Month: April 2016

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Dinnertime 2 (with recipe)

Weekly photo challenge: Dinnertime (with recipe

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Last thanksgiving,I decided to cook a duck since there would only be three of us. I looked online in the usual places for a recipe but couldn’t find the one I used before with success. So I ended up combining two sets of directions and it turned out quite well. This is a combination of Martha Stewart and Epicurious. 
Roast Duck
1 whole duck, 5-6 pounds

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

2 cups boiling hot water
Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Remove and discard excess fat from body cavity and neck and rinse duck inside and out. Prick skin with the tip of a sharp knife. Pour water over duck, this tightens the skin. Now, with a sharp knife, lightly crosshatch the surface of the skin over the breast, being careful not to cut all the way through. This lets the fat melt out as the bird cooks. Season with salt and pepper. 

Put duck, breast side up into roasting pan. Roast for 45 minutes. Remove pan from oven. Turn duck over and return to oven for another 45 minutes. After that time, remove pan again, turn duck over again to be breast side up and return to oven for a final 45 minutes. 

When it’s done, spoon off the fat from the roasting pan and reserve for cooking with later. It adds a really rich taste to roasted vegetables. After doing this, tilt the duck into the pan to drain off the liquid accumulated in the cavity and let duck rest 15 minutes before carving. The skin will be crispy and golden and the meat rich and moist. 

Note: this is for roasting a domestic duck, bought at the supermarket not a wild duck. Those are a whole nother story.