Roast Duck With Orange Sauce Recipe

How to make it

---

• Half an hour before cooking, take the duck out of the refrigerator and remove from packaging.
• Take out the giblets, if packaged inside the duck. (I once forgot to do this and left them in their plastic packaging inside the cavity - some interesting aromas were coming out of the oven once it got cooking).
• Cut off the 'parson's nose' (tail part). Cut off the huge lumps of excess fat from around the vent . Trim any excess skin away. Cut off the excess lumps of fat and skin from around the neck area.
• Wash the duck inside and out and pat really dry with kitchen paper.
• Preheat oven to Gas 7 (220C/425F).
• Using a very sharp knife, score diagonally through the skin of the breast, about 7-8 scores on either side.
• You must be very careful to just cut halfway through the fat of the breast and not to cut into the meat.
• Place the bird on a rack in a roasting tin - this will enable excess fat to drain away. You can save this fat for other cooking if you want.
• Put in the oven just above the middle, and roast for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
• To make the sauce:
• Squeeze the 4 oranges and put the juice in a saucepan.
• Add the soy sauce and the sugar. Stir in well.
• Add a little salt and pepper.
• Put in a little finely grated orange zest, (about a teaspoon) making sure no white pith gets into the sauce.
• Bring to the boil and turn down to a simmer.
• Make a 'slurry' with the cornflour and cold water and add little by little to the to the sauce, until the desired consistency is achieved.
• Cook for a few minutes.
• When the duck is done, let it rest for 10-15 minutes.
• I serve this with some plain white rice, some green veg and the sauce.
• When Tom and I are feeling particularly carnivorous I don't carve the duck in the usual way - I can't be bothered and I usually wreck it anyway, not being good at carving - I just cut it in half lengthways with poultry shears and we devour it Henry the Eighth Style. Lots of kitchen paper required!

Prepared duck   Close