Duck baked in the oven: recipes with photos

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Duck, baked in one way or another, is present in the national cuisines of many nations. And everywhere it is considered a festive dish. Indeed, unlike chicken, duck has a very rich, memorable taste. This bird is most often cooked whole in the oven. And now, with heat-resistant sleeves and foil, traditional recipes have been supplemented with new ones.

The most famous way of cooking duck, which has received worldwide fame, is in Beijing. The sides of the bird are smeared with honey, and when baked, a surprisingly tasty caramelized crust is obtained. Another duck is often stuffed. Its meat is ideally combined with sour stuffing: apples, cabbage, quince, cranberries. But the duck is also stuffed with porridge, mushrooms and sweet fruits (oranges and tangerines). Another bird, although less often, is stewed and fried. In this article you will find a selection of recipes for duck baked in the oven, both whole and in pieces, with a side dish, with minced meat or as an independent dish.

How to choosecarcass

This bird's meat becomes rougher and more sinewy with age. And if you buy an old carcass, no matter how hard you try, no matter what recipe you use, the result will be deplorable. Therefore, before considering the question of how to roast a duck, let's deal with choosing the right bird. Carcasses sold in supermarkets are young. But on poultry farms, ducks are stuffed with antibiotics and other growth stimulants. Such meat is not much different from chicken. For a good duck, go to the market. But even there, be on the lookout so that you do not slip a bird that died of old age.

First of all, feel the “bust” of the duck. In young individuals, it is soft, the sternum can be slightly bent, and in old ones it is like a shell. Now let's pay attention to the legs of the bird. Young fingers look even, and they are soft, with pale membranes. Older birds have hardened feet. And their fingers are fanned from the heel. Fat under the skin of a good duck should not be yellow-greenish, but white. The skin of such a carcass is white, smooth, slightly shiny. In the cut, the meat of the “correct” duck is red, of a rich hue. Needless to say, it exudes a fresh smell, and the carcass should not be slimy?

Preparing food

Whatever recipe for baked duck you choose, you need to start cooking the dish with preliminary cutting of the carcass. It should be washed under running water, dried. If there are feathers, they must be removed. You also need to pull out all the insides. The duck tail contains a gland that does not exude verynice smell. And it gets stronger with heat treatment. Therefore, the duck tail is cut out.

In order for tough meat to bake well and get rid of the specific smell, it is marinated. There are many recipes for mixtures in which you should hold the carcass before cooking. The most common is vinegar with spices and spices. They also use wine, lemon juice. Marinated duck meat becomes not only softer, it is saturated with the smell of spices. If you are going to bake a whole bird, it should be cut off the extreme joint from the wings. You also need to cut off the skin and excess fat in the tail and neck.

Whole duck

It is natural that the meat, cut into pieces, is baked faster. Such a dish is more reliable, and you will be insured against an unpleasant surprise when you find raw flesh in the depths of the carcass. However, the whole carcass looks like a festive dish, and cutting it in front of the guests is a whole ritual. And it is much easier to cut it ready-made than raw. Therefore, many housewives are interested in the question of how to bake a whole duck.

In this case, you need to know a few tricks. Firstly, in order to get soft meat that falls off the bones, you need to slightly boil the duck, literally 20-30 minutes, until half cooked. The resulting broth is not poured out, but poured over the carcass during the baking process. Before you send the duck to the oven, it must be marinated for several hours, and even better - half a day. There are several ways to bake a bird: on a baking sheet with high sides, in a ceramic cauldronor cast iron goose, in foil or sleeve. Therefore, the heat treatment time is different. The foil must be removed and the sleeve cut twenty minutes before the end of cooking, so that the duck has time to brown. Now let's look at individual recipes.

Duck pieces

This method saves a lot of time, because pre-cut meat marinates and cooks faster. At the same time, we can buy not a carcass, but some of its individual parts - legs, breasts or thighs. This will save you from having to butcher and gut the bird. Duck baked in pieces is also marinated. But first, they wash it, and dry the skin with paper towels.

