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Recipe: Shredded Barbecue Duck Rolls with Red Slaw
I think duck is an absolutely underrated bird. We have it with Chinese food, but totally ignore a whole host of other ways it can be cooked. As a family, we always have a couple of packs of duck legs in the freezer, as they’re great roasted on a baking tray with some potatoes and rosemary, so that the duck fat that seeps out of the skin as the legs are cooking helps make some pretty epic roast potatoes. Emiko Davies‘ book Florentinealso has a great recipe for homemade pasta with a duck sauce, and my new favourite lazy, end-of-summer dinner is to make shredded barbecue duck, ready to stuff into white, fresh rolls with some punchy slaw.
While I am the first person to preach the virtues of having everything homemade, sometimes both life is too short to make everything from scratch (note in point: I love baking bread but I mostly buy it because no one needs to get up that early in the morning), and sometimes it is too difficult to scale something down that would usually be made in a big batch (like slaw) to feed just a few of you. Basically, I’m happy buying things that I can use to quickly add a little something to last minute dishes in cans and jars as long as there are not any ingredients in them I can’t pronounce and I can’t buy myself as a raw product.
Baxters (the soup people) have just launched a brand new range of Deli Toppers, which perfectly fall into this category of things in jars that make great little additions and would be too much bother to make myself. I’m going to be sharing a recipe to go with each new product in the Deli Toppers range here and over on their micro site over the coming weeks. I thought I’d kick things off with my favourite!
If you don’t already have anything planned for this weekends eats, all you need to pick up are a couple of soft rolls (you want those soft baps from the supermarket (or actual) bakery, not the fancy ones), your favourite barbecue sauce (get one of the thick, artisan ones rather than the cheap, runny ones that will make your roll a bit sloppy), a couple of duck legs and a jar of tangy red slaw. Oh, and perhaps a bag of oven chips (most brands sell frozen bags that are just potato and sunflower oil these days) by way of a side. I actually make my fries in an air fryer, which actually make the best, low guilt, restaurant style fries I have ever managed to achieve at home.
The measurements below show how much of everything you need per person, and unless you’re feeding an absolute crowd (you have more than 4 duck legs to shred the meat from) they should only take about an hour and a half from start to finish, including over an hour of roasting time.
These easy Shredded Barbecue Duck Rolls are great as a street food-inspired supper.
Ingredients
Scale
1 Duck Leg per person
2 tbsp Barbecue Sauce per person
1 Large Soft Roll per person
3 tbsp Baxters Red Slaw per person
Instructions
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. Pierce the skin of the duck legs all over with a sharp knife, and place them skin side up on a baking tray lined with foil, folded up at the edges to catch the duck fat that will run out of the legs during roasting.
Roast the duck legs for 60 to 70 minutes, until the skin is crispy and the meat on the underside of the legs shreds away from the bone with a fork.
Once the duck legs are cool enough to touch, remove and discard the skin. Shred the duck meat away from the bones with a fork, and mix the shredded meat with the barbecue sauce.
Transfer it to an oven proof dish, covered with tin foil and return it to the oven for 5-10 minutes until the meat is heated through.
Slice the rolls down the middle, and stuff them with duck, finishing off each roll with a generous amount of slaw, and serve straight away.
Alternatively, you can bring the jar of slaw, a basket of buns and the bowl of shredded barbecue duck to the table along with any sides and let everyone build their own.
I'm a food writer, professional recipe developer and cookbook author living in the English Countryside. I love creating easy, accessable recipes filled with vibrant world flavours that are manageable on busy weeknights. Simple and delicious dinners, from my kitchen to yours!
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One Pan Pescatarian: 100 Delicious Dinners – Veggie, Vegan, Fish
My second cookbook contains 100 delicious dinner recipes, all of which are either vegetarian, vegan or which celebrate fish and seafood - all cooked in either one pot or one pan.*
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