Slow Roast Duck Recipe

Looking for something for the holy night or just found a couple of ducks lying around? Try this roast duck recipe that will please the crowd!

For some reason fairly, little information dripped into the pop culinary culture about ducks. We know relatively little, not just about their taste but about them in general. Apart from the general knowledge of that they can swim, waddle, and fly relatively badly and taste great as Peking duck in restaurants posh enough to sell them not much.

Except maybe that some unlucky ducks are kept for their livers in faraway places where the grass is not as green as it could be. At least not for them, as they are force fed corn to fatten their liver but this we are inclined to hush away because that liver tastes so damn good.

Despite ducks being left behind of the daily culinary adventures of the Western world, they pay a visit on the family tables once in a while. The Christmas duck is a worthy dish at the end of the year family gatherings, marking the special occasion with a special meal.

There must be few who after taking a bite in a deliciously prepared duck not wanting more and more of it. We may wonder why isn’t this amazingly tender and tasty meat packed all over the shops across the globe instead of that boring chicken. After preparing the first duck in the coziness of our kitchen, we will know the answer to that.

It isn’t that hard to prepare duck. In fact, roasting duck is as easy as roasting anything else, only it takes a lot longer. Duck needs about three to four hours in the oven to achieve the soft tender texture everybody wishes to bite into. The good thing is, it doesn’t require much else besides of the time.

It can be cut up into pieces or placed in the oven whole and roasted like that. It makes little to no difference at the end, except maybe that the whole duck needs a bit more attention and soaking while the pieces that are soaked in their own grease will not. When the meat on the bones are tender enough, a 10-minute grilling on a tray without grease would generally be enough to roast the skin if desired.

At the beginning a bit of extra lard is recommended to pour over the skin until the duck lets its own grease out. This very grease needs to be used to spoon over the duck every now and then to keep it moist during the roasting.

Our favorite herbs and spices can be used on the duck as well as slices of orange that was popularized by the French but not absolutely necessary. Duck doesn’t require anything else except salt and love to be a perfectly tasty dinner.

To enhance our experience, we can serve the duck with a side of potato mashed together with a couple of spoons of still hot duck grease and Creme Fraiche. This would create an even creamier texture, like a flying carpet on which the duck can travel through into our mouth.

This journey shouldn’t be spoiled by the harsh reality of raw salads or vegetables so we have to prepare a fine companion for the tender duck to travel with in the form of braised cabbage. It is a perfectly accompanied sweet and sour vegetable stew steam cooked on naturally caramelized onion lightly sprinkled with vinegar. It really is like Aladdin and Jasmine traveling on the flying carpet into the sunset.

Ingredients

Duck

• 1 Duck
• 1 teaspoon Salt

Mashed potato

• 4 lb / 2kg Potato
• 2 tablespoon Creme fraiche
• 7 tablespoon Duck grease or 2 tablespoon Butter
• 1 teaspoon Salt (to taste)

Cabbage

• 1 cup / 250ml Oil
• 2 Onion (diced) (400g)
• 1 Cabbage (1800g)
• 3 tablespoon Vinegar
• 3 cup / 750ml Water

 

How to make Slow roast duck

Duck

Whole

1. Rub some paprika and salt onto the duck and place it onto a tray.
2. Put the duck into the 350°F / 180°C oven for 3 – 4 hours.
3. Check the duck in every 20 minutes. Flip it over then pour some grease over the skin.

Enjoy!

Duck Pieces

1. Take the duck apart.
2. Cut off the loose fat and skin and cut them up into ½” / 1.5cm pieces. This will provide the grease to keep duck moist during roasting.
3. Put the small bits in the bottom of a high walled dish, like a Pyrex and the bigger pieces on top.
4. Close the dish then put it into the 350°F / 180°C oven for 3 – 4 hours.
5. Check occasionally if everything is alright. When the meat on top seems to be roasting move them to the bottom bringing the pieces from the bottom to the top. When the meat is tender, take the pieces out and skin upward, place them onto a tray on the top shelf of the oven for additional roasting.
6. Pour a bit of grease on top and roast it for about 10 minutes until the skin gets the desired golden brown color.

 

Mashed Potatoes

1. Peel, dice and rinse the potatoes. Cook potatoes until tender for about 20 minutes then drain water.
2. Add Creme Fraiche, salt and duck grease to the potato.
3. Mash and mix everything together.

Cabbage stew

1. Take the middle part out of the cabbage.
2. Slice it up.
3. Pour oil into a pan then saute onion, salt until it gets a glassy / translucent look for about 5 minutes.
4. Turn the heat down to medium low and while stirring occasionally, caramelize the onion naturally. This gives the dish a dash of sweet flavor, however it’ll take about 15 to 20 minutes.
5. Add the sliced cabbage and turn the heat to high then saute the cabbage while stirring continuously for 10 – 15 minutes until it gets a glassy / translucent look. We may need a bigger frying pan to accommodate the whole cabbage, otherwise it must be done in batches.
6. When the cabbage loses it’s humidity, it will collapse in size, thus a smaller frying pan can be used to cook it ready.
7. Add water, vinegar then put the lid on and steam cook it until tender on medium to low heat for about 30 – 40 minutes.
8. Let it to rest for 10 minutes before serving, allowing the flavors to settle.

Notes

While the duck is getting ready there is time enough to prepare for the mashed potatoes and cabbage but times flies by when doing great things. Mashed potatoes doesn’t generally require more than 30 minutes from peeling to plate but cabbage is a bit trickier. The cabbage stew needs almost as much time from whole to plate as the duck, therefore when the duck is in the oven, we can start preparing the cabbage thus we won’t risk people drooling over the ready duck waiting for the cabbage.

 

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