hi there I'm Matt from the underground
cookery school today I'm just going to
show you a really simple easy
recipe well I'm going to show you how to
roast a duck today um the first thing
that you need to do is give it a good
old wash um so rinse it under a cold tap
pass it dry with a bit of kitchen tow
which we've already done
um you can then just stuff um the cavity
full of whatever you like I mean this is
really a very very simple thing to do
and cooking chicken is a similar sort of
um level of Simplicity um actually the
first thing we should do I'm just going
to give my hands a very quick wipe cuz I
have just touched the bird um but we're
going to put a little bit of uh black
pepper in there just uh in the outer
edges of the
carcass um I'm going to put some some
time in there I've also
got um some garlic here and although I
peeled it I'm just going to sort of
roughly chop it like
that there we go and just shove that in
you know you never have enough garlic in
in something like this cuz it just
permeates uh you know if you really want
to go wild you can rub the outer skin um
actually what I'm going to do here is
I've got some duck fat which I'm just
going to smear over that outer skin
and what you can then do if you really
like I mean this is a quite 70s thing to
to do but you know if you put some um
orange
zest in the skin like that I do tend to
find with these zesters you get quite a
lot in but you can just rub it into the
skin like that um I find if you're doing
chicken lemon is um a particularly good
one
but just to get some of that citrusy
flavor in there and then of course you
can you can add a little bit of citrus
or a bit of
orange um you know I think the fun thing
about cooking you know any poultry is
just put whatever you've got or like in
the cavity uh you know if if if all else
fails you know a good old onion is as
good as anything but you know in the
past I have cooked p tree without
putting anything in the cavity and it
just tastes just so Bland and you know I
used to get fed up when people used bang
on about that sort of thing but actually
I really mean it um bit of black pepper
not that
much uh a bit of
salt um and I'm going to turn it upside
down and just finish off had a bit of
extra fat to it there we go little bit
of black
pepper little little bit of that just
going to take final bit of uh orange
just rub that in there just to give it a
bit of extra
flavor maybe a little bit more zest here
but this is effectively it and all I'm
going to do now is just shove it in the
oven and roast it for about an hour and
a half now the thing is I always like to
roast all poultry um upside down uh like
that first uh for about the first half
hour a lot of ovens convect heat from
the top um so if you do roast it this
way um you manage to get the the legs
and the thighs nicely nice and evenly
cooked um the skin nicely Brown so that
when you turn it over for the last hour
um you're getting the benefit well that
goes in the oven's on about my oven's
170 but most domestic conventional Ovens
that aren't fan assisted I would say
180° that's a small duck it's um only
about 1.5 kilos um so I I would probably
cook that for uh something like an hour
and a half the rule of thumb is
generally 20 minutes a pound uh plus 15
minutes to start off with and then just
have a little uh look at it um at the
end and see if it needs a little bit
longer I've always said though that when
cooking anything in the oven it's the
the amount of time you let it cook
outside the oven that makes the
difference and what you want want to do
is slightly just have it marginally um
undercooked comes out the oven you're
going to let it rest for a good 10
minutes I.E just sat there with a bit of
Tim foil over the top and during that
time it will continue to cook through
all those lovely juices will flow um
we'll have a look at that in about um
we'll come back to that in what I
suspect will be about half an hour's
time um we'll turn it around and then
we'll cook it for the further hour and
then uh then you'll see the roast duck
um in its entirety at the end of the
cooking
process so that's been in for about half
an hour now
so as you can see that's beautifully
roasted on the
top so what I'm going to do
now is just using my tongs turn that
over just another little tip here it's
always worth doing this if you can is
just giving it a good old baste
so that's going to go back in the oven
now for um well I would normally say
another um 45 minutes something like
it's been in for half an hour it is only
a small duck and it is looking um I mean
there's still about probably half an
hour left in there but this Duck's only
going to take an hour and 10 minutes but
don't be deceived this is a very quick
oven it's fan assisted and your oven at
home will um potentially be a lot slower
so anyway when you come back um we'll
we'll take that out without the oven
right well the duck has been in there
now for probably the best part of an
hour and a
half and as you can see it's beautifully
cooked as I was banging on earlier on
and I always bang on about this um the
amount of time that you let it cook
outside the oven um I think is as
important as the amount in so we're
going to leave it for probably about you
know seven or eight minutes just to um
rest and then um will carve well we've
um had a good old G carving it up uh
I've placed it up over
here I mean that really is it that's how
you roast the duck