Roast Duck

This is a bit of a project, but makes a magnificent main dish for an intimate dinner with close friends.

The sausage stuffing gives the meat tons of flavor and keeps everything nice and moist, so you don’t really need any sauce.

Ingredients #

Instructions #

Remove the neck and innards from the duck. Remove excess skin and fat around the vent and neck opening. Cut the wings off at the elbow joint.

Reserve the neck, wings and giblets for making stock. If there’s enough excess fat and skin, render the fat out of it and save it – duck fat is wonderful for roasting potatoes.

Using the point of a sharp knife, puncture the skin all over the duck, about every 1/2 inch. Be careful not to stab into the meat, but breaking the surface of the skin is critical to letting fat render out during roasting.

Salt the duck VERY generously, inside and out. This salt is mostly going to get washed off, so I mean VERY generously! Place it on a rack over a baking sheet and refrigerate it, uncovered, for at least 3 hours and ideally over night.

Bring a very large pot of water to a slow boil. The pot should be large enough to submerge the whole duck.

Once simmering, add the duck to the water and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450F.

Remove the duck (carefully!) to a wire rack and dab it dry with paper towels. After it cools a bit, rub it all over with olive oil and season with salt and pepper (and, optionally, a tsp or so of five-spice powder). Optionally, stuff an onion or a couple of tangerines into the cavity.

Transfer the duck to the rack of a roasting pan. Add 1/2 cup water to the bottom of the pan. Transfer the duck to the oven and roast for 45 minutes.

Reduce heat to 300F and continue roasting for 30-60 minutes.

Allow the duck to rest for 20 minutes before carving.