We’ve been experimenting with Pekin duck recipes over the last few weeks, learning about the best ways to cook our new favorite meal!We want to offer you some of our thoughts about our simple recipes, in case you are new to cooking duck and wonder how it should be done. So far we’ve cooked 4 ducks in 4 different ways, and we do have our favorite techniques! The exciting thing that we’ve learned from all this cooking, is that it’s really hard to ruin duck, short of burning it. There is so much fat that the meat never dries out the way chicken or turkey does when overcooked. Knowing this should help quell your fear about cooking duck… Just go for it!
Here is the second recipe we tried!
Medium Heat, Roasted Breast: 325 degrees for 2.5 hours with veggies
Score the skin on both sides so that the fat will cook out of the bird and pool in the bottom of the dish. This allows the meat to stay moist but the skin to get crispy!
Cover the duck liberally with salt and garlic powder.
Place the duck, breast up, in a dish filled with your favorite veggies (we used carrots, celery, and onion). The great thing about this is that the veggies will soak up the duck fat and become the most delicious veggies you’ve ever tasted! Add as many veggies as you’d like… There is plenty of duck fat to go around!
The finished product!
Taste Test:
The breast was moist and delicious, but it wasn’t our favorite technique to date!
The legs were a moist and very good, but not our favorite thighs to date.
The skin on the top of the bird was crispy, and my favorite skin overall! But, since the bird was not flipped during the cooking time, the skin adjacent to the veggies was not crispy!
Stay tuned for the third recipe we tried!
.:.