Oriental crispy duck with an orange sauce

Serves 4

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Ingredients
2 duck legs
1 tbsp wok oil (or vegetable oil)
150g chestnut mushrooms, diced
1 shallots, very finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
35g water chestnuts, diced
½ tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
8 wonton wrappers
1 large pak choi

Ingredients for the orange sauce
60 g caster sugar
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
500 ml orange juice
250 ml chicken stock
50g butter, cut into cubes

Method
Preheat the oven to 180c.

Take your duck legs and pat dry with a piece of kitchen towel.  With a sharp knife or metal skewer, prick the skin all over and season with sea salt flakes.  Put into the oven and cook for 1 hour 30 minutes, basting every 20 minutes or so.

Turn now to your dumpling filling. In 1 tbsp oil cook your shallots and garlic for 2-3 minutes until soft and translucent but without any colour.  Add the mushrooms, a good grind of black pepper (6 twists) and a pinch of salt.  Cook for 5-7 minutes until all of the water that comes out of the mushrooms has been absorbed.

Once your mushrooms are cooked, add the water chestnuts, soy sauce and hoisin.  Mix through and put to one side.

Move on to your orange sauce.  Put the sugar in a cold saucepan and melt it down slowly, it should be the colour of dark toffee. Add the vinegar and simmer until completely mixed with the sugar and no sugar crystals remain. If when you add the vinegar the sugar turns to toffee, don’t worry, just use your spoon to stir through until the toffee melts, which is likely to happen when the liquid heats.  Add the orange juice and reduce by half. Add the chicken stock and reduce by half. When the sauce is ready just reduce the heat to very low and put the lid on.

Meanwhile, take a wonton wrapper in your hand and brush the edges with water. Place a tbsp of the mushroom mix in the centre of the wrappers and bring the edges together to make a triangle.  Gently but firmly seal the edges together. Put a drop of water on one of the side ’arms’ and bring the edges together and firmly push together.  Cover with cling film and put to one side.

Once your duck is crispy and cooked, remove from the oven and rest for 10 minutes.

In your bamboo steamer, place your dumplings and pak choi, I tend to do the dumplings in the lower basket and the pak choi in the higher basket.  Cook for 7 minutes.

Turn up the heat on the sauce and add the butter and some seasoning. Taste for balance, adjusting where necessary.

Place the pak choi on your serving plate and put your duck against the pak choi.  Place the dumplings on the plate and be generous with the sauce.