A few weeks ago we enjoyed Pappardelle al Ragù d’Anatra at restaurant Rigatoni in Haarlem. We loved the combination of pasta and duck so we decided to look into this Italian classic. We found a recipe in La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiar Bene by Pellegrino Artusi, published in 1891. His recipe (number 272) combines a whole duck with celery stalk, parsley, carrot and onion. When everything is nicely cooked, he removes the duck from the pan, passes the sauce through a sieve, removes the duck fat and adds some butter. The duck is served with Pappardelle and Parmesan cheese. The vegetables are served separately.

We decided to use orecchiette and fresh duck leg. Orecchiette is a pasta typical for the very south of Italy whereas Pappardelle al Ragù d’Anatra is typical for Venice. Using orecchiette is probably not-done from an Italian point of view, but we simply love the way it combines with this duck-based sauce.

Wine Pairing

The restaurant served the dish with a glass of Corvina, which we think was an excellent choice. The wine is made in the Veneto region, not far from Venice, with 100% corvina grapes. In general, we suggest a light to medium bodied, unoaked, red wine with aromas of red fruit. Its taste should be pleasant and warm with good acidity. A red wine that should be served slightly chilled.

What You Need

• Duck leg
• Olive Oil
• Carrot
• Celery stalk
• Onion
• Bay Leaf
• White wine
• Tomatoes
• Stock
• Orecchiette
• Black Pepper

What You Do

1. Start by preparing the duck.
2. Preheat the oven to 150 °C or 300 °F
3. Heat a skillet and fry both sides of the leg until golden.
4. Transfer the duck to the oven for one hour, skin on top
5. After an hour, check if the duck is well done and moist
6. Let cool
7. Remove the skin from the meat and the meat from the bones
8. Very coarsely chop (or pull) the meat.
9. Set the skin aside
10. Chop onion, finely chop carrot, thinly slice the celery stalk
11. Heat a large pan, add olive oil and gently fry onion, carrot and celery.
12. After 5 minutes add the duck meat and the bay leaf
13. Add a splash of white wine and allow to evaporate
14. Add the tomatoes (if using fresh tomatoes, then peeled and deseeded)
15. Add stock
16. Cook for 60 minutes
17. Add more stock if required
18. In parallel
    • Cook the orecchiette al dente
    • Heat a small skillet
    • Add some olive oil
    • Slice small squares of the skin of the duck
    • Fry these until crispy
    • Add some black pepper and Parmesan cheese to the ragù
19. Serve the pasta with the sauce and decorate with the crispy duck skin and grated Parmesan cheese

PS

• You can skip steps 1 to 6 by using Confit of Duck. We tried it, even though we assumed it would be too salty or its flavour not suitable. But we were wrong, it worked very well.
• Some recipes use breast of duck, which we think is too lean for a ragù.