Leftovers - Recipe: Duck & Date Pie

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

I hate food waste, so very important to cook nose to tail! (Ahem - parsons nose to bill in this case!) 

I’ve been developing a couple of new duck dishes recently. Our ducks come with giblets, which includes neck, heart, liver, and kidneys. The liver and kidneys are easy to use, the wings and neck on the other hand? 

Well I decided to make a stock out of them, after about 2 hours of slow braising I pulled them out. 

Turns out there’s quite a lot of meat on duck necks!  The wings have bizarrely little meat on them because the muscle is in the breast obviously!!  If you’re roasting a duck, the wing dries out in the oven and becomes tough and chewy, if you braise them however you get a fair amount of meat form them!! Which is a good reason to cut the wings off before roasting. 

So from making the stock I got a great sauce and wing and neck meat, I picked them both, reduced the stock and turned them into pies!!!  And jolly good they were too!

I served them with a tangerine cauliflower cous cous - light and fruity - great combo!

ingredients (makes 8 pies)

for the duck stock

4 duck necks

8 duck wings

leftover carcass

1 tomato (diced)

1 onion (diced)

2 chillies (chopped into rings)

2L water

for the pie

duck meat (picked from the carcass, wings, and neck)

8 dates (copped)

2 onions (medium dice)

chilli sauce (to taste)

3cm ginger (peeled and fine dice)
180g haggis (cooked, crumbled)

for the pastry

700g flaky pastry

1 egg

duck stock

This is really simple, chuck all the ingredients into a pot bring to the boil, then set to simmer. Leave for 2 hours.

Then take out the wings, necks and any carcass and pick the meat from them once they’ve cooled a little but are still warm.

Sieve the remains of the stock and reduce it by half. A quick taste check to make sure it’s nice, if it needs more reduction to develop the flavour then crack on! If it’s too salty add some water to loosen it a little.

for the pie

Sweat off the onions until they’re translucent, add the duck and let them brown a little.

Add the ginger, dates and chilli, this should make a meaty pie filling!!

Next add enough of the reduced stock to give the perfect pie filling!

Finally mix in the haggis.

for the pastry

Get some flakey pastry (or make you own).

Dust the pie dishes with a little flour. 

Once you’ve line the pie dishes with pastry, put a piece of cling film or baking paper in them and fill them with ceramic beads or pulses of some sort. (lentils, chick peas, rice works too, as do coins!)

Put them in the oven, 180C 15mins.

Remove them from the oven and turn it up to 200C.

Remove the pulses and cling film from the pie cases and brush them with egg wash. This serves two purposes: to make them shiny and to water proof them - no soggy bottoms here!!  

Put the pie cases back in the oven for 5 mins @ 200C.

Fill the pies with the filling, then brush the rims with egg wash. 

Put tops on the pies and put them back into the oven for 15-20mins.

If you’re a perfectionist you should probably crimp them around the edges!!!

thinking ahead

These will freeze.  Re-warm from frozen, at 160C for 15-20minutes - AWESOME!

to serve

Since this is quite a naughty dish I served it with a tangerine cauliflower cous cous, which is cous cous made 50% out of cauliflower, really tasty an really healthy with a nod to that classic Duck L’Orange.

and I quote . . . . "Oooh, so sooo tasty!!"

I served it w/ tangerine cauliflower cous cous