I bought a couple of ducks from Avis Acres and decided to cook one today.
I used an old Cooks Illustrated recipe that has you season the duck, then steam it, then finish it by roasting in the oven. If you’ve ever tried roasting a duck you know that you and your kitchen end up covered in duck fat. This method claimed to avoid that problem so I thought it was worth a ttry.
First you season the duck and let it dry for a couple hours. I used Asian-themed seasoning, the duck is stuffed with garlic, ginger, onions, and cilantro. The duck is rubbed with salt, pepper, and cinnamon.
After drying the duck gets steamed on a rack in our wok.
The duck steams covered for an hour and then I slathered it with a mix of soy sauce, hoisin, sesame oil, and honey.
That looks good enough to eat right now! But into the oven it goes to brown and crisp the skin.
It turned out pretty good except all the fat didn’t render out on the breast so it wasn’t as crisp as you’d like. The duck was tender and the spices were nice. Next time I’ll try poking holes in the skin all over with a sharp knife to try to get all the fat to render out.
It’s definitely a good method to cook duck, there was hardly any airborne duck fat during roasting.
And the pasture-fed, organic, antibiotic free Avis Acres duck? Splendid! The meat was firm, unlike a factory raised duck that can be mushy, and much less fat. It was definitely the best duck I’ve ever had.
Serves 2 to 4, depending on the size of your duck
This will take about 6 hours start to finish. Plan accordingly.
Ingredients
1 whole duck
4 garlic gloves
2 green onions
2 inch piece of fresh ginger
Fresh cilantro
salt
pepper
cinnamon
1 T Soy sauce
1 T Hoisin sauce
1 t sesame oil
1 t honey
Process
Remove the giblets and cut the wing tips and neck off the duck.
Rinse and dry the duck.
Peel and crush the garlic
Peel and slice the ginger
Cut white and green parts of the green onions into 1 inch pieces
Salt and pepper the inside of the duck
Stuff the garlic, ginger, onions, and cilantro in the duck cavity
Mix together salt, pepper, and a dash of cinnamon and rub it all over the outside of the duck. (Use a light hand with the cinnamon, less than an 1/8th of teaspoon is all you need. If you have Chinese 5 spice powder it would be good to use here. I didn’t, so I used cinnamon.)
Put the duck on a rack over a pan (it will drip a little) and put it in the refrigerator for 4 hours.
Put the duck breast side down on a rack above water in a pan, bring the water to a boil and cover. A wok works well for this if you have one.
Steam the duck for an hour. Add boiling water as needed.
Remove the duck.
Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Mix together the soy, hoisin, sesame oil, and honey and brush all over the outside of the duck
Put the duck breast side up on a rack in a roasting pan.
Roast until the skin is crisp and brown, 35-40 minutes.
Remove from the oven, tent loosely with foil and let rest for 10-20 minutes before carving.
- Next time I’m going to try pricking the skin before steaming over the breast and legs and thighs to try to get the fat to render better.
- Instead of the spices and stuffing I used, it would also be wonderful to stuff it with cut up lemons and thyme springs, and rub it with salt, pepper, thyme, and lemon zest.
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