By the way, this serves 2 and the duck alone cost 70 zloties (about 12 quid) so there's my 5 zloties bang out the window. But, what the hell.
Serves: 2
Cost: a lot more than 5 zloties
You'll need:
- a duck (duh!) plus the old giblets (I like that word!)
- around 400g of potatoes, peeled
- half a cauliflower
- butter
- milk
- veg oil
- mustard seeds
- cumin seeds
- 1 dried red chilli
- salt
- 1 shallot
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 glass of red wine
- 1 glass of port
- star anise
- 1 coriander plant
- spring onions
- 1 tablespoon of honey
- 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon of sherry
- 1 tsp Sichuan pepper corns
- 1 tsp five spice powder (Chinese)
- 2 tsp grated ginger
- rosemary
Shall we?
Stage 1 (the day before, if you like)
1. Chop the cauliflower and braise in a pan in butter for around 10 minutes to get a little brown
2. Meanwhile, make some Indian flavoured oil. Heat some oil in a pan and add 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 1/3 tsp mustard seeds and a dried red chilli. Wait for the seeds to splutter
3. Add 1/3 tsp of turmeric and immediately take off the heat.
4. Pass the oil into a bowl and allow to settle
5. When the cauliflower is starting to brown, add a little milk into the pan. Bring to a slight boil then put it on the lowest heat you can. Season with a little salt and pepper. Poach for ten minutes or until the cauliflower is soft. Keep the mix moving in the pan to avoid the milk curdling.
6. Strain out the cauliflower into a blender, retaining the liquid. Add a squeeze of lemon and enough of the liquid to blend into a fine puree.
7. When blended, add a little of the spiced oil, spooning from the top so that you only get the oil and leave the sediment in the bowl. 2-3 tsp should be fine. Ok - cauliflower puree done. Reheat the next day.
Stage Two the day before
1. Let's marinate the duck! So, first we'll crush 1 tablespoon of Sichuan pepper corns
2. Prep the other ingredients - coriander, spring onions, soy sauce, sherry, 5 spice, ginger.
3. Add 1 tsp of salt plus 1 tablespoon of honey
4. Mix them all up real good!
5. Score the duck skin without piercing the meat (try to do it neater than I did). This allows the fat to render more easily while roasting and also gets more of the marinade flavour in there.
6. Rub the marinade inside and out.
7. Keep in the fridge over night.
Stage Three (could be done the day before too)
1. Ok - I think we'll do a little red wine/ port reduction style of gravy. So, let's start of with some finely chopped shallots in a pan and a little hot oil. Give them a few minutes till translucent.
2. Add the giblets. I added the neck. If I was doing this again, I'd leave the neck out - it generated too much fat which I then needed to remove. Brown nicely along with a roughly crushed clove of garlic.
3. Don't forget the star anise!
4. Add in the port and wine. Season a little. Reduce down nicely.
5. Pass into a container. Reheat and reduce down further the next day just before serving the duck.
The Big Day
1. Peel the spuds and cut into fairly large pieces. Keep in a pan of cold water until you boil. Start to prepare around 60 minutes before serving.
2. The oven needs to be on 160 degrees more or less. You'll need to put the duck on a roasting rack on a baking tray. It will need around 2.5 hours to cook plus 15 minutes to rest. Have this in mind for when you time the potatoes. Roast the duck for 30 minutes uncovered. Then cover with foil - this stops the marinade elements from burning.
3. Every so often, pull the duck out the oven and drain off the fat - keep it. We'll be roasting the potatoes in it!
4. After the duck's been in for 1 hour 45 minutes, parboil the potatoes for 5 minutes - no longer!! Drain. Put back into the pan. Season. Drizzle over enough duck fat to cover the spuds. Add a little rosemary if you like.
5. Transfer to a roasting tray. Get them in the oven. They'll need around 45 minutes. Turn them from time to time.
6. After you've taken the duck out to rest, you can reheat the cauliflower puree and the red wine/ port reduction. After the duck's rested for 15 minutes, the potatoes will have been in the oven for 45 minutes and will now be perfect. Plate up!
7. Enjoy!
Merry Christmas! Ho ho ho!
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