For years we have been growing our own fruit, vegetables and herbs and really enjoying both the fresh taste and the satisfaction of producing it ourselves. Well for the first time ever, we have been able to do the same with our poultry as well.
We already had two Muscovy Drakes and our last lot of ducklings produced 3 more. Having a ratio of 5 drakes to only 13 ducks was going to result in a massive amount of fights, so while we kept one of the new ones to keep expanding the bloodline, the other 2 had to go.
Slaughtering and preparing the ducks
With the assistance of a friends parents, we knocked off two of the drakes at the 13 week mark, and subsequently kept one duck apiece. While this may sound gory, it really wasn’t. By doing poultry we had raised ourselves, we could be assured that the ducks had had a good life (we free-range) and were killed instantly and humanely. I shant go into too much detail as this is more a recipe piece but in a nutshell this was done by:
*Giving the ducks a big feed of food and water (a last meal as it were), but then not allowing them to eat or drink for the next 24 hours so that there was nothing in their bowel or bladder.
*Holding the duck upside down by its feet, which actually calms it somewhat, then striking it just behind the back of the head with an axe, yet not beheading. This not only instantly kills the duck humanely but the allows you to drain the blood.
*Submerging the carcass in very hot (but not boiling) water for several minutes so you can pluck the feathers.
*Gutting the duck.
Our drake came out at a very respectable 2.2kg, filled with beautiful lean meat as we had not purposely fattened him up.
Cooking
This being the first time we were eating our own livestock, I wanted to get the cooking exactly right. Not an easy task since I’ve never roasted a duck before. After looking through various recipies I chose bits and pieces from several I liked and produced a fantastic result! So enjoy ‘Big Angry Trev’s Roast Duck & Potatoes Recipe’.
Ingredients
*1 x Home Grown Duck
*1 x Lemon
*2 x Oranges
*Sage leaves
*Purple Sage leaves
*Rosemary
*Chinese 5-Spice
*1 dozen medium-sized Potatoes
Food Preparation
*Quarter 2 oranges and 1 lemon
*Go pick the two types of sage and some big sprigs of rosemary (or buy beforehand if you don’t have a herb garden)
*Alternating between the different citrus and herbs, stuff the ducks cavity to capacity
*Taking a knife, score the duck both on the breast and underneath, making sure to cut right through the fat but not into the meat.
*Rub a decent amount of Chinese 5-Spice into the scored flesh
*Peel the dozen potatoes, then boil for 10 minutes. Shake virgoursly inside the pot to roughen the outsides, then set aside.
Method
*Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
*Put the duck in breast-side up on a roasting rack with underneath tray
*At the half hour mark, remove the duck, flip over and put back in.
*At the hour mark remove the tray and drain the fat into the saucepan containing the potatoes. Put back into the oven breast side up
*Roll the potatoes around in the duck fat, then place in a deep roasting tray on the upper shelf of the oven.
*At the 1.30 mark flip the duck for the last time
*At the 2 hour mark remove both the duck and the potatoes.
Drain the remaining fat from the roasting pan into a Tupperware container and stick in the fridge for future use.
Side Dishes
To add a bit of colour to the table, I personally did a lot of orange vegetables, roasting up a ton of carrots, kumura and (ugh) pumpkin. Also to compliment the oriental style in which I was doing the duck, I made up a huge bed of fried rice, full of peas, corn and bacon, topped with some crispy noodles.
So there ya go, Big Angry Trev’s Roast Duck & Potatoes recipe!
Got any other duck roasting tips, pop them in the comments section below!
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