Roast Duck advice

Soldato
Joined
26 May 2006
Posts
6,185
Location
Edinburgh
Hi guys,

I will be cooking two roast ducks on Christmas eve for friends. The ducks are about 2kg each in weight.

Any advice on how best to cook these? Also if anyone has a nice recipe for orange sauce that would be great :)
 
I'm doing a 2kg duck for Christmas day, one tip I have seen is pierce the skin all over into the fat - it will drip out and leave the skin nice and crispy!

- GP
 
Brine for a couple of days, steam skin over pan of water for 20 minutes to render some of the fat, dry skin thoroughly and season skin with sea salt, preferably overnight, then season cavity and roast on high heat.
 
I literally just whack them in the oven for a few hours and slow-roast them. They need about 2 hours at 180. ***** the skin so the fat can escape more easily and pour the fat out into a jug every half hour or so. Keep the fat in a jar in the fridge so you can use it later for roasties and it keeps for about 6 months :)
 
I am also roasting duck this year, never done it before, fortunately it will only be for me as the miss's is one of those freaks known as veggies :| so if it goes wrong its only me that will complain.

I heard removing as much fat from the cavity as possible and pricking the skin is a good thing, as well as putting a chopped orange in the cavity (or sweet potato) as this soaks up some of the fat. I'm going for the orange.
 
If you have a decent kettle bbq then I can heartily recommend indirect cooking on the bbq.

Also try basting the skin in honey, soy and black pepper.
 
I literally just whack them in the oven for a few hours and slow-roast them. They need about 2 hours at 180. ***** the skin so the fat can escape more easily and pour the fat out into a jug every half hour or so. Keep the fat in a jar in the fridge so you can use it later for roasties and it keeps for about 6 months :)

This^ although I'd check it every 20mins ish to take away the majority of the fat, it's not very nice if you let it sit in it.
 
Just to let everyone know, the duck was bloody amazing last night! Sooooo tender and the skin was extra crispy. Me and the girlfriend guilty as charged, ate half the skin before sending the rest of the duck carved onto a large plate.

We stuffed each duck with half an orange, that was cut into segments. followed by lots of cracked sea salt & pepper all over.

Also pretty much followed this guide:

Guide to crispy duck

We also made an orange sauce for 6 that was loosely based on this guide:

Orange Sauce

Everyone commented on how great the sauce was, so a job well done.

Merrry xmas everyone.
 
Back
Top Bottom