Several months after Toby and I started dating, we took a trip to visit his extended family in Hong Kong and spend some time on our own in Beijing. It was a great trip to visit his family and see lots of sites, and importantly, eat lots of delicious food! And what else does one do in Beijing but eat Peking duck? Over the course of our 8 day trip, we had Peking duck 3 times. Yep, 3 times. It was that good.

Duck is one of my favorite meats to eat and it goes so well with the plum sauce that is served with it in restaurants. We will often order roast duck from Chinese restaurants and I wanted to find a good homemade plum sauce to keep around to go with my duck addiction. I found this recipe for Asian Plum Sauce from the fabulous Mrs. Wheelbarrow, and gave it a shot. It was so great, and in the ultimate stamp of approval, my Chinese husband thought is was very authentically Chinese.

I love the plum sauce with grilled pork chops and Chinese roast pork and roast duck, but one of my favorite ways to use the sauce is with mini duck tarts. And once you make the sauce, this could not be easier to put together for a beautifully elegant appetizer for a cocktail party. If you’d like to scale the recipe down, plan for about 15-20 filled tarts for each confit duck leg. If you don’t happen to have fresh in-season plums laying around in the dead of winter, use the jarred plum sauce from the Asian section of the grocery store.

Duck Tarts with Asian Plum Sauce

Makes 90 tarts

• 5 confit duck legs (I used D’Artagnan brand)
• 1 8-ounce jar Asian Plum Sauce
• 90 prebaked frozen mini pastry shells
• 1 bunch of chives, chopped

Heat the oven to 350°. Heat the duck legs for about 15 minutes, until just heated through, to make removing and chopping the meat easier. Let cool to the touch and remove all the meat from the bones (reserve the bones to use in a stock) and then chop in small pieces.

Transfer all the chopped meat to a bowl and add the contents of the jar of plum sauce to the meat and mix well to ensure the sauce is fully incorporated.

Add a spoonful of duck to each tart. Bake the filled shells at 350° for about 8-10 minutes.

Sprinkle with chopped chives and serve immediately.