Duck, caramelized onion, fontina cheese pizza - YUMMY

So I must be hungry with two posts in one day. I made a pizza that was a put together of ingredients that I believed would work and served it sight unseen. Low and behold, they worked.

The first part was prepping the duck. Not difficult but time consuming. Spendy, perhaps but depends on where one gets the duck. I picked up duck legs from my local chinese market at the quite reasonable sum of $2.99 per pound. A very good price and this recipe makes a lot of duck. Plus I keep the skin and render the fat off so that I can use it in other places. Yes, fat...How healthy is that. Well some critics say that duck fat is healthier than other fats, jury is still out. But it is mighty tasty stuff and works great to fry potatoes in. How bad can that be!

Anyways, I digress...First part of this recipe is to prep the duck .

Duck Ragu

4 duck legs, skinned

salt & pepper

¼ cup olive oil

2 sweet onions, diced

1 carrot finely chopped

1 celery stalk, finely diced

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

4 fresh sage leaves

2 cups red wine

1 28 oz. can whole plum tomatoes

1 cup chicken stock (preferably home made)

1. Heat olive oil in a thick bottom casserole or dutch oven over medium high heat until oil is almost smoking.
2. Season the duck with salt and pepper and brown on all sides
3. Remove duck from pan, and add onion, celery, and carrot to the pan. Cook over low heat until the vegetables are softened. Add garlic to pan and sauté briefly.
4. Add wine, tomatoes, and chicken stock to pan and bring to the boil. Add duck pieces back to the pan, plus any reserved juices.
5. Cover pan, lower the heat and simmer for an hour and a half.
6. Remove the duck pieces from the pan and when cool enough to handle pull the meat off the bones.

While the duck is cooking, caramelize onions in some sort of fat...I used duck fat :-) that I had rendered. But olive oil works perfectly well.

Grate some fontina for the pizza...

Once the duck is prepped it's quite simple...Get your favorite pizza dough. The inexpensive way is to make your own but again that takes time. The easy way is to buy it. I picked up some at Il Fornaio, but Trader Joe's is supposed to have it again.

Roll out the dough. Spread out fontina on the pizza dough. Then add the caramelized onions to the pizza and finally top with the duck ragu.

Bake in a hot oven for 20-30 minutes or until the dough is cooked through and the cheese has melted. Serve hot or at room temperature.

The duck ragu is also good served over pasta or simply to nosh on.

Now I am really hungry. Time for dinner..