WHENEVER I buy a whole duck I know what I’m having for lunch pretty soon: duck livers on toast. Beats chicken livers any day.
While you rarely find a butchers or supermarket chicken with its giblets (“removed for your convenience,” inconvenience more like) with ducks you do.
So after some basic butchery – the breasts to be pan-fried, the legs to make ragu, the carcase, neck and wings for stock, leftover meat scraps for a small pie, the skin for fat and crispy scratchings – I’m left with the liver.
I fried off some onion, bacon lardons and mushroom in duck fat with garlic and sage, added the chopped liver, then a shake of balsamic, a spoonful of duck stock and a little creme freche.
A few grapes ( so I can call this Veronique), a sprinkle of chives and voila! it’s piled on toast. A bit naughty but I fried that in duck fat, too.
So quick, so simple, a bistro lunch in minutes.
Another helping from Martin Dawes 