Here is the easiest recipe for pickling duck meat. Mix s alt with ground black pepper, add two tablespoons of honey, stir. With this mass carefully rub the pieces. Put them in a baking dish. It can be a baking sheet with high sides, a heat-resistant glass bowl, a cast-iron or ceramic cauldron. Squeeze the juice from one orange onto the duck. Two other citrus fruits, without peeling, cut into thick circles and lay out on top of the pieces. We put three sprigs of fresh rosemary there. We tighten the top of the dish with cling film and put it in the refrigerator for three to four hours. When the duck is marinated, preheat the oven to 200 degrees. We remove the cling film, and put a piece of foil in its place. We bake 50 minutes. Then we remove the foil, pour over the pieces with the juice that has stood out and cook for another quarter of an hour. Great in place of citrusprunes.

Stuffed Duck Basic Recipe

Of course, you can bake a whole carcass without anything. But the filling ingredients make the roasted duck juicy and soak it with their flavors. To show the very principle of cooking stuffed poultry, we will use the classic recipe. In it, three large sour apples and four sweet plums are taken for the filling. If you don’t have the last fruits, then you can replace them with oranges, tangerines, quince. Prunes will do too. First, pour the prepared carcass with boiling water. This is necessary so that the skin on it does not burst during baking. Dry the duck with paper towels. Mix a tablespoon of spices for poultry and s alt. Rub all this carcass inside and out. Leave for half an hour.

Meanwhile, let's take care of the fruit. Remove the pits from the plums, cut the core from the apples and cut into slices. Stuff the inside of the duck with fruits. So that the filling does not fall out, fasten the edges of the peritoneum with skewers or sew with a harsh thread. Now you need to tie the wings and legs behind the back of the duck so that they do not burn when baking. We cover the baking sheet with parchment. Lay the duck upside down. We bake 40 minutes at 180 degrees. Then we turn the carcass over, pour over the allocated juice. Slightly reduce the heat in the oven, to 170 degrees. We bake another three quarters of an hour. We make the glaze by mixing honey with soy sauce in equal proportions. With this mass, using a silicone brush, coat the whole duck. We send to bake until cooked, which is checked by a puncture in the thickest part of the carcass. If the ichor did not come out, but amber juice appeared, then the baked duck with apples and plums is ready. Toward the end of the culinary process, you can put a side dish on a baking sheet next to the bird - potatoes, green beans, cauliflower. Vegetables will impart additional flavor to the meat and soak in its juice.

Peking duck preparation

It is absolutely impossible to ignore this most famous dish of Chinese cuisine. Here we present a recipe adapted to Slavic realities - it is unlikely that you have a special blowing apparatus that separates the skin from the meat. But if you find a Peking duck, the dish will come out more authentic. This bird has thinner skin and less fat. We prepare a two-kilogram carcass: gut, cut off the extreme phalanges of the wings, tail and skin from the neck, pour boiling water over the duck, dry it with a towel.

Preparing the marinade. To do this, mix in a saucepan 3-4 cm ginger root, cut into small pieces, two tablespoons of honey, 3-4 star anise, a pinch of cinnamon, fennel seeds, hot red pepper, ground cloves. Pour one and a half liters of water and a quarter cup of rice vinegar. We put the saucepan on the fire and cook after boiling for five minutes. Pour this mixture over the duck on all sides. We rub its skin with s alt to taste, ground garlic and ginger (five cloves and one teaspoon). Peking duck should be marinated in a cold place for at least 12 hours. The carcass must be put on a jar, and it, in turn, put in a deepcontainer as the bird will release the juice.

