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Rita's Bite

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Roast Duck

Ingredients

For the Duck

• One duck 2kg
• Onions (a few)
• Chicken stock
• White or red wine
• salt, crushed black pepper, fresh herbs, garlic

Accompaniments

• Potatoes
• Baby onions
• Lardons
• Peas
• Salt, crushed black pepper, fresh herbs, garlic

Method

For a 2kg bird rub a mixture of salt, crushed black pepper, fresh herbs like rosemary, thyme, pounded garlic over the surface, refrigerate it for about 6 hours, so do this in the morning if you want to eat it for dinner.

Slice a few onions, skin on in half lengthways, place them in the bottom of a roasting pan that the duck will fit in snugly, this will make sure the duck isn’t resting on the pan.

Place said duck on the onions, throw in some more smashed garlic, herbs, a few more turns of the pepper grinder, and a spray of salt.

Place the duck in a pre-heated oven at 180C until the skin browns nicely, this will take about 25 mins.

When this is done, pour in some chicken stock (its OK to use a cube or ready made stock if you don’t have any real stock, I’m not The Food Nazi), white or red wine but just up to the base of the bird, you should have about one knuckle of your thumb depth of liquid.

Now here’s the part that’s really essential. Place some alfoil over the tray, carefully seal the edges tightly. You want to trap the cooking steam in the tray so it must be sealed very well.

Once done, place the tray back in the oven at 150C for two and a half hours.

After this time, remove the tray from the oven carefully, as it will have lots of rendered duck fat in it.

Let the duck settle for ½ hour before pouring off the liquid and fat into a jug and refrigerate it as you’ll use it for sauce later.

Place the foil back over the duck and back into the oven to keep it warm until you are ready to serve. The meat will be succulent and falling off the bone. Just before serving though, remove the foil and give it a blast in a hot oven at 200C to re-crisp the skin.

Whilst the duck was cooking, you will have made its accompaniments. In this case it is roast potatoes, baby onions, lardons and peas. You know how to roast spuds already however roasted in duck fat they are sublime, but as we wouldn’t have any at the time you need to roast them, you should save some of the fat for the future.

Peel the onions and roast them slowly in the oven with some olive oil, salt pepper and a bit of sugar. Gently sauté the lardons until they crisp, and just blanch the peas in boiling water before draining them.

Place the spuds, onions, lardons and peas in a tray and keep them warm with the duck.

Now the roasting juices and fat should have had time to separate by now as they get cold.

You can remove all of the fat now if it grosses you out, or use some of it to make a traditionally flour thickened gravy. Or you could just reduce the cooking juices for a simple sauce.

Place the veggies onto a serving platter with the duck on top and enter Nirvana