Its Wednesday night and you've got a hot date on Friday. You foolishly invited the object of your affection round for dinner and want to look like you've got your shit together. Here's how:

Wednesday evening:
Take your duck legs and rub with salt, and freshly ground pepper. Place in a zip lock bag and leave in the fridge overnight. You can experiment with different flavours at this stage. I love thyme so i usually throw a few sprigs of that in.

Proceed to devour an entire oven bake pizza and bottle of dry white wine that came to a total of $7 from the supermarket. As usual.

Thursday evening:
Preheat oven to 170c or 325(ish) for those that cant google. Wipe off as much of the spices from the duck legs and leave the duck to loose all of the fridgy-coldness (half hour should suffice).

 Meanwhile, pour the store bought duck fat in to a baking dish and put in the oven for 5 minutes or until it has liquified,  once done, take out, halve the heads of garlic, and place cut side down in the fat with the duck legs, skin side up.

Place in the oven again for 3 hours

Eat two servings "nachos", consisting of a whole bag of cheese supreme doritos, franks red hot and pre grated cheese because the oven is already in use, curse yourself because you forgot to get sour cream.

Once finished, pull it out and allow to cool until you can handle the baking dish. Cover and put in the fridge overnight.

Friday. Go time.

 Before your date arrives, make the vinigarette: grab one of your many seldom used protein shakers from wherever the hell you hide them and combine all of the ingredients listed, save for the garlic cloves that are still sitting in the baking tray.

 Grab two of those and mince in to a fine paste, they should have the room temperature consistency of puss by now so this should be easy.

 Combine in your shaker WITH THE SHAKER THINGY and hold it in your hand while you rock out to Phil Collins- in the air tonight, or until night and emulsified. Pour in to a serving bottle and set aside. Salt and pepper to taste.

When your date arrives, put on an apron for added aesthetic and to protect that one nice outfit you own (i didn't have to tell you to get dressed before they got there, did i?).

 Take the rocket (if you bought it in a pre packaged bag, pull it out and put it in a nondescript freezer bag like you get at the markets so you don't look like a piece of shit) and cherry tomatoes. Cut the tomatoes in half and place in a bowl with the rocket.

A little of the duck fat and olive oil in a pan. Grossly exaggerate your standing in your place of employment and your love of french cuisine.

Place the duck legs in skin side down and cook for 3 minutes each side until heated through. Toss the salad with the dressing and plate up. Explaining to them how you whipped up this tart vinigarette to cut through the richness of the duck, and how you love the challenge of building complimentary flavour profiles.

Serve with mash (recipe that you stole from someone better than me) in a stupidly artful and decorative way...Then enjoy your evening, if they don't stay for breakfast, its definitely not the foods fault...but if they do. You've got that sorted, right?