| Level: | Intermediate |
| Total: | 2 hr 30 min |
| Prep: | 10 min |
| Cook: | 2 hr 20 min |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
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
Instructions
- 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!!!
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 4 servings |
| Calories | 1384 |
| Total Fat | 119 g |
| Saturated Fat | 39 g |
| Carbohydrates | 20 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Sugar | 8 g |
| Protein | 35 g |
| Cholesterol | 215 mg |
| Sodium | 1350 mg |
Reviews
Wow, this is delicious. I let it get really caramelized during the oven part, so it was very brown. Then we shredded it with the melted onions and made sweet potato/duck hash (on waffles!) we were trying to recreate a brunch dish from a restaurant, and honestly, this was better! And easy!!
We had this last night and it was delicious. We served it with red cabbage, spinach and potato slices cooked in duck fat. I feel the ‘cheaters’ name does it an injustice. It is great in its own right…. it doesn’t have to be a substitute for confit. I’d call it ‘duck legs braised in wine and onions’. Doesn’t that sound better?
This is my favorite duck leg recipe now. I love the onions with the wine and duckfat. It is also very easy compared to other recipes I’ve tried. It just takes time. I use arugula too, instead of dandelion greens. I’ve also used a large pinch of herbs de Provence instead of bay leaf when I was out of bay leaf. It was really good.
This recipe took way longer than I expected. Maybe because I’ve never rendered duck fat before and was concerned that the fatty parts I saw on the leg without the skin needed to be rendered as well.
I agree with the other reviewer that the onion process is a bit too long. Mine started caramelizing during the ‘lid on’ part and I only cooked it for an additional 5 minutes with the lid off. I do like some texture to my onions but it still had a nice deep color.
This is a *very* rich dish. I wish I would have poured off some of the fat like another reviewer suggested, because the end result, the onion sauce had just too much fat in it to really enjoy.
Still, it was easy albeit time consuming.
Wow – what a great recipe! Super easy! It took me about 15 minutes longer to render the duck fat and then brown the legs than I had originally anticipated. You might want to give yourself 45 minutes for that. You can regain some of the time during the onion caramelization. I feel that Anne takes the caramelization process to far and the onions loose all texture(not just in this recipe but in several.
Dandelion greens are not something that is readilty available where I live so instead I served the duck over sauteed kale. Served a basil rissotto as my starch.
very good and easy. It just takes time in the oven for the duck to fall off the bone.
This is one of the best duck dishes I have eaten. Rich and savory. I couldn’t find dandelion greens, so used baby Arugula instead. The recipe is time consuming, but very easy. Most of the time is in the oven.