Chinese Braised Duck Legs
Easy recipe for Chinese style braised duck legs, cooked in a richly flavoured stock with the simplest of ingredients. Tastes better the next day!
- Prep time
- 10 min
- Cook time
- 1 hr 35 min
- Yield
- 4 servings
- Difficulty
- HARD
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp vegetable or peanut oil
- 4 duck legs
- 1.5 litres (6 cups) water
- 4 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine (see explanation above)
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce (click to read more)
- 2 tbsp dark soy sauce (click to read more)
- 4 large spring onions (scallions)
- 3 clove garlic ((medium sized, not too large))
- 5 cm (2") ginger
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 whole star anise
- 1 tsp sichuan peppercorns (click to read more) ((or use 1/2 tsp black peppercorns))
- 1 tsp white sugar
- 1/4 tsp white pepper
- chopped spring onions (scallions) or coriander leaves (cilantro)
Instructions
- 1
Peel the garlic but leave them whole.
- 2
Scrub the ginger clean with a vegetable brush and slice into rounds, no need to be thin.
- 3
Roughly chop the spring onions up into 3-4 lengths. Set everything aside while we brown the duck legs.
- 4
Heat the oil in your chosen pan over medium-high heat. This is going to smoke so open those windows, turn on the hob extractor and watch out for that smoke alarm!
- 5
Brown the duck legs one side a time, about 2 minutes each side will do. Take the duck legs out and pour out all the fat from the pan. No need to wipe or clean the pan.
- 6
Pour the water into the same pan and bring to a boil first.
- 7
Then add all the braising ingredients: rice wine, soy sauces, spring onions, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, star anise, sugar, sichuan peppercorns and white pepper.
- 8
Bring everything back to a boil, then add the duck legs back in, skin side down. Cover, and simmer for 1½ hours. At the end of the 1 hour, check your legs, they should be practically done by this time, but I think that they taste better when the meat is practically falling off the bone. At this point, you should also have quite a little bit of the braising liquid in the pan. If you want lots of liquid, cover and cook for another 30 minutes. But if you like this dish dry, with a thick caramel like sauce, then cook for another 30 minutes without the lid. Be sure to baste the legs a couple of times to stop them from drying out.
- 9
Serve up the duck legs, garnished with your chosen herb. It goes great with rice or noodles, as part of a Chinese or any Oriental meal.