Recipe #234: Roasted Duck

I've been neglecting my blog lately, so in my search for something new and different to make, I found a recipe for a French dish called cassoulet.  That led to some research and the realization that I'd need to locate some duck meat.  Then I decided that maybe I should make duck on its own first before making a cassoulet, which is why today I was at the West Side Market at Kaufmann Poultry buying my first duck.  It's not cheap ($20 for a five pounder), but the novelty made it worth it.

This recipe is based on tips from the vendor, a recipe I found on allrecipes.com, and other bits of information that I found on the internet.  I didn't really do anything fancy prep-wise this time.  There are a lot of ways to prep a duck, I found out (AFTER I put mine in the oven), but in the end, it turned out moist and delicious, which is all that really matters.  Even the cats got to taste some.  I also made up a sauce based loosely on recipes I'd read, but you could take it or leave it depending on your tastes.

Duck breast and drumstick with sauce

INGREDIENTS:

1 approx 5lb whole duck (unfortunately, mine came frozen, which I'm not a fan of, so I had to thaw it first)

1 apple, roughly chopped

1 medium onion, roughly chopped

2 ribs celery, roughly chopped

Paprika

Salt

Poultry seasoning

Olive oil

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Remove the neck and giblets bag from the cavity of the duck.  Rinse and pat the duck dry.  Salt the inside of the bird, and put the apple, celery, and onion bits inside.  Season both sides of the duck generously with paprika and poultry/chicken seasoning, spray or rub with oil, and place breast-side down on a roasting rack.  If there are extra apples and veggies, put them in the bottom of the roasting pan.  Put about two cups of water into the bottom of the pan.  This prevents the oil from smoking.

Roast the duck for 1.5 hours.  Remove from the oven, flip over.  Change the oven temperature to 325 degrees and put the bird back in.  Roast for another hour.

A way to tell that the duck is done is that the skin is crispy and you can move the drumsticks somewhat freely.

Let sit on the cutting board for about 15 minutes to let the juices go back into the meat.

The sauce I made was a mixture of orange marmalade, soy sauce (low sodium), and a touch of powdered ginger.  Adjust to your tastes

Golden before cutting

Without sauce, breast (skin side up) and drumstick