Braised Duck Legs

Name: Braised Duck Legs
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Jewish
Ingredients: Duck legs; Salt; Trimmed duck skin; Garlic; Black pepper; Chicken stock; Fresh thyme; Bay leaf

Braised Duck Legs, plated as one serving.

539 kcal a serving, against 1493 for the traditional version. That is 954 kcal off, or 64%, with 63.9g of protein. Serves 4. 2 hours 30 minutes.

What the traditional version is

Duck legs salted overnight, rinsed and dried, then completely submerged and gently simmered in melted duck fat for hours. Once cooked, they're left in the fat to preserve. Pulled out when needed, roasted hot to crisp the skin, served with rich juices and whatever you've got lurking in the fridge. The fat does everything: tenderises, bastes and gives you the texture that makes people sigh.

What changed, and what each change costs

Braise in chicken stock instead of submerging in duck fat

The duck fat is where nearly all the calories hide. Using chicken stock gives you some of that slow tenderness, fewer calories, and keeps the protein up because the meat stays the same. You also get plenty of juice for mopping up.

What it costs you. You lose the magical preserving power. And the texture, frankly. The skin's not crisp and the inside isn't as yielding. The duck ends up somewhere between confit and school dinner. Not an upgrade.

Remove half the skin before cooking

The skin is most of the fat and not much else if you're not confiting. Leaving just enough skin gives a bit of flavour but keeps things less greasy.

What it costs you. You absolutely can't pretend it's the same. No golden sheet of duck skin. You might as well serve it with a disclaimer.

Up the garlic and thyme

Once the fat goes, so does half the flavour. Extra garlic and thyme try to make up for what's missing. The best you can do is get a strongly flavoured broth and hope someone notices.

What it costs you. It's punchier, but you've still lost the magic. No one's writing home about the aroma.

What goes in it

The ingredients, without the quantities. The weights are what the figures below are computed from, and they are in the book.

Duck legs
Salt
Trimmed duck skin
Garlic
Black pepper
Chicken stock
Fresh thyme
Bay leaf

How it starts

The first thing: take the duck legs and with a sharp knife, trim the skin off the underside, leaving only the top bit.
Heat the oven to 150C.
Pour the chicken stock in until it comes halfway up the duck.

The rest of the method, and every weight, is in Authentic-ish Jewish.

The numbers

Per serving	Traditional	Lightened
Calories	1493	539
Protein	71.5g	63.9g
Fat	130g	23.7g
Saturated fat	44.3g	8.6g
Carbohydrate	4.5g	14g
Protein per 100 kcal	4.8g	11.9g

Every figure is computed from the recipe's own weighed ingredient list against public food composition databases. The appendix in Authentic-ish Jewish prints the exact database row used for each ingredient, so any number here can be checked. How every number is computed sets out the method.

The method is in the book

You save a mountain of fat by losing the confit method, but you also lose the entire reason anyone eats duck legs in the first place. The original is a preservation wonder; this is just a decent braise. The first thing to go is the golden, glassy skin, which in the traditional could make a grown man weep. Here, the meat's still tasty and protein-rich, the broth is brilliant over potatoes, but no one's mistaken it for confit. If you're desperate for duck and want less fat, it'll do. If you have a jar of duck fat in the fridge, you already know not to bother.

The quantities and the method for this dish are in Authentic-ish Jewish, along with 51 more. Buy the paperback