Peking Duck Roast

The next day we start cooking. Let the carcass lie down for an hour at room temperature. Transfer to a baking sheet with high sides. Cover with a sheet of foil. We bake at 200 degrees for about an hour. Mix sesame oil with soy sauce in proportions 2:3. We take out the baking sheet and grease the duck with this solution. Throw away the foil. We return the bird back to the oven, increasing the heat to 230 degrees. So we bake for about ten minutes. We get it again. By this time, we should have liquid honey on hand. If it is candied (solid), heat it in a water bath. Carefully grease the carcass with honey. After that, the baked duck in the oven should stand for another five minutes. Then you can serve it to the table.

Duck baked in sleeve

Such a simple device as a non-melting bag allows you to cook a juicy bird, and even at the same time with a side dish. The sleeve will protect the meat from drying out and save the cook from having to constantly water the carcass with the released juice. The cooking process is not very different from the standard one - on a baking sheet in the oven. Duck baked with potatoes will be a wonderful and hearty dish for a family celebration.

Rub the carcass with s alt and spread with honey. We leave it to marinate. Peel five potatoes. We cut the same number of apples of sour varieties into thick slices, removing the cores. Sprinkle vegetables and fruits with pinches of cinnamon, chili, s alt, cardamom and star anise. We mix. We start with part of the minced meat the belly of the duck. We sew the ends of the peritoneum or fasten them with skewers. We put the bird in the sleeve along with the remaining potatoes and apples. Pour half a glass of cream. We tie the bag and put it on a baking sheet. We cook for an hour and a half at 200 degrees. Cut the sleeve (carefully, hot steam!) and return to the oven until a fried crust is obtained.

Duck baked in foil

The thin sheet of aluminum also keeps the meat from drying out in the oven. It prevents the juice from evaporating. The foil, however, prevents the duck skin from browning. Therefore, the sheet must be unfolded twenty minutes before the end of the heat treatment. Foil is also valuable in that we can cook roasted duck with potatoes or other side dishes in it. Vegetables are literally stewed in the released meat juice. The bird carcass, before being wrapped in foil, should be marinated and rubbed with s alt and a mixture of vegetable oil, crushed garlic and honey. In a metal bag, such a duck is baked for about an hour. Stuffed poultry can also be cooked in foil.

Duck in beer

This dish requires a cast-iron goose casserole. We prepare the carcass, rub it with s alt, pepper, and other spices for poultry. My six apples. We cut three of them into quarters and lay them back down on the bottom of the goose. The rest of the apples are peeled and three large chips. We pack this mass inside the duck abdomen. We lay the carcass itself on apples. Sprinkle with a teaspoon of cumin, put three cloves and a dozen peas of allspice. Pour halfliters of light beer. We lower the lid of the goose and put it in the oven. We cook at 200 degrees for at least an hour. Then remove the lid and continue baking for another thirty minutes. It should be noted that the lower apples, cut into quarters, are not served on the table. They are used only for flavor and as a buffer between the bottom of the goose and the skin of the bird. It is recommended to serve boiled potatoes as a side dish.

Duck in dough

Bread shell will not only make the dish more satisfying, but also protect it from drying out better than any foil. Duck baked in dough looks original, and its meat comes out tender and juicy. Traditionally, we begin work with the preparation of the marinade. We mix in a bowl three cloves of finely chopped garlic, a shabby centimeter piece of ginger, lemon or lime juice, two teaspoons of Dijon mustard and one sugar, a pinch of s alt, red and black pepper. With this mass we rub the duck inside and out. We send to marinate.

When we are going to bake the duck, we will prepare the dough. To do this, sift two and a half cups of flour, mix with a teaspoon of cookie powder. Pour 250 milliliters of kefir into another container. Beat one egg and mix well. We begin to add flour with baking powder in portions until an elastic dough is kneaded. We give it a quarter of an hour to settle, after which we roll it into a thin layer. Put the carcass in the middle of the circle. We raise the edges of the layer and “swaddle” the duck. We cover the baking sheet with parchment. We lay out the bundle so that the edges of the dough aredown below. Lubricate the surface with yolk. We bake for at least an hour at a temperature of 160 degrees. The dough should be golden brown by then.