Monster Duck – Whole Roasted Duck

Whole roasted, stuffed duck, with sauce and boiled potatoes

What you will read here is not an example of culinary excellency, but rather an example of creative cooking gone somewhat right, but with room for improvement. Tread carefully.

Oven-roasted duck with potatoes and a rich, tasty sauce.
(For more pictures, scroll down the page)

Preparation time:
80-150 min.

Special appliances needed:
None
(Food processor helps speed things up)

Ingredients
(A shit ton of them, many are optional)

Stuffed duck
– five cloves of garlic
– one yellow onion (thinly diced/minced)
– one red onion (thinly diced/minced)
– two carrots (thinly diced/minced)
– three spring onions (thinly diced/minced)
– three bell peppers (thinly diced/minced)
– orange/raisins/figs (optional)
– ginger (roughly half the size of an average onion)
– two eggs (optional)
– red wine (and/or white wine)
– bread – crumbled (optional)
– nuts (optional)
– salt, pepper and sugar (for both the stuffing and for rubbing the duck in)
– two bay leaves
– rosemary (fresh and/or dried)
– thyme (fresh and/or dried)
– cinnamon (small-teaspoon) – (optional for spicier food)
– cloves (small-teaspoon) – (optional for spicier food)
– cardamom (small-teaspoon) – (optional for spicier food)
– anis-seeds (small-teaspoon) – (optional for spicier food)
– paprika (1-2 teaspoon) – (optional for spicier food)
– vegeta (optional)
– honey (optional)
– mushrooms (optional)

Sauce (chunky)
– three cloves of garlic (thinly diced/minced)
– one yellow onion (thinly diced/minced)
– two carrots (thinly diced/minced)
– three spring onions (thinly diced/minced)
– one bell pepper (thinly diced/minced)
-one bell pepper (sliced)
– red wine (and/or white wine)
– butter
– duck fat (optional)
– salt + pepper
– fond/broth (I used a home-made chicken stock)
– two bay leaves
– rosemary (fresh and/or dried)
– thyme (fresh and/or dried)
– cinnamon (small-teaspoon) – (optional for spicier food)
– cloves (small-teaspoon) – (optional for spicier food)
– cardamom (small-teaspoon) – (optional for spicier food)
– anis-seeds (small-teaspoon) – (optional for spicier food)
– paprika (1-2 teaspoon) – (optional for spicier food)
– cumin and/or dried coriander, if you want it extra Levantic.
– cream (optional)
– canned tomatoes (optional – would maybe go better with the spicier version)

For the duck broth
– five cloves of garlic
– four yellow onions
– five carrots
– the leftover, green chive parts
– duck organs (or whatever comes with the duck)
– duck bones (for after you trimmed your cooked duck)
– five bay leaves
– all the stuffing, which you could not fit in the duck

Boiled potatoes
– Medium-sized potatoes (preferably)
– Salt (for the water)

Preparation

The duck
1. Wash the duck and dry it. Then put it to the side.
2. Prepare the stuffing: Finley chop all the garlic, onions, carrots, ginger and peppers. I used a food processor. If you have a food processor, first process the vegetables for the sauce, then for the stuffing. This will save you time.
3. Add the vegetables for the stuffing to a bowl, or leave them in the processor if you use it. Then add the herbs, spices and a bit of wine. Also add eggs, fruit, nuts, mushrooms and bread as you please. Mix it all together into a nice paste. If it is too wet, consider adding extra bread or fruit.
4. Cut diagonal lines across the front of the duck. Make sure you do not cut too deep. Then rub it with salt, pepper and a bit of sugar. You can skip this step, if you want a faster cookout.
5. Stuff the duck. Don’t be shy. Put as much stuffing in it, as you possibly can. Now, either tie the legs to close the stuffed hole of the duck, or, as I did, leave the tail on the duck and use it to close the gap, by piercing two skewers through it.
6. Set the oven to 180 C and put the chicken to the side.
7. Take out a large tray and add the un-chopped vegetables, water, bay leaves and organs (if you have any). Put it to the side.
(8). Continue reading to find out when you should put it in the oven.

Prepare the garniture
1. Set a large pot of water (with added salt) to boil.
2. Put a pan on the stove and set it on medium heat. Wait until it is warm, then add butter (and duck fat if desired). When the pan is hot again, add the minced vegetables you set aside for the sauce. Wait a few minutes, then add some herbs and fry it all on medium heat until the vegetables are semi-brown.
3. Put a pot on the stove and add some butter. When hot, add the vegetables from the pan. Then add more herbs, the sliced pepper, spices, stock and wine. Stir it and put on a lit, allowing for the flavours to blossom.
4. Put the duck on a grate in the oven. Try to make sure that the duck is in the centre of the oven. (Mine was slightly too close to the top of the oven, which shows). Put the tray with the vegetables underneath the duck, so that all the nice juices from the duck drop into the tray. The duck needs about an hour in the oven, but check on it regularly and occasionally pour some of the liquid from the tray over it. You can put it in the oven earlier, if you want to spend less time in the kitchen. This might result in a less interesting sauce though.
5. After twenty minutes (30, if you are boiling smaller potatoes), add the potatoes to the water, which should now be boiling.
6. Check on everything regularly. Make sure nothing burns. Add water and/or canned tomatoes to the sauce, if it gets too dry. Also, taste the sauce to see if it needs more herbs and spices. When the duck has been in the oven for fifty minutes, add the cream to the sauce (optional).

7. Take out the duck and put it on a cutting board. Realize that you have no clue on how to cut it and make a mess out of things.
8. Bonus: Realize that you bought a rubbish, skinny duck, which certainly doesn’t make the cutting-process any easier.
9. Enjoy.

For the stock:
1. Take all the contents of the tray and add to a large put. Then add the bones from the duck you just peeled. Add water until it covers all the vegetables and bones, put a lid on and leave it to boil. 2. Let it boil until enough water has evaporated (I had it on the stove for five hours), then drain the mixture from all the vegetables, bones and organs so that you have just the liquid left. If it still seems like there is too much water in it, boil it some more. When you feel that you have a concentrated enough stock, pour it into a glass and put on the lid. Depending on your fridge (how cold it is) and how well you concentrated it, this should last for at least a few weeks. I have had chicken stock in my fridge for months without it spoiling.

Disclaimer: When I made this dish, I had not planned for it. I quickly had to come up with a way to cook the large duck, which I had to take out the freezer to make room for my girlfriend’s ice cream. The pictures you see do therefore not completely resemble the recipe above, but the technique described is the exact same as the one I used to produce the pictures you see. The difference is that, if you follow this recipe, you will get a better result than I did. For instance, I had run out of fruit, white bread and nuts, so I had to use rye bread and sunflower seeds instead. Also, I was a bit more experimental and added some fermented chilisauce I’d made and threw in some dried coriander, horseradish and lime leaves. The result was a very inconsistent taste. Not bad, but less is better is right in this case.