Duck | The food nutter

Duck & Barley stir… uuuhhhhmmm!

Dinner for 2
Barley stir fry with flaked confit duck and black olives

Ingredients:
• 1 thigh of confit duck & Jus
• Half courgette
• A hand full of black olives
• 7 garlic cloves
• 1 small onion
• Half red pepper
• Half green pepper
• Half yellow pepper
• 200 grs of precooked barley
• 1/2 Stock cube
• 3 twigs of thyme
• 3 table spoons of olive oil

Prep: Finely chop the onions. Peel and crush the garlic. Cut the courgette, and all the sweet peppers length way like in the picture. Precook the barley if it is not yet. Flake the duck. Set all that aside.

Method:
In a wok, heat 3 table spoons of olive oil and fry the onions with the thyme for 2 minutes.
Add in the rest of the cut ingredients and dry fry for another 3 minutes.
Now add in the barley, the duck flakes, the jus and the crushed half stock cube.
Stir to mix all well for 5 minutes. Until the liquid dries out.
It is all ready to serve.

Note: The confit duck comes in a tin and it is a French treat that can be really expensive. When I go back home bring some back with cassoulet and choucroute… I got this one from Waitrose where a tin with 2 thighs cost about £10.00. It comes out of the tin covered in duck fat and some sort of jellied jus… The jus tastes really great and I cannot really work out what it is made off. The jus really brings an added “je ne sais quoi” to dishes and it really worked for this dish too.

Enjoy!

Duck & Quinoa salad

Serves 6

Ingredients:

1 leg and thigh of duck confit
Ingredients
The confit jus. Once you heat the duck. You will find that oil and some flavoured jus is left over. Get rid of the oil and just collect the jus. It tastes a bit like a concentrated duck liquid stock.
2 cups of precooked quinoa
1 cup of precooked (whole) green lentils
2 fresh tomatoes
Small bunch of parsley
Salt and pepper
Readymade garlic bread – Optional
6 green cabbage leaves blanched – for serving
1 Lemon – to serve

Prep:

It is preferable to use dry lentils – Soak them over night, change the water and let them boil for 30 minutes in salted water.

All ready to mix

If using uncooked quinoa, rinse them well, cover with water, let it boil cook without covering for 10 minutes, when the water runs out, cover and reduce the heat, then let simmer for another 10 minutes. Quinoa will triple once cooked so, always divide the serving quantity by 3.

To blanch the cabbage leaves, put the leave in boiling salted water facing up. Gently drown them with a spatula in still boiling salted water). Keep them in the bottom of the pot for about 3 minutes. Remove from boiling water and deep immediately in fresh water to stop the cooking. Leave them in the fridge until it is time to serve the salad.

Cut the tomatoes in thin slender slices

Remove the skin from the duck and flack it

Cut the lemon in six

Put the garlic bread in the oven following the instruction on the package.

Method:

In a mixing bowl, put the quinoa, lentil salt & pepper, mix well. Add 2 to 4 table spoons of the duck jus and black pepper. Mix well. Add the tomato and chopped parsley. Mix again. Add the flacked duck, mix, cover and refrigerate.

Serve as suggested. With the lemon which will serve as vinaigrette.