Duck, chive & plum spring rolls

Ingredients (serves 3 to 4 as a snack or canape)

3 duck legs.

800 rendered duck fat / vegetable oil can be used as a replacement, 50/ 50 oil and duck fat creates tasty results and saves some pennies.

400g ripe plums, de-stoned and chopped into quarters.

4 cloves garlic peeled & finely chopped or grated.

20g, ginger, peeled and roughly chopped or grated.

2 spring onions, roots and outer layer removed, washed and finely sliced, separate the white and green.

50g, Chinese chives, salad chives can be substituted, finely chopped.

50g light soft brown sugar.

2 big pinch coarse sea salt.

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

1 pinch of salt or a dash of fish sauce maybe needed to season the mix.

15 spring roll pastry sheets, these can be brought frozen from most Asian supermarkets or purchased online, filo pastry, rolled 1-2mm thin and chopped into 5cm-by-5cm squares can be a suitable readily available replacement, although for best results best to hunt for spring roll pastry.

Optional garnish:

5g fried curry leaves.

2g fried dried long red chilli.

5g crispy shallots.

2g julienne lime leaves.

Coriander leaves.

More plum sauce for dipping.

Method

1.      Firstly, cook the duck legs. To do this using a hob, gently melt the duck fat on a low heat and 1 big pinch of salt in an oven proof, non-stick pot with a lid, keep the lid aside for now. In a pestle and mortar pound 4 cloves of garlic into a coarse paste, or chop finely with a knife and then add this to the pot. Once melted, remove from the hob and place the duck legs into the warm, melted fat, make sure that each leg is fully submerged in the fat, if you are a little shallow then top up using your chosen fat. Next place a cartouche (parchment paper chopped into a circle shape) on top of the duck legs, resting on the surface of the duck fat, this will help to keep any moisture released during the cooking process in the pot for maximum flavour. Next place the lid on the pot and place in the middle shelf of your oven pre-heated to 180 degrees for 4-5 hours. After 4 hours take the legs out and check if they are cooked, when cooked the leg meat should fall off the bone relatively easily, if you cannot remove the meat from the bone with ease return to the oven until you can. The cooking time will vary slightly due to breed and size of duck. If they are not fully cooked, then return to the oven and check every 15 minutes until they are. Once cooked and still warm shred the duck meat and skin from the bone, as finely as you can and place it to one side for now, discard the bones.

2.      Next make the spring roll filling. Make a paste from the remaining garlic and ginger in a pestle and mortar or chop finely with a knife. Begin to fry in around 100ml of the residual duck fat from the duck confit on a medium heat, continue to fry in a saucepan until the paste begins to turn golden brown and smell fragrant. At this point add the plums and gently fry for around 15 minutes until the plums have started to break down and create a chunky plum sauce, add a dash of water or duck stock to the pan at this stage to stop the garlic and ginger paste frying any more. Once this has happened add the brown sugar and continue to gently cook for a further 5 minutes, until the sugar has caramelised, and the sauce has darkened a little. Place a little of this sauce to one side for dipping when served. Lastly, remove from the heat and place the filling aside to cool. Once cool, mix this with the shredded duck, if the mix is dry, lubricate with a little more of the residual cooking fat, it’s full of flavour and helps bind the mix once cool and solidified. Add the chopped chives and the white pepper, mix well and then have a little taste of this mix, add a pinch of salt or fish sauce if you like.

3.      Next fill the spring rolls. Once the mixture is cool, split the mix into 12 equal sized portions, around 50g per portion. Spread 12 spring roll pastries / filo pastry squares out on a flat surface and spoon the duck and plum filling into the centre of each of the spring roll pastry. Then, one at a time, moisten the pastry surrounding the spoonful of filling, all the way to the edges using a brush or delicately using your finger dipped into room temperature water. Then roll the spring rolls into sausage shapes as if you were rolling a person up in a carpet, with the ends folded in. This will take a little practice but don’t worry if they are not perfect first time.

4.      Lastly cook the spring rolls. In a pan, heat all the leftover fat from the duck confit, we are now going to use this to fry our spring rolls. Make sure to have a tray with some kitchen towel to hand to remove the spring rolls from the oil later. Heat the oil to around 180-190 degrees centigrade in a deep pan, test the heat by adding a plain pastry sheet and seeing how long it takes to cook, it should float and bubble gently and turn golden brown in a few minutes. When ready fry the spring rolls 5 at a time, allow to fry on 1 side until golden brown, then using a slotted spoon turn the spring rolls over and cook the other side for a further minute, until golden brown all over. They should take 2/3 minutes in total. Lastly remove the spring rolls from the oil and place on the tray with kitchen towel to strain the oil off. Repeat until all are cooked.

5.      To serve, garnish with the remaining sliced spring onion and scatter with fried curry leaves, crispy shallots, crispy chilli, coriander, julienne makrut lime leaves and plum sauce for dunking.