Crispy Roasted Duck

Sure, this might not be the traditional Sunday roast us South Africans enjoy most of the time, but it sure is amazingly delicious and worth the try.

To roast a duck perfectly is not rocket science, friends.  All you need is a bit of time; much more reason to try this recipe of Crispy Roasted Duck with a couple of friends on a lazy Sunday. The oven does most of the work here, and after a couple bottles of wine and good company, you will have a feast on your hands in no time.

If you think duck is hard to come by, we bought this gorgeous fatty bird at our local Woolies and it was as fresh as can be. As mentioned by a few friends on twitter, duck lends itself amazingly well to Asian flavors – but I decided to keep it simple by smothering the bird in freshly ground sea salt and black pepper.

The secret to getting a delicious tender duck is to render the fat properly as ducks have a huge amount of fat under the skin.  Prick your bird all over before putting it in the oven, and during cooking time.  It is also wise to roast the bird on top of a grill tray, to render the fat into the baking dish.  This makes the most amazing roasted potatoes by the way…

Slow roasting duck surely is the best way to get all the fatty goodness out of the bird and onto your veggies for roasting.  Because the bird has all this fat, its flesh still came out pretty tender and amazingly moist. Next time we will definitely experiment with other flavors and spices. So, who is giving this one a try?

Print Recipe

Crispy Roasted Duck

An easy recipe for simple crispy roasted duck.

Votes: 0
Rating: 0
You:

Rate this recipe!

Course

Main Dish, sunday lunch

Prep Time

15 min

Cook Time

5 hours

Passive Time

4 hours

Servings

people MetricUS Imperial

Ingredients

• 1.9 kg whole duck
• salt and black pepper to season
• 500 gr baby potatoes
• 2 whole garlic tops sliced off
• 1 cup baby carrots
• 2 onions quartered

Course Main Dish, sunday lunch Prep Time 15 min Cook Time 5 hours Passive Time 4 hours Servings people MetricUS Imperial Ingredients 1.9 kg whole duck salt and black pepper to season 500 gr baby potatoes 2 whole garlic tops sliced off 1 cup baby carrots 2 onions quartered

Votes: 0 Rating: 0 You: Rate this recipe!

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. First off, prick the duck all over and season generously with salt and black pepper.
3. Arrange the bird breasts up on an oven safe grill tray, were the fat can be rendered inside the baking tray.
4. Reduce the oven to 160 degrees Celsius and set your timer to 30min.
5. After 30 minutes, remove the tray and flip the bird over, pricking it again. Back to the oven, for another 30 minutes.
6. This step would then be repeated 4 times. That gives you a total of about 5 hours of slow roasting the duck at 160 degrees Celsius.
7. Each time, flipping the bird over, pricking it and returning it to the oven for another 30 min.
8. For the last step of roasting your bird, ensure it is breast side up, increase the heat of your oven to 190 degrees Celsius and grill for about 7 minutes, just to crisp the skin up for sure. Set aside.
9. See how much fat you are getting in your baking tray? You can transfer this fat into a heat safe bowl and freeze it for another day of roasting delicious crispy potatoes…For now, only leave about 4 tablespoons of fat for the veggies, garlic and potatoes you are roasting for the feast.
10. Boil your potatoes until soft, transfer them to the roasting tray with at least 4 tablespoons of rendered duck fat, smash them gently, season and add the veggies and garlic. Roast for 40 minutes until soft and colored.
11. Serve duck with roasted veg and potatoes.

Share this Recipe