Our Recipes

Adapted from West Coast Prime Meats Cooks © 2015

Braised Duck Legs

Ingredients

• Eight duck legs (approx. 7 ounces each)
• Eight slices bacon
• Six ounces (3/4 cup) red wine
• Eight ounces demi-glace*
• Six cups chicken stock, reduced to three cups
• One large yellow onion, peeled and cored, 1/4-inch dice
• Two large carrots, peeled, 1/4-inch dice
• Four stalks celery, 1/4-inch dice
• Two garlic cloves, peeled
• Two bay leaves
• One tablespoon black peppercorns
• Three tablespoons kosher salt

*Demi-glace is reduced veal stock with a rich, meaty flavor. Find it in the frozen food aisle at some specialty grocers and online.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Debone the duck legs three-fourths of the way: Use kitchen shears to cut the tendon from the joint ends to release muscle meat from bone. 
3. With your hands, pull and roll meat out and away from the bone past the second joint (halfway into drumstick) keeping meat as intact as possible.
4. Lay the leg with the exposed bone on a cutting board. Holding the leg firmly, take a meat cleaver and carefully chop through the bone, removing any tiny bone pieces from leg that may have shattered. Leave only the tip of drumstick attached.
5. Roll the meat back to original shape and tuck thigh meat into cavity where bone was removed. The shape should resemble a firm whole miniature bone-in ham. 
6. Wrap bacon around the wide base end of the leg so it will stand up and hold shape.
7. Choose an ovenproof pan that is small enough to hold the legs closely, standing up, and deep enough that the upper lip of the pan is higher than the legs. Place the onions, carrots, celery and garlic evenly in a pan and stand the legs in the pan. 
8. Gently add the remaining ingredients just enough to cover the meat. Cover the pan with a lid or with foil, place in the oven and cook for 4 hours.
9. When done, allow to cool, then remove duck legs from the liquid. Skim the fat and discard the bacon.
10. Pour the remaining ingredients through a fine sieve or a chinoise back into a sauce pan and simmer over medium heat to reduce until the sauce coats the back of a spoon, about 15 minutes. Adjust salt and pepper if necessary. Set aside and keep warm.

Sous Vide Duck Egg

Ingredients

• Four duck eggs in the shell

Instructions

1. To cook the egg sous vide, heat a water bath with a submersible pump to 146 degrees Fahrenheit (63.5 degrees Celsius). Gently put in the eggs and simmer for one hour and five minutes.
2. Take eggs out of the bath, remove from their shells and place in warm (but not hot) water until ready to serve.

Parsley Oil

Ingredients

• Two bunches flat leaf Italian parsley, leaves only
• One-half cup plus one tablespoon grapeseed oil
• Two tablespoons kosher salt

Instructions

1. Place all ingredients in a blender jar and blend on high speed for four minutes.
2. Strain overnight through a coffee filter or cheesecloth-lined sieve into a nonreactive container (a glass measuring cup will do).
3. Chill in refrigerator if not used right away. Will store up to 4 days.

Glazed Baby Beets

Ingredients

• Twelve to Sixteen baby beets, washed and patted dry
• One teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• Two whole cloves
• Small shallot, peeled and thinly sliced
• Quarter-cup white wine
• Seven tablespoons unsalted butter
• One and three-quarters tablespoons kosher salt
• One and three-quarters tablespoons sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Place beets in a lidded casserole dish and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.
3. When cool enough to handle, gently peel beets by hand with a kitchen towel. Try to keep the stems intact.
4. While the beets are cooling, place the thyme, cloves, shallot, wine, salt and sugar in a small saucepan and reduce over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. When the liquid is almost completely reduced, whisk in the butter until it has combined into a glaze consistency.
5. Toss the beets in the glaze and hold in a warm place until ready to serve. If you have prepped the beets the day before, wait to make the glaze just before service.

Potato Purée

Ingredients

• Three Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
• Three-quarters cup (six ounces) half & half
• Ten tablespoons cold unsalted butter, sliced
• Five tablespoons kosher salt

Instructions

1. In a medium sauce pan over medium heat, simmer potatoes until fork tender.
2. Drain potatoes and work through a food mill or potato ricer into a large mixing bowl.
3. Slowly fold in the half & half, butter and salt, to achieve the proper flavor and texture. Purée is looser and smoother than mashed potatoes.
4. Hold warm and covered until ready to serve.

Assembly

Ingredients

• Eight Braised Duck Legs
• Four Sous Vide Duck Eggs
• Three cups Potato Purée
• Twelve to sixteen Glazed Baby Beets
• Four ounces Parsley Oil
• Twelve amaranth leaves, washed and patted dry
• One tablespoon high-quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Approximately two teaspoons fleur de sel flakes

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Arrange the duck legs in a shallow dish and warm in the oven, glazing with sauce a couple times until internal temperature is 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. While the duck legs heat up, if you made the beets in advance, place them in a saucepan over medium-low heat and toss them gently to warm them through.
4. In an entrée bowl, looking at the dish as if it were a clock face, spoon a three to four ounce portion of potatoes in the 6 o’clock position and using the tip of the spoon, smear the potatoes up to the 10 o’clock area. Set one duck leg (standing up) at the 11 o’clock position, then the other in the center, laying down to the 3 o’clock area. Remove an egg from the warm water with a slotted spoon (draining off all the water) and place in the 2 o’clock spot. The beets should be spaced out and placed in any open area that will allow them to sit flat on the plate, root end pointing up. In a small bowl, place three small amaranth leaves to garnish each dish and drizzle them with the extra-virgin olive oil. Space the leaves apart, pointing up around the dish. Last, drizzle the legs with parsley oil as well as the egg (not completely but to achieve a green hue), then garnish the leg and egg with fleur de sel flakes and serve.

Copyright © 2015 by Amy and Craig Nickoloff and West Coast Prime Meats
Recipes reprinted with permission of the owners.
Photos courtesy of JC Resorts