6 duck legs from 3 5-pound ducks, trimmed of excess fat
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
3 dashes of Tabasco sauce
1. Rub the legs with lots of salt and pepper. Build a small fire as
far to one side of a covered cooker as possible. Place the legs skin-side down
on the side of the grill opposite the fire.
2. Cover and cook for 1½ to 2 hours, or until a fork stuck into a
leg twists easily. You will need to feed the fire slightly while
they’re cooking, just enough to keep it smoldering. You are barbecuing now, so
grab a beer and remember the pitmaster’s creed, “Slow and low is the way to go.”
3. When the legs are
tender, remove them from the grill, allow them to cool slightly, then remove
the meat and skin from the bone and place them in a bowl. The meat should be
crispy, not fatty, and you want to shred it into fairly small pieces. Add the
vinegar, Tabasco sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well. This is best
served immediately, but can be refrigerated, covered, for 4 to 5 days or frozen.
To bring it back, place it in a pan in a 250°F oven for 20 to 30 minutes.
This is an excellent use for the extra leg
meat you may have left from a grilled duck breast dish. While the exposure to
smoke for long periods usually dominates its prey, the taste of duck is strong
enough to stand up against the smoky tenderness of barbecuing. This freezes well
and can be served in sandwiches for extra fancy barbecue or with fresh
tortillas. Or reserve the breasts to make Grilled Duck Breast with
Kumquat-Sugarcane-Basil Glaze and serve the barbecue alongside.
• 1 pound
SERVING SUGGESTIONS: Serve
this with fresh tortillas, Black Bean Salad, and Corn Bread Salad with Lime
Juice and Cilantro, or with Pita Bread and Cold Orzo Salad.
Some Facts
Nouvelle cuisine reintroduced America to the practice
of cooking duck breast medium-rare. This presented chefs with the problem
of how to handle the legs of the duck, since it is not appropriate to undercook
them and even by nouvelle standards a single duck breast does not a portion
make. So we went scurrying to create interesting treatments for the legs. Some
simply served the legs separately and cooked them longer. Others made duck
sausage or confit. Still others made forcemeat and stuffed Chinese dumplings or
ravioli. The common factor in all of these preparations is a cooking method
that breaks down tough meat. One day while racking my brain for one more
creative and unusual way to use the duck legs that went with a
Southern-inspired duck breast preparation, I decided to fall back on the
basics—why not barbecue
them? Now, as you should all know, this does not mean grilling, but rather
exposing the meat to wood smoke at low temperatures for a long time, allowing
for the sinews to break down completely. It worked really well, proving as
usual that old ways and new products are often an excellent match.
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