Kitchen Tales: Braised Duck Legs with Lentils and Cider
It’s October and I’m cooking in my favorite fall turtleneck again.
When I first made this dish, it was June. I was still twenty-something and unconcerned with matters of practicality. Despite being a broke cook, I had access to high-end ingredients, plus a bit of skill in handling them, from years of working in restaurants.
My cooking style was rustic, to say the least. My kitchen was falling apart, only two burners worked, and even still, the wooden floors were uneven so oil pooled stubbornly in the bottom edge of the pan. Somehow I still managed to eat well and cheaply and drink well and cheaply, as Hemingway would say.
A fancy food lost and found
For a brief period of time, I cooked at a cafe in a specialty grocery store. We sold artisan products from around the Midwest, but still found ourselves flipping burgers for the lunch rush.
The biggest perk of the job was the “lost and found” for fancy food – a collection of products past their sell-by dates, still safe to eat and offered to employees for free. My co-worker Elijah, a long-haired butcher, rail-thin from only eating lean meat, took me to the refrigerated warehouse to show me. I hated the notion of shrinkage but was happy to play my part as a scavenger. I’d check there before heading out, occasionally coming up empty-handed until one day I went home with a pound of duck legs. Two whole packs.
The quiet pleasure of braising in June
So thrilled was I by the prospect of free duck that I put off cooking it until one exceptionally cool weekend in June when I found myself with the urge to braise. I remembered that there was duck in my freezer; there had been duck in my freezer, slipping past my attention and making it all the way through the winter.
I could write a blog dedicated solely to food I’ve salvaged and cooked over the years: Brick-like Vollkornbrot bread, so dense with seeds it was no wonder our customers didn’t buy it. Bags of date sugar for healthier baking adventures. Pounds of chicken thighs, conveniently portioned for the freezer. An extra-thick organic sour cream I’d learned to spread on toast with jam. But this dish was my favorite. Braising is the ultimate slow food; and sometimes the week calls for this – no matter the season.
For this recipe, I am using duck legs, but use what you have on hand. And have fun with it. I marvel at how I still enjoyed cooking back then, despite it being my job, but when you’re at home you’re off the clock. Skip washing your greens, opt for a pot too small to be proper, and take more trips to the fridge than is necessary, just to see if the shelves materialize fresh inspiration between knife cuts. They always do.
Cooking braised duck legs with lentils and cider
A bird as meaty and gamey as a duck is a real boon if you, like me, take more than your fair share of dark meat when the opportunity presents itself. Duck has pronounced fat content and flavor. Sweet, bitter, and mouth-puckering ingredients like citrus rinds, red currants, and ginger, are common foils. In this recipe, I chose cider for tang.
Duck legs may be an extravagance, but lentils are a poor man’s luxury. Cheap and easy, any leftovers make for a wise meal if topped with a poached egg or mixed into a bit of spaghetti. These lentils begin where so many good dishes do, with a soffrito. Or a mirepoix, if you prefer, but I find the term soffrito applies more broadly.
Place a heavy-bottomed pan on the stove. Unlike duck breasts, legs can get started in a hot pan. Pat the duck legs dry and season them liberally. I don’t advise standing stovetop in cut-off jean shorts and a bandana, hot oil splattering, picking through lentils while the skin crisps into the color of Lyle’s golden syrup. But if it’s summertime in your neck of the woods, then by all means, please do.
Cooking the soffritto
I have always understood soffrito to be the holy trilogy: carrot, onion, and celery. But it is more conceptual. Finely chopped vegetables, left to soften, rather than caramelize. The vegetables you choose should be mild enough to accompany, not overpower, the dish. Gently sweat them in fat (olive oil, butter) until they glisten like your brow will from hovering over a pan of soffrito in June.
You could use onion and fennel, as is the case in pasta con le sarde. I once made a dish with trumpet mushroom that required cooking garlic and parsley in oil until fragrant; the sliced stems and caps were added in after the pungency of the garlic had worn off. I called that soffrito, though the recipe didn’t declare it as such.
