Casserole Roasted Duck with Carrots
The last few months I have spent learning how to cook duck. A whole new bird for me, before last fall I had never eaten or cooked duck. We got a little carried away last summer with what I like to refer to as ‘Collect-A-Duck’. You see, people buy themselves a few ducks, those ducks maybe hatch out some ducklings and it’s all fun and cute until winter rolls around and you have to deal with ducks in the winter. So they give the ducks away on craigslist. Then my husband goes and gets them. This is a text I got while at a baby shower at one point and the picture of what I found upon returning home: 
At our peak we had 40 ducks. 40 ducks. Not to mention the 13 chickens and 12 goats… Things got a little out of hand and I found myself looking at all these wonderful ducks and thinking, “We are going to have to feed all these creatures through the winter…” and here in Montana that means something. There is nothing for them to forage, everything is frozen. In the summer they forage for a lot of their food and it doesn’t cost much to feed them, but winter, that’s a whole different ball game. So we butchered most of them and got ourself back down to 11 ducks. A much more reasonable number in my mind! So once these guys were in the freezer I had to figure out how to cook them. You see cooking duck is absolutely NOT like cooking chicken. If you have never cooked a duck before, this is the first thing you need to know. I have talked to lots of people and read lots of recipes. If you cook a duck as you would a chicken, you will hate it. Cook it like a duck and it is moist and succulent and delicious. The first place I went when wanting to learn to cook duck is the expert of course, Julia Child. I whipped out the ‘Art of French Cooking’ and read the entire section on cooking duck. She mostly has basic roasted duck recipes in there and they are very good, but there are LOTs of other things you can do with duck. This particular recipe is from there, with a few minor changes I made, it is delicious and pretty simple to make. Just like any other french recipe you need to start it earlier in the day than you normally would but it’s very tasty.
- 1 whole duck
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- rendered pork fat (ahem...bacon grease or cooking oil)
- an herb bouquet: 4 parsley sprigs, ¼ teaspoon thyme, 1 tablespoon tarragon
- 2 lbs fresh carrots
- 2-3 tablespoons minced parsely
- Preheat the oven to 325˚.
- Season in the cavity of the duck with salt and pepper, truss the bird and then prick the skin (not the meat) around the thighs, back and lower part of the breast. Make sure the duck is nice and dry.
- Place the casserole (also known as a dutch oven) on the stove over high heat.
- Add the fat or oil and brown the duck on all sides.
- Pour out the browning fat (I like to save this for other cooking - super good for frying potatoes in). Sprinkle some salt over the duck and place it breast side up in the casserole. Add the herb bouquet and put the lid on. Put it in the oven for 50-60 minutes. This is pretty much set it and forget it, no basting is necessary.
- While the duck is cooking, cut up the carrots into about ¾ inch dice. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and then add the carrots and simmer for about 5 minutes, drain and set aside until the duck comes out of the oven.
- Once the duck has roasted, pull the casserole out of the oven and add the carrots to the pot. Toss them in the fat that has collected in the bottom of the pot, replace the lid and roast another 30-40 minutes, until the juices of the duck run a pale rose (medium rare) or clear (well done). Remember duck is a dark meat, not white like chicken.
- My carrots were not quite as roasted as I wanted them at this point, so I pulled the duck out for carving and popped the carrots back into the oven at 400˚ to further caramelize them, about 15 more minutes.
- Carve up the duck, place it over the carrots, sprinkle with parsley and serve with some of the collected juices at the bottom of the pot.
- Huckleberry Plum Pie - January 1, 2017
- Fresh Mango Sorbet - July 17, 2016
- Steak Caesar Salad - June 8, 2016
