cooking a whole duck

soappie

I always roast a duck. Basically, stick it in a roasting tin, cover it in foil, stick it in the oven at gas mk 4 (180 degrees ish) and leave it there for three hours. That way most of the fat comes out of the meat and the natural flavour of the duck comes shining through.

Make a gravy with the juices and don't forget to boil up the carcass for stock for soup.

lynzpower

If you wanted to do a duck like you have in a chinese resturaunt ( crispy, with pancakes) you dont NEED all the stuff that the recipe books tell you.

First off Id dry it out : the best way to do this is to take the duck - stab it all over with aknife into the flesh. PUt it in a colander then pour a couple of kettles worth of boiling water over it. this releases the fat. I then lay it on a clean tea towel or on kitchen paper, and pat off any seeping fat. Leave it to dry out on the side. If you can fashion a way oif hanging it up with string, all the better. Additionally, to get it very dry take a hairdryer to it ( seriously!) trim off any excess fatty skin ( around the neck & bum area!)

then when you are ready to roast it, get your roasting tin and lay it with foil.

then lay some scrunched up foil in on the flat foil to make "valleys" in the foil.

Pour water into the valleys.

Get a grilling rack & place over the top. then pop your duck on that.

Stick it in an oven ( about 210 I usually do )

then periodically glaze it. Making the glaze is simple. I usually put a small glass of water, A couple of large glugs of honey, and a few glugs of soy sauce. If youve got some ginger, stick this in as well ( I usually use a thumb for 2 legs so you need a bit more, justpeel and slice and put in the saucepan)
if you have any star anise (*i dont) or chinese 5 spice - a teaspoon of this is good too . I however, have used just soy & honey loads of times and its fine. warm on a low heat until the honey is runny and the glaze is thin.

I usually glaze every 20 mins either pouring it on or using a pastry brush or spoon. Also when you are glazing, check the water in the valleys hasnt evaporated, if it has add more ( this water steams the meat)

Its worth foiling it over the top for the first 45 mins or so too. Altohugh you dont have to .

In 3 hours if not less it should be perfectly crispy and ready to shred - serve with rice pancakes ( or piadines/ wraps) with shredded lettuce/ cucumber spring onions or leeks), plum sauce egg fried rice etc.

tip! if its a supermarket one- take the bag of giblets out before cooking I made that mistake once- never agian :wall:

JenniO

Hi
Just bought a whole duck with giblets half price at sainsburys and it looks beautiful but have never cooked a duck, only ever whole chickens. Can anyone help here on what to do or what NOT to do. Want to make this duck as rubber as possible if anyone has any recipe ideas, I'd be most grateful!

misskool

You can roast duck as you would a whole chicken, but it's very fatty so drain halfway through the roasting if doing it in roasting tin or roast it on a grill pan so the fat drains off.

You can keep the fat to do lovely roast potatoes and then use the carcass (and the rest of the giblets) to make very strong duck stock.

To roast, I simply stuff the cavity with an onion and an orange (or a lemon) and rub the skin with chinese 5-spice powder. Follow the cooking times on the box, I've always found them a reasonable guide. You can make a gravy if you want but I always find duck very rich and it's lovely just with roasted potatoes in the fat and something like steamed fine green beans.

Pink.

Hi JenniO,

First of all remove the duck from any packaging and dry it off with kitchen towel about 24 hours before you want to cook it. This is to dry the skin out so that it will crisp up well.

Remove the giblets. Put them in a pan, and cover with water and let them simmer to get stock for your gravy.

When you are ready to cook it, preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

Pr!ck the skin and season well with salt and pepper. Put the duck on a rack in a roasting tin. The rack is important as duck is extremely fatty and the fat needs to be able to drain away. If you don't have a rack, some scrunched up tinfoil will do.

Cook for 20 minutes then reduce the heat to 180 degrees and cook for 30 minutes per pound. You'll need to drain the fat off a couple of times during cooking. It's well worth saving the fat....it makes fantastic roast potatoes and keeps well in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Once cooked allow the bird to rest for at least 20 minutes before serving.

Because it is so fatty, duck doesn't have a lot of meat on it so it's harder to stretch than chicken, but I'll be interested to see if anyone has any tips or ideas on making a rubber duck.



There's an older thread that should help:

cooking a whole duck

I'll merge your thread with that one later to keep all the suggestions together.

Pink

taketwo

I'll second the morello cherry jam and red wine sauce.http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=275072

LandyAndy

In general duck doesn't carve easily and so I always serve it by just cutting it in half or quarters (I use tin snips:D ) - much easier.

Also remember that, unlike chicken, duck can safely be served 'pink'.

shammyjack

When eating duck there should only be 2 of you .

You and the duck !

shammy

JenniO

thanks everyone! Any OS suggestions out there on what to do with the duck's bill and feet?:p :eek:

kunekune

I got one of these today too. The last one I got cheap I made into peking duck: just roasted it slowly and without any extras, served it in pancakes with spring onions and hoisin sauce. Nice, but a lot of hassle, would have worked just as well with shredded breast meat. Haven't decided what to do with this one yet. But I love duck. And for the second day, the leftover meat makes a wonderful noodle soup or stirfry.