Name: Roast Duck with Pears (Pato con Peras)
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Spanish
Ingredients: 100 ml/3½ fl oz/generous ⅓ cup sherry or vi ranci; Juice of ½ lemon; Crusty bread or fresh green salad (salad greens), to serve; 4 ripe pears, peeled and halved or 8 tiny whole pears; 2 bay leaves; 1 tbsp fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped; 2 tbsp olive oil; 4 ripe tomatoes, de-seeded and chopped (I have cheated with well-drained canned tomatoes before now); 25 g/1 oz/⅛ cup pine kernels (pine nuts), toasted; 300 ml/10 fl oz/1¼ cups chicken stock (or duck stock made with the giblets and necks if you are lucky enough to have some); Salt and freshly ground black pepper; 6 garlic cloves, crushed; 1 x 2 kg/5 lb duck; 2 carrots, diced; 2 onions, finely chopped

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Food of Northern Spain

By Jenny Chandler

Published 2005

About

I first ate this dish at an old coaching inn, The Fonda Siques, in Besalú, a glorious medieval town in the Pyrenean foothills. It was a chilly, autumnal (fall) afternoon and the restaurant was heaving with entire families, from great-grandparents to toddlers, enjoying a long Sunday lunch. I was squashed on to the last small table by the kitchen hatch, amid the relentless bustle of waiters. I watched the spectacularly rotund ladies busying over the stoves in the kitchen while I waited and wa