Duck au curry......

Just invented a delicious curry, using what I had in the cupboard, namely a tin of duck confit. We may not be able to get decent supplies of chilies and coriander out here, but there's more tinned duck products than you know what to do with in south west France.

So I put my tinned duck legs in the pan and fried them for a bit. They are really fatty, so I drained the fat off a few times as they fried, never throw this stuff away, keep it in the fridge and use it to roast spuds in, it's delicious!

In a seperate pan I fried up sliced onions and peppers in a bit of oil so you get that nice charred flavour, the duck is too fatty to fry all the stuff together really (I know, TWO pans, extra washing up, sorry!!)

Then I removed the bones and skin from the confit which had kind of dismantled itself anyway during cooking so not as faffy as it sounds. Drained off the fat yet again and added a large dollop of my trusty favourite curry paste, I used the hot stuff but I'm sure it'll be just as good for those of you who are chilli wusses and have to use mild curry paste ;-)

Then in go the onions and peppers and a tin of chopped tomatoes, and voila, curried confit. Leave it to simmer for ages, stir occasionally, add water if necessary,

Easy curry

OK, so here's my first recipe offering, really easy curry. The secret to a good, tasty curry is cooking it for ages. And ages. Not the 20 minutes recommended in a lot of recipe books and on the back of Patak's curry sauces. Not that I'm dissing Patak's, they are great for lazy buggers like me......just ignore the instructions.

So you get some meat, I use pork a lot because it's really cheap and lamb isn't, at least not over here in La Belle France. Living here is why I have to make my own curry, the French as a nation are apparently allergic to spicy food. Get some onions, essential ingredient in just about every thing I cook. Fry the onions in some oil, doesn't matter what sort (maybe not engine oil though) for ages on a low heat til they're really golden brown, lots of people don't fry them for long enough.

Don't ask me how many "some" is, I don't do quantities, if you're the sort of person (like my dear husband) who feels the need to measure precise quantities of all ingredients and prepare them in little bowls like they do on Blue Peter, this probably isn't the blog for you. Once you're onions are a nice colour, add the meat in chunks, fry it for a bit then chuck in some curry paste. I tend to use the aforementioned Patak's, it's got all the spices you need in one place and there's no faffing about roasting cardamom pods and the like. Use the mild curry one then you can always chuck in some killer chillies later on unless you're catering for a bunch of lightweights.

Stir it all around for a bit, then add a load of water, and leave it to cook. For ages. Whilst you go and do something useful with your time like randomly surfing the internet or playing Lord of the Rings online. Even better, leave it to go cold after a few hours then fire it up again the next day. Keep chucking water in if it gets too gloopy. Then about an hour before you want to eat it, bung in a tin of tomatoes, or if you're feeling really keen, actually go to the effort of chopping up some tomatoes to put in. Then you can add some veg, whatever you like, prechopped frozen are often my légumes of choice.

And there you have it, job's a good'un, you can leave it bubbling away til your guests arrive, no last minute messing about in the kitchen, just stick the pot on the table, sprinkle over some chopped coriander (if you can be bothered) and hand them a ladle. You might have to go to the effort of cooking some rice, but then you can always get it in those handy microwaveable sachets these days..........