Roasted Duck Leg w/Hamhocked Kale and Porcini Ruota Pasta

Yesterday while stumbling around the market I picked up 3 ingredients I never cooked with before that I felt I needed to learn about:

Chicory
Duck Leg
Ham Hock

I thought I could use my Saturday to learn how to use my new ingredients by making something delicious.

Ok so what could I do with those ingredients??  Hmm....   Well.... I could roast the duck leg and that would probally be yum.    I could make hamhocked kale.   I could make a porcini ruota pasta and mix in the chicory at the end.  Ok a plan has formed!

Here is a pic of the ingredients:

First step is I wanted to really salt the duck as a salty duck is a tasty duck!   I made a rub for the duck legs.

Duck Leg Rub Ingredients:

1/4 cup of salt
I sprig of rosemary picked off
4-6 cloves of garlic (i did 6 but you could go as low as 4)

I mashed up the garlic in my mortar and peste and mixed it all together with the other ingredients.  I then rubbed down my duck.   Applying a rub to a good piece of meat is of course a private moments :) xoxo

In the pic posted above of the ingredients you can see the salt rubbed duck but let me also post this picture you can see it in more detail:

 

Ok with the duck prepped I quickly seared the skin to make sure it was brown and crispy.   I then through it in the oven for 60 mins at 340 degrees.   

Now this is duck.   So I reserved some of the fat so I could tie it into EVERY OTHER DISH.  When going duck...go big duck...BIG DUCK!!!!

I made a simple sauce with the reconstituted porcini mushrooms using mushroom stock, duck fat, and romano cheese.   YUM YUM YUM   Once I folded the pasta into the sauce I tossed in some chopped chicory to bring a bright peppery finish to the pasta coated in the rich mushroom sauce with duck fat.  To add insult to fat injury I put in a tablespoon of butter before serving and coated all the pasta with it.

I chopped the kale and put it in to boil with the hamhock by using a combo of duck fat, vegetable stock, mushroom stock and a little bit of water.   

PURE DELICIOUSNESS is what I got.  The meal was easy and amazing.   A bit of prep work but it was a charm to throw it all together

YUM YUM DUCK

YUM YUM HAM HOCK

YUM YUM CHICORY