I cooked: Duck Confit with Braised Red Cabbage and Pommes de terre a la sarladaise

Hogmanay, is to the Scots what New Year's Eve is to the rest of the world. This year we celebrated Hogmanay with a quiet night in with our family and I cooked duck confit. In case you're wondering, no, I didn't make the duck confit from scratch. I think I may have attempted to make my own duck confit if I was still living in the UK where all the ingredients could be easily sourced from a supermarket but not here in KL.

Duck confit with braised red cabbage and pommes de terre a la sarladaise

When passing through Paris airport, Hubby bought a can of Rougie Confit de Canard which I felt would make a nice and simple meal for Hogmanay. Confit de Canard or Duck Confit is a specialty from Gascony, France. Confit is one of the oldest methods of preserving meat by salting it and cooking it slowly in its own fat. All I had to do was reheat it in the oven and cook some side dishes.

I wasn't sure what side dishes to serve with the duck confit and scoured the internet for some ideas. In the end, I decided to serve it the classic way with braised red cabbage and pommes de terre a la sarladaise (potatoes roasted in duck fat). I was very pleased with the result, the duck was tender and flavourful and the braised red cabbage was an excellent accompaniment to fatty meats such as duck. The roasted potatoes had a very crisp skin.

A lovely trio

If cooking is not really your thing, I would recommend the confit of duck leg, served with puy lentils and olives from Sage (RM60) or a similar version to this at High Tide (RM52). Not very expensive considering the amount of work that goes into the preparation and we paid about €40 for the can of duck confit alone.

Duck Confit with Braised Red Cabbage and Pommes de terre a la sarladaise

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 can Rougie Confit de Canard (approx 4 - 5 duck legs)

5 large Russet potatoes

Duck fat (from the duck confit)

Salt

For the duck confit, firstly place the duck legs on a baking tray and scrape off excess fat from the leg. Then place in a preheated oven at 180°C and cook for 25 minutes or until the skin is crisp. It is as simple as that. Alternatively, you can place legs in a frying pan with two spoons of duck fat and cook 8 min each side.

On the can, it is stated that there are 4 duck legs in this Rougie tin, but we found 5 in our can, maybe perhaps they were of a smaller size.

Crispy skin, tender and flavourful meat

Someone was lucky and got 2 duck legs to devour..

For the pomme de terre a la sarladaise (potatoes roasted in duck fat), place the potatoes on a baking tray and cover with generous amounts of duck fat. Season with salt and cook in preheated oven at 180°C for 40-45 minutes until golden brown.

Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside .... just the way I like my roast potatoes!





Served with a bottle of Côtes Du Rhône 45th Parallèle

(still in the Christmas mood!)

We finished off the lovely meal with some mini vanilla ice-cream cones and some cakes from Coffee Bean (which I will write about in a later post).

For the braised red cabbage recipe, click here.

Note: You can save any remaining duck fat and use it for roasting potatoes or even chicken.

So how did you celebrate Hogmanay or New Year's Eve?