My wife and I both don’t like the dryness and lack of flavor from roast turkey. This is now the third year where I’ve made roast duck for Thanksgiving. I’ve found that roasting duck in a dutch oven is pretty forgiving because the duck’s own fat is enough to keep it tender. This recipe is extremely simple. I don’t use five-spice powder, even though it’s a very prevalent flavor combination in Chinese cooking. But I find that it goes especially well with the natural flavor of the duck.
Ingredients
- 1 whole duck (I get them from Whole Foods)
- Five-spice seasoning
- Salt
- 2 yellow potatoes
Directions
- The day before, prep the duck. Remove the neck and giblets (stores usually will store this within the duck). Do some light scoring across the duck. This helps the seasoning really seep in and also makes the meat cook more evenly. In the pictures above, I actually over-scored it. It can be much lighter.
- Rub the duck all over with a LOT of salt and a LOT of five-spice powder. I usually take a small bowl and fill it to about one-third with the two seasonings. I rub the duck with my hand to apply the seasonings more evenly.
- Store overnight.
- Place the duck breast-side up in a dutch oven.
- Bake at 300 degrees F for 2 hours.
- At this point, I take the duck out and will add in some diced potatoes into the duck fat. There’s no secret here – I just peel the potatoes and try to cut the pieces evenly. You may need to add a little salt to the potatoes, but I find that usually the duck fat has enough of the salt from the overnight marinating.
- Put back in the oven and raise the temperature to 425 degrees F. This will crisp the duck and hopefully make the skin more crispy.
- Take out after 1 hour, but keep an eye on the duck. It might be less than an hour depending on your oven.
Nutrition Information (per cookie)
- It’s a Thanksgiving meal, so no need to count calories 🙂
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