3. Gently cook in the oven for one-and-a-half hours until tender, then leave overnight to cool.

4. For the pickled red cabbage, half and quarter the cabbage, remove the stem and finely slice the leaves.

5. Add the cabbage to a colander and salt well, then leave to rest for one hour. Then wash all the salt away thoroughly and pat dry.

6. Place the vinegar and sugar in a pan and bring to the boil. Place all the dry ingredients in a pestle and mortar and grind, then add to the vinegar and simmer for five minutes.

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7. Place the cabbage in a suitable sealable container, large enough to add the pickling liquor to. Pass the liquid through a sieve over the cabbage. The liquor should just cover the veg.

8. Heat up the fig jam and red wine and keep warm.

9. To assemble the dish, remove the duck from the fat and place onto a roasting tray and bake in a hot oven 220°C/fan 200°C/gas mark 7 for 10 minutes to crisp up the skin. Brush the skin with the fig glaze for the last two minutes. Top with more fig glaze and sit on top of the pickled red cabbage.

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