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if you can cook a chook you can
absolutely cook a duck especially with
duck fat potatoes so i'm going to keep
it super basic so you can see how to
roast the perfect duck once you remove
it from the bag we need to pat it dry
because moisture is the enemy when it
comes to crispy skin and we want this
duck skin to go really crispy and render
if you have time the best thing that you
can do is pop this duck onto a rack in a
tray and then leave it in the fridge
uncovered by air drying it in the fridge
we're going to get that super dry skin
meaning crispy duck skin
before you start cooking it you need to
bring it to room temperature so i've
brought this duck out about two hours
ago this is going to ensure we get
really moist tender meat and then
seasoning no oil required just a good
amount of sea salt so sprinkle that all
over the duck
in the cavity
and i'll turn it over
and sprinkle it on both sides pat it now
for some aromatics i've just got a
lovely big bunch of thyme so we'll pop
that in the cavity and that's the first
stage done now we'll place this into the
rack
and i've preheated my oven to 190
degrees the general rule when it comes
to duck is cooking it for 40 minutes per
kilo so this duck is 2 kilos is going to
take an hour and 20 minutes now i'm
going to pop this in the oven now for
about 20 minutes and then i'm going to
add the potatoes
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this duck has been cooking in the oven
for 20 minutes you can see it's golden
brown but it's not entirely cooked in
the center but this is the perfect time
to add our onions and our potatoes so
i'm just going to carefully take the
duck out of the tray and you can see
there's also a little bit of caramelized
duck juices that's going to be for our
sauce later on but in the meantime let's
add our potatoes and what i've done with
the potatoes is i've just boiled them
and i've just air-dried them and crushed
them up a little bit so you can see
they've got all those little gnarly
spots that is going to give us crispy
potatoes they've cooled down completely
and then i just love to just pop them
straight into that hot fat
and then we'll cover them
and then before i toss it i'll also add
a little bit of onion because that's
going to help our sauce become really
nice and sweet so you just have to
roughly chop the onion
it'll break down
all right a few more so this is two
whole onions that i've just peeled
perfect
and we'll just coat all of these
ingredients
in the duck fat one thing we do need is
a really good pinch of salt
and i like a touch of pepper
not too much
and then our duck can go back into the
tray and if you don't have a rack like
this what you need to do is just move
the potatoes and onions to the outside
of the tray and then just nestle the
duck in it'll work just as well all
right this goes back into the oven for
about one hour and i'm going to toss the
potatoes every 20 minutes just so we get
a nice even color
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okay the duck has come out of the oven
it looks fantastic look at this skin
crispy and blistered the way it should
be so i want this duct to rest in that
rack so we'll just take that
out of the tray and we'll pop that to
the side you can cover it with a little
bit of foil but to be honest i think
that makes the skin really soft so just
leave it in a warm spot just like this
it will hold its residual heat while we
make our sauce
and look at these potatoes these
potatoes are the best crispy they're
crunchy on the side because we really
roughed them up when they came out of
the water and when they were steaming
and now just place them on a big platter
and i'm going to leave these onions in
the roasting tray and then put the heat
on just so i can make a really quick
sauce but i know there's a lot of you
out there that are like me and love a
little bit of gravy so this is how easy
it is to do once this starts to
sizzle up again which it is now all of
these onions that have caramelized and
softened i'm just breaking up a little
bit it's going to be almost like an
onion gravy
now once you have a sizzle we can
deglaze this pan with some pork port has
a really nice sweet flavor that goes
with the gaminess of the duck so we'll
add that
and because it's quite hot it'll deglaze
quite quickly
now i'll add some stock you can use some
duck stock or good old classic chicken
stock works a treat
once that's reduced a bit you can smell
the raw alcohol cooking off it's time to
add our stock
now let that bubble away so it thickens
slightly and concentrates the flavor and
now we can grab our gorgeous duck
and place it in the center of this
platter now just before i place this
duck on the platter there's so many
delicious thyme juices in the cavity we
don't want to waste that so i'm going to
carefully take this duck and just pour
those beautiful juices out to give this
gravy extra flavor then i can smell the
thyme such a great addition
perfect
now i'll place the duck in the center of
the plate
without
breaking any of that skin because i want
to present it at the table like this
because it's just so beautiful now let's
have a look at this sauce oh
see how it's thickened up nicely i'm
going to turn that off now and add a
little bit of vinegar just to cut
through the duck fat
and then we'll just mix that through oh
that looks so good
really happy with that smells delicious
and i would recommend not pouring this
sauce over the crispy dark and crispy
potatoes just get a bowl or a jug if you
like
and pour that directly
into there on the side so your guests
can pour the sauce
and those gorgeous glazed onions
over their duck
oh
beautiful
that for me is heaven that's sunday
roast duck i told you it was easy if you
can do roast chook you can absolutely do
roast duck and yes i don't have any
veggies today but definitely put some
steamed greens or like i said before
beautiful crispy green salad
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you