Recipe: roast duck with warm red cabbage salad

I cooked roast duck for dinner last night, as you do, on a Tuesday. When you’re mad. Actually, the only insane part was how easy it was. I’ve always avoided cooking duck because I thought it would be tricky. But it was just like cooking a chook. I simply chopped off the neck, washed the carcass, rubbed it with a bit of olive oil, sprinkled it with some salt, shoved a few segments of orange up its bum and it was good to go. I used a 2kg bird and roasted it at 190C for 1 hour and 15 minutes. About 30 minutes before it was due out of the oven, I chucked chunks of potato, parsnip and carrot into the duck fat beneath the bird to roast. While the duck rested on the bench for 10 minutes, I left the veg in the oven to finish and got to work on the red cabbage salad. Admittedly, making the salad was a bit stressy, but I had to do something with the red cabbage Farmer’s Direct sent me last week. The meal was absolutely delicious. But you don’t get much off a duck. It barely fed the four of us and it cost $19. To offset the expense, I used the neck and wing tips to make duck stock, which I will use for a risotto later in the week.

WARM RED CABBAGE SALAD

2 tablespoons of pine nuts

2 tablespoons of duck fat from the roasting dish

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 red cabbage, chopped

4 anchovy fillets, chopped

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

METHOD: Toast pine nuts in a frying pan until golden. Set aside. Add duck fat to pan. When hot, add garlic cloves and saute until softened. Add anchovy fillets, saute 1 minute. Add red cabbage and toss in pan until it begins to soften and wilt. Drizzle with red wine vinegar and serve sprinkled with pine nuts.