Need duck roasting advice

Cafe Society
1

I’m cooking a duck for Christrmas dinner tomorrow. I’ve never cooked a duck before, and I have encountered these three methods for achieving crispy skin, legs and thighs that are not underdone and breast meat that is not dried out.

The first two are recommendations of my personal culinary goddess, Julia Child.

  1. Steam roasting – The duck gets steamed, braised, then finally roasted to crisp the skin. The steaming and braising steps cause a lot of the fat to render.

  2. Partial roasting with final crisping – The duck is roasted until the breast meat is just done, then the breast is skinned and the meat removed, as are the legs and thighs. The legs and thighs finish roasting with the skin of the breast cut into strips to make cracklings. The breast meat is sliced and rewarmed slightly in a reduction of port and shallots.

The third method, from epicurious, is roast for 45 minutes breast up, flip it over and roast 45 minutes breast down, then flip again so its breast up for the last 45.

As much as I love Julia, method three sounds pretty EZ.

What are your tips for roasting duck?

2

My mother roasted a duck once and it took her forever to clean the oven afterwards. Make sure you’ve got a lid on the roasting pan, or something to stop the grease from splattering; duck’s a lot greasier than chicken or turkey. Also you might want one of those racks that fits inside the roasting pan and elevates the bird above the bottom, so it’s well-drained and doesn’t sit in its own grease.

Of course, it can’t compare with goose . . .

3

Don’t go there, dude. I beg you… Don’t go there…

Dang. Too late.

4

I’ve only cooked duck once, so I’m popping in to second what BrainGlutton said about using a rack. I could not believe how much fat came out of that duck.