Honey Roast Duck Recipe

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This Honey Roast Duck recipe makes a beautiful holiday chief cup of tea but is easy adequate for any special affair or Sunday dinner. With crisp skin and tender, juicy kernel, this post will show you how to cook duck to get that beautiful roasted spirit and amazing flavor !

Reading: Honey Roast Duck Recipe

We love serving this ridicule duck with homemade green attic casserole ( it ‘s from-scratch and so delectable ! ), cranberry jello salad, and slow cooker creamed corn. And since we are normally serving this while entertaining, I constantly make a fabulous dessert to go with it !

It ‘s time for another installation in the Historically Hungry series I do with my friend Jenni from The Gingered Whisk. And since it ‘s November and Thanksgiving is right around the corner, this time it ‘s the Pilgrim edition !

What was eaten at the first Thanksgiving?

Everybody knows that basically none of what we presently eat as “ traditional ” Thanksgiving favorites were served at the first gear Thanksgiving, right ?
We are n’t even certain if turkey was on the menu for that first Thanksgiving. What we do know about that beginning Thanksgiving meal is available from precisely a match snippets from surviving documents from that time and historical research .
Like this snip of a letter from Edward Winslow, one of the original Plymouth colonists, who wrote home to a acquaintance about the feast that belated became the basis for our Thanksgiving celebration :

“ Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowl, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed arsenic much fowl as, with a small avail beside, served the company about a workweek. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. ” – cited from an article on Smithsonian.com .

That whole article is very interesting read if you want to learn more about what the Pilgrims and Wampanoag truly ate on the first Thanksgiving .
My Historically Hungry cohort and I decided to each contribute a recipe that is a closer nod to the original offerings than the sugared potato casserole or cranberry sauce that we eat today .
Jenni has a recipe for Nasaump ( screen of a cornmeal porridge with berries and nuts ) for the Wampanoag slope of the meal and I ‘m sharing this Honey Roast Duck recipe for the Pilgrim english of things .

now, in all honesty, I have never made duck anterior to this one ! I ‘ve eaten it, but never thought to roast one myself at home. But it was sol easy and delectable !
If you can make a whole roast wimp, you can easily make a whole ridicule duck. So basically, you can do this .
A typical duck will serve 3-4 adults, and our class of four was well able to finish off this integral boo in one sit .
Roast hedge is arrant for any particular occasion, and is a great idea for a smaller thanksgiving or for a Christmas or New Year ’ s Eve dinner .
And even though there is honey brushed over the duck during the last part of the ridicule work, it does not make a sweet duck and is n’t heavy or overpowering like the orange sauce that is then much served with duck .
The honey good helps crisp up the peel and give that beautiful dark semblance to the finished boo, but the overall season was very savory from the garlic and onion that I stuffed inside the dip pit before roasting .

I ‘m including detail instructions with bit-by-bit photos below to show how to prepare and cook a duck, since I know many people ( like me ) have never cooked duck before .

How to Cook Duck

It ‘s likely that the dip prepared by the Pilgrims for the first Thanksgiving were spit-roasted or boiled, which were typically methods of homework back then. But these days it ‘s precisely much easier to grill, smoke, or roast a duck rather .
I opted to roast our duck in the oven so I could easily save the duck fat for use in early cook .
One big consideration when roasting a whole duck is how to deal with the layer of fatty under the skin that adds tons of flavor but can be catchy to cook with by rights given it ‘s thickness. They key is to score the clamber with a crisp tongue so that the fat can escape ( a process called “ render ” ) while the hedge slow roasts in the oven .
There is no necessitate to rub a duck with butter or anoint before roasting like you do with chicken or turkey because the hedge is going to naturally have enough of fatten to keep it juicy and damp on it ‘s own .
This means of preparing and slow roasting ducks ( and goose, for that matter, which are besides probable to have been served at the first gear Thanksgiving ) is how waterfowl has been prepared for centuries .
then only downside to the dull roasted method acting to cooking duck is that the breast kernel will be in full cooked. Some people, myself included, prefer medium-rare breast meat when it comes to duck, and that ‘s just not truly accomplishable when roasting an entire duck .
That said, even the breast meat is still damp and the legs and thighs are perfect when prepared this way. I just wanted to clear up any expectations that this readiness is n’t the same as sauteeing duck breasts in a pan for that arrant medium-rare .

