Baked duck in marinade is a traditional Christmas and New Year dish in Western countries. In Russia, not all housewives take up cooking ducks, being afraid to spoil the dish. Yes, this bird requires special cooking conditions, but dealing with them is very simple. The main thing is to observe all the subtleties of the process.
How to prepare a carcass for baking?
Many, having heard the phrase "baked duck", imagine delicious juicy meat and a tender crisp. In order to bake this bird correctly, you need to learn a few simple truths:
- Choose a carcass of the right size: it should be large and oily, the small duck will be dry, no matter how you try to marinate it.
- Wash and dry the bird thoroughly.
- Before you cook the whole duck, you need to cut off the extreme part of the wings (working with a knife along the joint) and check if the coccygeal glands are cut out by gutting, because when baked, they will give the dish an unpleasant taste.
- If you pickle a bird, then keep it in the mixture for at least two hours.
Whole baked duck with apples
Surely those people who have never tried this bird, at its mention represent precisely a duck with apples. This is the most popular way to cook duck. Such a dish will decorate any holiday table.
How to deal with it?
Thaw the duck carcass beforehand, wash and remove the rest of the feather. In a bowl, mix a spoonful of any vegetable oil and lemon juice, two pinches of cinnamon and one pinch of nutmeg. First, grate the duck with salt and pepper (inside and out), and then spread with the prepared marinade. Put it in the refrigerator for several hours.
Peel a few apples and cut into pieces. Then stuff the duck with fruit and add a few bay leaves. Put the prepared carcass in a deep pan, wrapping the wings with foil. Cooking duck in the oven takes an hour. To keep the meat soft, do not forget to water the dish with eye-catching juice. When the dish is almost ready, add some more chopped apples to it. When portioning them, you need to decorate each plate.
Peking Duck
Making Peking duck is not an easy process that takes time. But flavored and soaked meat is worth it.
The gutted bird must be suspended and doused with boiling water so that the meat turns white. Dry the bird with a paper towel, place in a bowl and cover with dry red wine. Then the duck should be rubbed with coarse salt and put in the refrigerator for the night.
When the specified time has passed, coat the duck with honey, put it on the bottle and put it in the cold for several hours. Then take a baking sheet and pour water into it, placing the wire rack on top.
Place the duck on the wire rack and put in the oven for an hour.
At this time, prepare the sauce. Mix 4 tablespoons of soy sauce, grated ginger, vegetable oil and pepper. We rub the hot bird with the mixture and send it to the oven for half an hour. When the dish is ready, it must be grated with honey and soy sauce. Peking duck is usually served pancakes.
Recipes for cooking duck in the oven: duck with tangerines
Grate the gutted duck with salt and pepper and put in the refrigerator. Three tablespoons of soy sauce and a spoonful of honey mix and grind with a fork. Peel 6 tangerines and squeeze the juice, mixing it with honey and sauce. Lubricate the carcass with the resulting mixture.
Take a few more tangerines and kiwi, peel and cut. Stuff the duck with them and gently sew it up. Then put it on a baking sheet, adding a few tablespoons of water. Put a tangerine peel around the bird. Bake the dish for about two hours.
Cooking the duck is a painstaking process, make sure that it is not burnt.
Confit - French Duck
Confit is a gourmet dish that has conquered many gourmets. To start with a duck, you need to cut off all the fat and divide it into pieces. Then cut several branches of thyme and rosemary. Grate this duck with herbs and salt. Put it in the refrigerator for the night.
Take sliced pieces with fat and place in a pan without oil. These pieces need to be fried on the smallest fire for a very long time. Merge the resulting fat. It should turn out approximately 500 ml. If not, duck fat can be slightly diluted with vegetable oil.
Remove the duck from the refrigerator, pat dry with napkins from the remnants of the marinade and place in a baking sheet.
Cut two onions into rings, chop 4 garlic cloves and add to the duck. Put a little thyme and rosemary on top. Pour duck fat and put in the oven at low power for three hours.
The confit duck is served with potatoes fried in the remaining fat. Cooking ducks in this way is rather laborious, but the result is usually enthralling.
Braised duck
You can not only bake the bird in the oven, but also stew it in a pan. When stewing takes place in its own juice, the meat is better saturated with aromas and comes out very soft.
The duck recipe is as follows. Remove the fillet from the bones and cut into small pieces. In a deep frying pan, heat the oil and put the meat there. Roast the duck over high heat for 3 minutes, constantly stirring. Then reduce the heat and fry for another 5 minutes.
Cut 2 onions and 2 cloves of garlic, add to the bird. Fry for another 15 minutes, and then pour water into the pan. She should cover the duck. Put 2 bay leaves, a few peas of pepper, a pinch of paprika and nutmeg, salt to the dish.
When the water boils, the fire must be reduced to a minimum and close the pan with a lid. Stew the dish in your own juice for 1.5 hours. After removing from heat, let go under the lid.
Braised duck served with any side dish.
In addition to the duck cooking options presented in the article, it is baked with potatoes in the sleeve, cooked with orange sauce, prunes, and sauerkraut.