By Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley
Servings: 6
Prep Time: Overnight
Cooking Time: 6 hours
Ingredients
- 1½ pounds bone-in duck or goose legs
- 1 pound of dried cannellini beans
- Water
- 1 onion, separated
- 1 rib of celery, roughly sliced
- 2 carrots, roughly sliced
- 2 bay leaves
- Olive oil
- 6 ounces of andouille sausage, sliced
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 bunch of kale, leaves coarsely chopped
- 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
- 4 sprigs of fresh parsley
- Kosher salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, optional
Direction
1. Pour dried beans into a bowl and submerge with water by 2 inches. Stir in 2 tablespoons of salt. Allow to soak for at least for 4 hours and up to 12 hours.
2. In a stock pot, combine duck legs, 8 cups of water, half the onion (reserve the other half for later), celery, carrots and 1 bay leaf. Bring to a simmer and cook on low, partially covered, for about 2 hours and 30 minutes or until tender. Shred meat from bones and set aside/refrigerate until ready to use. Strain stock and discard solids.
For a richer stock, return the bones to the pot and continue simmering for as long as you’d like. However, make sure that you end up with at least 4 cups of stock in the end.
3. Drain and rinse beans. Add beans to a pot and submerge by 2 inches of new water. Add the remaining bay leaf to the pot and bring to a simmer. Cook beans until tender, about 30 minutes. Never allow the pot to come to a hard boil, which can break the beans.
4. Preheat oven to 250° Fahrenheit. On the stove, add oil to a 4-quart enameled Dutch oven and heat over medium-high. Brown the sausage and shredded duck meat. Chop the remaining onion and sweat with a pinch of salt until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Wilt the kale with another pinch of salt.
5. Drain the cooked beans and bay leaf and add it to the Dutch oven with the other ingredients. Dissolve tomato paste into 1 cup of duck stock and add it to the pot. Add 2 more cups of stock, more or less, to submerge all ingredients. Mix in brown sugar and season to taste with salt. Drop in sprigs of parsley. Cover and braise for 3 hours in a 250° oven.
6. To serve, discard the parsley and bay leaf. Season to taste again. Serve hot with buttered crusty bread on the side. Use leftover stock to thin out leftovers.