I think that duck is a great bird to serve for Christmas. If you’re having more than 4 people, you might want 2 ducks.
I’ve had duck at my last two Xmases, I think.
I like to grill it. You can make an orange sauce to go with it. Duck is good with barbeque sauce. It makes great “pulled duck” sandwiches the next day.
If you’re going to grill it, put something under the grate because it will drip goo like a motherducker. Make the drip pan big enough to contain juices, and “tip” the duck to drain it before lifting it to a carving board. Use indirect heat. Lots of salt & pepper on the skin, and you can eat the skin like potato chips. Make a resolution in the New year to eat less duck skin, but for Xmas, eat it all.
What I would do is what Mark Bittman recommends in How to Cook Everything: prick the skin so the fat can drain out, steam the duck for about 45 minutes, then roast it. This also has the advantage that you can save the duck fat to use in cooking other things.
There was a recipe for ginger duck a few years ago in the NYTimes*, but I don’t have it here at work. The basic essence of the recipe: The cook simmered the duck with vegetables (leeks, maybe?) and spices until tender. All the fat was skimmed off the surface, and the duck was removed. The remaining liquid was strained, and could be used later for cooking rice. The duck was refrigerated overnight, and then roasted on a rack in the oven before the meal. I’ve done it a few times, and quite a bit of the fat is removed by this method.
*If you can search the NYT, this was in a food column by Amanda Hesser titled “Amateur Night”, dated 8/12/01. It was paired with an almond cake recipe that I use all the time, which is how I know the date of the article.
I’ve tried to cook duck twice now and it’s been a total disaster. I want to try it one more time this fpr Xmas Eve (thanks for all the suggestions, dopers!).
Step One: Pick up a Papa Murphey’s Canadian Bacon and Onion Pizza.
Step Two: Prepare duck, marinating the cook well in dry sherry to prepare for inevitable disapointment when even the cats won’t eat it.
If I were to do it, I might rather break it down and quarter it, in a french Bistro style. Then serve it two ways: quick sear/sautee the breasts and roast midrare, crispy skinned, and serve with some kind of delicious sauce; and confit the legs and thighs (use as an incorporation to a salad or in some other creative way…or maybe just serve the confit duck leg with the breast). This will ensure that you have the most delectable duck parts prepared in ways that highlight their optimal cooking technique.
I don’t have my copy right now, but in Julia Child’s The Way to Cook she has a method where she cooks the legs and breast separately. The legs are coated in a mustard/crumb mixture and roasted. The breast is sliced and sauteed, and the pan is deglazed with, IIRC, brandy. Then you slice up the rest of the skin and fry it up to make perfect cracklings. I’ve done it a couple of times for special dinners.
So you want to make a duck. First, I’d suggest you set up surveillance of the fowl in question. If your bird high tails it to the Peacock Club, no dice. But if he waddles on over to, say, the Russian Teal Room, then you’ve made your duck.
This is a reasonable suggestion for somebody who’s never cooked a duck before, presuming you can figure out the steaming. Duck fat is outstanding stuff to have around.
That said, to be perfectly honest, roasting a duck is fairly advanced, and isn’t something I would recommend to someone who describes himself as “not that accomplished of a chef.” A whole duck is a remarkably complicated thing, with different sections requiring special separate attention. See, for example, devilsknew’s post, which offers excellent (if difficult) advice. Grocery-store ducks also vary widely in size, which totally changes the cooking equation. It’s not for the beginner.
Just for the record, it took me three tries before I got a duck that went into the oven whole and came out even close to the way I wanted, let alone in a form I’d be willing to put in front of anyone else.
I mean, give it a shot if you’ve got your heart set on it, but keep your fingers crossed.
Given the way this thread has gone, I’m not touching that one with a…never mind.
I cooked duck last year for Christmas (one duck, three people), and I did the steam/roasting thing, and, based on other Doper threads, fried some potatoes in duck fat. It was wonderful!
I used to cook duck very frequently. I’d roast it in the oven like a chicken. I never brined or marinated one. The only “secret” I can offer is peel and half a raw potato and put it inside the duck flat-side down when you cook it; it’ll soak up the excess grease inside the duck.
3 days before Christmas dinner, get two ducks from your butcher. Have him cut each into four boneless breasts, four thighs and legs, and four wings. Ask nicely if he can chop off the butt and pull off the backskin (try to get all of the skin). Reserve the duck breast in the fridge and follow Tom Colichhio’s recipe for Duck confit, utilizing the legs and wings. On day two of the curing of the confit deviate from his recipe by rendering all of the duck fat from the butt and back in a sautee pan (Much like making bacon, eat or reserve the cracklings for garnish.). Then pack and stack your confit duck legs and wings in a crockpot. Add the rendered duckfat and enough neutral Veg Oil (No Olive Oil) to cover. Set your crockpot to its lowest setting and let go for 14 hours. Turn off and let sit at room temperature until service on Xmas day. It’s allright , it won’t go rancid in a day, and the duck is, in fact, preserved and is just getting tastier. You will be serving the duck conit at room temperature.
On Christmas day, remove your breasts from the fridge and follow this Bon Appetit recipe-- Duck with Port-Cherry Sauce.
Serve the room temperature duck legs confit and the warm breast together with the port-cherry sauce, for a single serving.
Just in case anybody is trying my untested Xmas duck method-- a small amendment. After some research, I think 14 hours at low heat in the crockpot is probably too long for the confit. It would probably remain delicious and not actually affect the flavor, but it would loose its coherence and fall apart entirely. I would reccomend to confit the duck in the crockpot for 4-6 hours at the lowest temperature setting. You can test to see if it is tender/cooked through by pushing aknife through the thickest part of a thigh… if it pierces easily all the way through, it is done. Let it sit at room temperature until Xmas day and serve, as before. You could also just use entirely duckfat or lard, instead of the veg oil/duckfat combo, in fact it will just be better that way… but several cups of duckfat are sometimes hard to come by, so the veg oil was a compromise. Also, to make it even better supplement the crockpot confit oil with a couple of cloves of whole garlic and a few branches of thyme.
