Jay Rayner’s Crispy Duck Salad

Method

1. Gently toast the sesame seeds in a dry cast-iron frying pan, over a medium heat. Keep watch.

2. They burn easily. When most of them are lightly golden brown, remove to a bowl, add a pinch of table salt, and set aside. Wipe down the pan to remove any stray sesame seeds that are hanging about. They don’t taste at all nice when burnt.

3. Separate out the duck legs and place them skin side down in the frying pan over the lowest heat. Do not add any oil. They’ll produce more than enough fat of their own.

4. Turn every five minutes or so, as they start to colour. After about 10 or 15 minutes, take the pan off the heat. Using a fork and a sharp knife you should be able to pull the meat away from the bone.

5. Break it up into smaller pieces, with the skin down. Put back onto the heat. Use a spatula to continue breaking up the meat into smaller pieces.

6. Attend to any pieces of skin that come away from the meat. They may look a bit fatty but gently increase the heat and it will crisp up but do keep an eye on it all, so it doesn’t burn.

7. Once crisped, remove the leg bones and keep them as a chef’s perk.

8. Stand by the stove, chewing off the last bits of meat while no one else is watching. You’ve earned it.

9. When the duck is broken up and crisped, take the pan off the heat. Put the ingredients for the salad dressing in the bottom of a bowl, including a good pinch of sea salt. Pile the leaves and sliced radishes on the top and then toss and turn to coat in the dressing using your hands or, if you’re a little uptight, salad servers.

10. Portion out onto four plates or flat bowls. Put the hoisin sauce in thebottom of a mixing bowl. Add the duck and mix to coat every piece completely.

11. Top each portion of the salad with a quarter of the duck. Sprinkle on the toasted sesame seeds and decorate with the batons of spring onion.
13. From Nights Out At Home, recipes and stories from 25 years as a restaurant critic by Jay Rayner, published by Penguin Fig Tree.