Step-by-Step Photos for How to Roast Duck

Be certain to wholly defrost your duck in the refrigerator for 2-3 days if using a freeze duck, then remove giblets and neck from inside the duck .
Let the duck sit out on the counter for 30 minutes before roasting to allow it to come up in temperature a piece rather than putting a completely cold bird in the oven .

Using a very sharp tongue, score the clamber on the duck ‘s breast in a rhombus traffic pattern, trying to merely cut the hide without actually reaching the breast meat below. This is going to allow the fatten to render from the duck and clobber the dame for you while it roasts .

If there are other fatty areas like where the duck legs connect to the consistency, give those a thump or cut deoxyadenosine monophosphate well. Stuff the pit of the dip with garlic cloves, a quarter onion, and a couple sprig of rosemary. You could besides use lemon slices or a quarter apple .
The thrust should be discarded after cooking, but the aromatics add relish to the meat .

Fold in the free skin on both ends of the duck to hold everything inside and tie the duck legs with butcher ‘s twine or string to truss it. This is done by tying a loop around one duck leg, then crossing it over the early branch and wrapping the intertwine around both legs a clock time or two, then tying it off .
I do n’t actually know if it affects how the duck cook, but it makes for a prettier presentation .

then rub the duck all over with a mix of salt, pepper, garlic gunpowder, and paprika .

position the dip with the scored breast side up on a wire cooling rack over a baking sheet if you are like me and do n’t have a large roasting pan with a single-foot .
If you do have a roast pan, even better ! You fair do n’t want the duck sitting on the bottom of the pan because in truth, you will be surprise how a lot fat will cook out of the duck and you do n’t want it sitting in that while it cooks .
Lots of people like to put potatoes under their duck to roast in the duck fat at the same time, but I did n’t try that this time around .

How long does it take to roast a duck?

It will take around 2 hours to roast a wholly duck in the oven, including resting time after removing the duck from the oven .
You can tell the duck is done when the juices from the fattest part of the thigh or drumstick are placid just barely flushed pink when the duck is pricked. At the risk of stating the obvious, duck is domestic fowl, so the USDA recommends cooking it to 165 degrees F, but since duck is not a coarse salmonella carrier wave like early poultry, many people prefer duck breasts to be more around 135 degrees F .
Although I typically prefer using a kernel thermometer, this is one situation where I find sticking to a ridicule fourth dimension and using the prick trial to be the better choice since we are going to go higher than the 135 degrees F that I would want if I was cooking merely the duck breasts in a saute pan .
Start making this honey roast duck recipe by roasting it at a higher temperature of 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then decrease the oven temp to 350 degrees and knock for 1 hour and 15 minutes. If the juices are still running pink, let it roast another 15 minutes before pulling it out of the oven and tenting with thwart for 15 minutes to let the juices redistribute before carve .
Depending on the size of your hedge and the temperature it was at when you put it in the oven, this might take a little less time or possibly even a little longer .
Start checking about the 60 minute mark when you brush on half of the honey onto the duck, and again ten minutes by and by when you do the concluding brush of beloved to finish it off and get this beautiful night roasted skin .

How do you make duck skin crispy?

The actual tips for getting crisp duck skin have been mentioned but they are worth repeating therefore you know why you are doing them .
startle by patting the duck dry with composition towels. then score to help release some of the fat during the cook work. Season the duck well with a rub that includes salt which helps dry out the skin besides and get it crispy .
Start the duck at a higher oven temperature, decreasing it partway through. And last brush the hedge with a short honey a pair of times towards the end of roasting. This will sort of caramelize with the rub and the fatten coming off the duck, which you can use to baste it a couple of times if you like .

Tips for Roasting a Whole Duck

Present the whole honey roast duck at the table by putting it on a large platter with brightly colored greens or fruit under or around it. I used fresh spinach leaves and a segmented pomegranate for color. But you could surround a roast duck with roasted potatoes or root vegetables or use rosemary sprigs as well for a pretty presentation.
If you have more than 3 adults you are feeding or want to have any leftovers, you will need to roast more than one whole duck.
Don’t just discard the duck fat. Save it in the refrigerator to use just like you would with leftover bacon grease.

What to Serve with Honey Roast Duck

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