I think it was Miss Piggy who said ‘Never eat more than you can lift’. While there may well be a grain of truth in this, it does fall short of, shall we say, culinary refinement. So in line with the philosophy underlying The Opposite – not that that there’s a great deal of philosophy at stake here – I would like to present you with one or two recipes that have always worked for me.

So here’s the first one

Confit of duck with truffle sauce

Yep, I know this sounds extremely extravagant, not to say decidedly decadent, but there are a couple of things in its favour. First of all, you can now buy ready-prepared duck confit (legs) at a fairly reasonable price. The same applies to truffle purée. Purists will tell you that fresh truffles are the only ones to buy but let’s not be stupid about this - truffle purée is fine for this dish, and it’s also much much cheaper. So the ingredients are:

2 confit legs of duck (assuming that this is for 2 people)
1 teaspoon of truffle purée (you can save the rest for later)
a large glass of white wine (good excuse for drinking the rest)
a little cream to thicken the sauce
fresh ground black pepper

You’ve probably noticed that there is no salt in this recipe. You’ll find that the duck legs are salty enough. If you need more salt, add it at the table.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees centrigrade (about 400 fahrenheit). Place your duck legs, and the fat that it came with, in the oven in a roasting pan and roast for 15 minutes. Then grill them for about 5 minutes (but keep an eye on them so they don’t burn). Take the legs off the heat and keep them warm.

Now we get to the exciting part. Pour the fat off the roasting pan and set the pan on medium heat. Add the white wine and stir up all of those sexy juices. Let the juice reduce a bit until it starts to get syrupy and then add the cream, truffle purée and a dash or two of fresh ground black pepper. Let the sauce thicken a little, pour it over the duck legs and then serve.

You can add a sprinkling or two of finely chopped parsley, if you want, but it’s not really necessary. In fact, I wouldn’t bother with that unless you really want to impress someone quite badly. Like most garnishes, it adds just about nothing to the taste.