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whole duck

How to cook a Whole Duck

  • 45 mins
  • easy
farmison & co
Recipe by
Farmison & Co

Ingredients

  • whole duck
Shop our Christmas Poultry

Method

  1. Remember to remove your whole duck out of the packaging, pat dry and bring to room temperature.
  2. Pre heat your oven to 200°C temperature fan assisted or 215°C without a fan.
  3. Scald the duck with 1 litre of boiling water by resting on a wire tray over the sink and slowly pouring over the bird.
  4. Season the bird just prior to roasting.
  5. Choose a large, heavy based roasting tray, ideally with deep sides and handles for easy movement.
  6. Season with good quality fine sea salt.
  7. Make a trivet by roughly chopping equal amounts of onion, carrot and celery or my preferred choice of celeriac, the root of the celery plus a bay leaf, sprig of thyme and a few black peppercorns, another nice addition can be a orange cut in quarters and popped into the birds cavity.
  8. Place the bird breast up onto the trivet which should line the base of the tray.
  9. Place in centre of oven and roast for 20 minutes then reduce the temperature to 180°C then continue roasting for 25 minutes per 500g reaching a core temperature of minimum 70°C.
  10. Remove from oven and pop onto a clean tray and keep warm by covering with a sheet of tin foil then resting for a minimum of 20 minutes before carving, leaving the roasted vegetables in the tray for the gravy.
  11. For the gravy I make up 500 ml of essential cuisine chicken stock, then deglaze roasting tray with this stock stirring all the caramelized juices from the tray, add a 100 ml of madeira for a richer full bodied sauce and reduce to a glossy finish before adding the stock then pass through a fine sieve pushing all the juices from the vegetables into a clean sauce pan, bring to the simmer and thicken if required by whisking in a teaspoon of corn flour mixed with a little cold water and reduce till you reach a rich glossy gravy.

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