Best 2 Basic Roast Duck Recipes

BASIC ROAST DUCK

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
• Remove all excess pieces of fat from around the duck cavities and cut away the extra skin from around these openings. Reserve the skin to make cracklings (by frying until crisp) or discard it. Rinse the ducks and dry them thoroughly. Squeeze the juice of a lemon inside each, then season the insides with salt and pepper. Place the cut pieces of squeezed lemon inside each duck.
• Using a sharp roasting fork, lightly prick the skin of the duck all over, pricking just into the fat of the duck and not penetrating the flesh.
• Place the ducks breast side down on racks in a roasting pan. It is very important that the ducks be on racks. Even cake racks set into the roasting pan will do.
• Roast the ducks for one-and-a-half hours, turn them breast side up and roast one-and-one-half hours longer.
• If the ducks are going to be served simply roasted, then at the end of the three hours' roasting time increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees and roast the ducks 30 minutes longer. Remove ducks from the oven, allow to rest for 10 minutes, then cut into serving pieces and serve.

BASIC ROAST DUCK BREAST

Steps:

• PREPARATION 1. Score fat on duck breast in criss-cross pattern at one-inch intervals. 2. Mix the five-spice powder, honey, soy sauce and lemon juice together in a dish, brush the mixture over both sides of the duck breasts and place the breasts in a dish. Cover and allow to marinate at least an hour at room temperature or up to 24 hours in the refrigerator, whichever is more convenient. 3. Preheat oven to 175 degrees. 4. Heat large, heavy skillet, preferably nonstick, to very hot. Remove duck breasts from marinade, reserving marinade for sauce, if desired. Place duck breasts in the skillet skin side down and sear for about two minutes, just until the skin is well browned. Remove the duck breasts from the skillet. Pour all the fat out of the skillet (reserve the fat for the sauce or other cooking, if you wish). Return the duck breasts to the skillet skin side up and cook for about a minute, just until the meat is seared. 5. Transfer the duck breasts skin side up to a baking dish that will hold them in a single layer. Place in the oven for about an hour. By this time the duck breasts will be uniformly pink throughout. They can remain in the oven as long as two hours and can sit warming even longer if the oven is turned off after two hours. The recipe can also be expanded for as many duck breasts as you need. 6. To serve, slice the duck breasts on an angle, into slices a quarter to a half-inch thick. Array on a platter and serve. YIELD8 servings