A Quick Cabbage Supper with Duck Legs

A preserved duck leg from the deli has saved my supper more times than I can count. Cased in its own white fat and crisped up in the oven or in a sauté pan, these “duck confit” are as near as I get to eating ready-made food. One January, arriving home cold and less than 100 percent, I stripped the meat from a couple of duck legs and used it to add protein to an express version of one of those lovingly tended cabbage and bean soups. The result was a slightly chaotic bowlful of food that felt as if it should be eaten from a scrubbed pine table in a French cave house. An extraordinarily heartwarming supper, immensely satisfying. An edible version of the sort of people one refers to as “the salt of the earth.” I am certain no one would have guessed it hadn’t spent the entire afternoon puttering away in a cast-iron pot.