Braised Duck Legs

Oh, wow, this was so good, and totally up my alley, meaning it was so easy I wondered if I made it at all. The other day, I was shopping and couldn't resist some duck legs that were snuggled between some turkeys. I had no idea what I was going to do with them but duck confit had been wriggling around in my brain for a few weeks. Ever since I got back in touch with a friend of mine. We used to work together in a restaurant in the West Village that made a pretty mean duck confit that just begged you to try and pilfer some. That was a dangerous game for waiters among cooks. My friend threw caution to the wind and would manage to infiltrate the open kitchen. That's just crazy, like walking into a den of vipers. That's why I like that guy.

So, that stuck in my head but I just didn't want to buy all that fat that you need. Well, something was working for me in the ether because I found this recipe via The Amateur Gourmet which he got from Jean-George's "Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef" which was co-written by Mark Bittman. Blah, blah, blah. The good part is that it's basically braised in it's own fat, so isn't that a bit like confit? It's just that you eat it all right away and feel slightly ill from all the duck fat you consumed instead of slowly eating it in small doses like a rational person. But who's rational?