Here, we’re going back to basics with carrots, celery, and onion and sweating them in olive oil – because it is June after all, and butter would be too much.
Selecting the lentils
Look for the green French variety, fatter than Casteluccio but smaller than Puy. Add the lentils to your vegetables, and cover them with a half-inch of liquid before topping them with the seared duck legs, covering the pan, and placing it in the oven to cook slowly until everything is tender.
Lentils are an “entry-level” dried legume. They don’t take much time to cook, making them perfect for days when you’re not organized enough to soak beans the day before. When boiled on their alone, the flavor of lentils isn’t pronounced, but when braised with aromatics, they take on new life, becoming smokier, meatier versions of themselves.
Smoky and meaty enough to stand up to, say, duck.
Making hard cider at home
At the time I didn’t have any poultry stock on hand, so I grabbed for the closest thing in my fridge: a bottle of accidental hard cider, made by letting a half gallon from the previous fall ferment on my countertop.
To make this, fill a half-gallon latch-top jar full of cider and let it sit at room temperature. Carefully burp the bottle each day to let out the CO₂. The yeast and bacteria will convert the natural sugars into alcohol. This sharpens the flavor, making it the perfect robust, dry cooking liquid when you don’t have an open bottle of wine handy.
Serving the braised duck legs with lentils and cider
When the duck is cooked through, portion the lentils into two shallow bowls, or on plates, then nest the duck legs on top. If you’re feeling especially fancy, you can reduce cider down into syrup and use it as a drizzle on top. When I first cooked this dish, I thought it would be charming to garnish with minced carrot tops. This did nothing but resolve my feelings of guilt for otherwise having to throw them away.
A whimsical experience
Back in 2018, I didn’t tell my friend Sean what I was making beforehand. He brought over a howler of beer from his favorite brewery and poured us two glasses, which felt appropriate.
I led us both outside barefoot and up to the stairwell that led to the roof – too sloped for a table and chairs, so we sat on our butts instead, wrestling a fork and knife into the meaty chicken thighs in our laps, stopping only to take swigs of beer. After he had taken a few bites, I instructed him to hold a bowl of lentils up to his nose and inhale. Cooking with you feels like a whimsical experience, he said to me.
It was the best compliment a broke cook could ask for.
Braised Duck Legs with Lentils And Cider
I challenge you to find a more generous way to perfume your home in October, aside from baking cookies or mulling cider.
Lentils, 1 cup
Carrot, 1 large (or 2-3 small), diced finely
Celery, 2 ribs, finely diced
Onion, 1, diced finely
Garlic, 2 cloves minced
Woody herbs ( I used Savory)
A few cups of something light and boozy, Hard cider* or white wine is nice, enough to cover the lentils.
Duck or chicken thighs, or a poached egg
Olive oil, plenty of it
Salt & pepper
1. Preheat your oven to 325F. Sear off your poultry, if using, in a high-sided skillet, preferably cast iron. Pat the meat dry and season with salt. Add enough oil to coat the pan. When it begins to smoke, place the thighs skin-side down and cook, undisturbed, until the fat is rendered and the skin is golden, but the flesh is not cooked through. Set aside and reserve the remaining fat.
2. To the now empty and hot pan, add your vegetables, excluding garlic. Sweat gently until they're tender and glistening. Drizzle in a bit of duck fat if the pan is looking dry. Season to taste.
3. Add in your garlic and lentils. Toast the lentils slightly for a minute or two, tossing with the sofrito. Pour in enough boozy liquid to just cover the lentils.
4. Add in a few sprigs of your herbs and nestle the duck on top, skin-side up. Roast in the oven uncovered until the lentils are tender, but not mushy and the duck is cooked through. Check every 15-20 minutes, adding in more liquid as you go if the pan looks dry.
5. Garnish with a thread of olive oil and a spring of carrot tops. Salute!
