Great South Bay Duck Ragù Recipe (2024)

This is indeed a spectacular dish. Having made it both ways, I can report that it's much better to do as Sifton suggests in his underlying article and separate the cooked sauce from the shredded duck, refrigerate both long enough so that the duck fat in the sauce solidifies and can be removed, and then recombine the sauce and the meat for serving (last time I removed more than a cup of solidified duck fat in this way even though I had trimmed the legs before cooking).

I made this twice in quick succession, and I can say that the dish is improved by trimming the duck meticulously (this also allows you to render and save more delicious duck fat). I also used half balsamic, half red wine vinegar, as one note suggested, and I liked the mellower vibe.

Very good. But remove the juniper berries before serving! You don't want to bite into one.

A question: I have access to a whole duck, but not duck legs. What to do? Break down the duck into parts? How would that affect quantities of other ingredients?

Used a touch of balsamic with the red wine vinegar to soften the tang a bit. Served it over fresh pasta -- fabulous!

This is absolutely spectacular. I used the leftovers from a roast duck and halved the recipe. When I sautéed the duck there was little fat left to render and a fair amount of the skin stuck to the pan. I scraped up these "cracklings" and saved them to add in at the end with the sage. I would definitely recommend saving any excess skin when trimming the legs and making cracklings. I cooked the sauce on top of the stove rather than in the oven and served it over Cipriano tagliarelle.

This is spectacular. Made it the other night. And I love the new notes feature.

great dish but I had a hard time finding a duck w 4 legs!

The local grocery only had duck breast and given how significant to the process the duck fat was supposed to be I decided to take a detour and use a rabbit. Turned out great and there was no fat to necessarily render. I threw some sugar-free, plain bacon in at the beginning to give some extra ooomph to the lean rabbit. One note: my dish took nearly 30 minutes to boil off the red wine mixture in Step 3.

Start one day ahead, and when the meat and sauce are separated refrigerate the sauce to solidify and remove the fat.

I made this for a dinner party to impress a new person in our circle. It was delicious. I served it with gnocchi. I will make it again and again.

Great... And the leftovers made a wonderful (cold) midnight snack a day later!

I had a leftover duck leg and chopped celery, carrots & onions from dining on Mark Bittman’s crispy duck leg recipe. I used this recipe to turn the leftovers into a wonderful ragu’ for 2 of us. Served on polenta. It was terrific.

This recipe was terrific full of complex flavors Follow as written I cooked it in the am so as to refrigerate the sauce so I could take off the congealed fat Thank you Sam Sifton

Quandary: How can I modify this recipe using duck confit? Cook the confit, remove duck, then take it from step 3, adding the shredded duck after the sauce finishes in the oven? I suspect the sauce would suffer from the missing flavors from the roasting duck --Easy to find confit here, but not duck legs.

Made this today with boneless, skinless chicken thighs in my Instant Pot. It’s what i had. Proceeded through step 3, added remaining ingredients, except broth. I replaced that with liquid chicken concentrate to reduce total liquid. Sealed and cooked under pressure for 20 minutes with a slow release. Served with rigatoni. Excellent! Will make again.

Also served with herbed ricotta from Chicken Ragu recipe.

If you use really well trimmed duck legs you will not need to refrigerate the sauce to remove excess duck fat. I had none. Go easy on the anchovies would be my recommendation - 6 fillets would be plenty. I thought the red wine vinegar made the sauce a little too acidic - if you feel the same way after making this add some aged balsamic vinegar to counter the acidity. Next time I will use half the quantity of red wine vinegar and add 1/4 cup aged balsamic. This dish improves with keeping.

Change of plans for family gathering -- made this last minute for 3 of us. Fortunately on Fri. at Union Sq. Farmer's Market Hudson Valley Farms came, so I was able to get 4 legs. Should have trimmed them a bit as directed, but my first time working with legs. Otherwise followed the recipe and thoroughly enjoyed an incredibly delicious ragù over polenta. Froze the skin and some of the extra fat -- perhaps for use in some other decadent recipes! Pretty easy considering the high-end kind of result!

Made this with 1.75lbs of chicken thighs and it came out delicious Also used white wine vinegar bc that’s what I hadOven for 45-60min

Followed recipe exactly as written. This was indeed very good, but the vinegar flavor was a bit too prevalent for my taste. Will reduce vinegar by half to 1/4 cup next time.

Excellent! I made this with the remainders of a roast duck and it was great. Boiled duck carcass to create stock that I used in the recipe and 4 cups of duck meat. I was out of anchovies so added a little Thai fish sauce. No juniper berries on hand either. Still delicious. Served with mashed potatoes.

For a waterfowler, this a great way to showcase wild mallard. The addition of domestic duck legs makes rich without any gamey flavor

Yep, this was great. My first time cooking with anchovies, juniper berries, and more than a couple TBS of vinegar. And, what a treat. A savory, hearty, earthy flavor. Not ducky, not "of the sea" (if that's not your thing like me, but led to believe from the recipe and Sam Sifton's article). Just familiar tasting, smooth, and piquant.Serve with salty cheesey grits with manchego and sharp cheddar, people!

Great dish, but might be better to lower the oven heat; after 90 minutes in a copper pot with a tight lid, there wasn't much left of the sauce. I think it would be better off at around 150c (like you'd use with any stew)

You can save time and reduce the fat by using duck confit legs. I used two 8 oz legs and added a cup of cooked navy beans. I crisped the skin and some duck fat from the legs in the pan w olive oil first, took that out, and proceeded w rest of recipe minus the duck legs. Give the veg mix about 30-45 min to get that 'jammy' texture, add the shredded duck meat (minus the fat!) and heat gently for another 15. I used white anchovies from Wild Planet in water/salt. This fed three generously.

Delicious dish. Served with boiled potatoes. Had some duck confit in the house which made it much faster. Be careful with the vinegar. Half a cup was too much. Used a pinch of baking soda to neutralize its effects.