Chris Honor recipe: Duck leg, plum, pomegranate, star anise
Experiment with flavours, texture and colour to create food to delight, says chef and author Chris Honor
Regardless of space and time, to make good food a cook needs to understand the importance of balance for both the palate and the eye. I am always thinking about the five main taste sensations: sweet, salty, spicy, sour, bitter.
At the same time, I consider texture – crunchy, smooth, tender – and then there is colour and presentation. The beauty of this approach is that if you get it all right, if all the tastes and textures and visual appeal come together, you just need to mound it on a platter and it will be fantastic. My only flourish is to juxtapose unexpected flavours. It is all well and good to keep things equally balanced, but I like to throw in a few surprises. And that’s all there is to it.
My duck leg, plum, pomegranate and star anuse recipe is deep burgundy hues and plummy spiced pomegranate gorgeousness. Although this is dead easy to throw together, the cook will have already done enough, so diners beware plum stones.
Ingredients
- 4 duck legs
- salt
- 300g fresh plums, with stones, or use frozen plums, defrosted
- 125g whole pitted prunes
- 80g pomegranate seeds
- 100ml pomegranate molasses
- 4 star anise
- 1 cinnamon stick
- zest peeled in wide strips and
- juice of 1 large orange
- 50ml honey
- 50ml balsamic vinegar
- 50ml apple cider
- 2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and sliced
- 1 scant tsp Sichuan
- peppercorns, coarsely crushed
Serves: Four Difficulty: Medium Time to cook: 2 hours (marinade overnight) mins
Method
1 Put all the ingredients apart from the duck and salt into a large bowl and stir to combine. transfer to a non-reactive container just large enough to hold the marinade and the duck legs, or use a large ziplock bag. Add the duck legs and leave to marinate in the fridge overnight, or for at least 6 hours.
2 Preheat the oven to 140C/Gas mark 1. Transfer the duck legs and their marinade to a roasting pan. roast for about 2 hours until the duck turns a deep dark colour and the sauce thickens. turn the legs halfway through cooking and check for doneness after 1½ hours.
3 Season the duck legs lightly with salt before serving at room temperature
• Chriskitch: Big Flavours from a Small Kitchen by Chris Honor and Laura Washburn Hutton is published by Mitchell Beazley, £25