Duck à l'Orange

Roast duck with a sauce built on a caramel taken dark and then stopped with vinegar, which is what keeps it from being merely sweet.

Duck. Not vegetarian — contains chicken stock, duck.

Ingredients

For the duck

• 1 duck, about 2.2 kg
• 1 orange, halved
• salt and pepper

For the sauce

• 4 oranges, preferably bitter Seville
• 1 lemon
• 80 g caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 400 ml duck or chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier, optional
• 20 g butter, cold

Method

1. THE CARAMEL IS TAKEN TO A DARK AMBER AND STOPPED WITH VINEGAR, and that is what stops the sauce being a sweet orange gravy. Sugar and vinegar cooked to a gastrique -- dark, almost smoking, then the vinegar in to arrest it -- gives a sharp bitter edge that stands up to the duck fat. A pale caramel gives something cloying that most versions of this dish suffer from.
2. THE CARAMEL GOES FURTHER THAN FEELS SAFE. Pale gold is not enough; it wants the colour of an old penny, right at the point where it smells of toffee rather than sugar. A few seconds past that it is burnt and must be thrown away and started again, which is why it is watched and not timed.
3. THE DUCK IS PRICKED AND STARTED HIGH. The fat has to render out or the skin cannot crisp, so the legs and the fat pads are pricked all over -- through the skin, not into the meat -- and the first twenty minutes are hot.
4. Duck patted dry inside and out, the skin pricked all over the breast and legs, seasoned, and the halved orange put in the cavity.
5. On a rack over a tray, into a 220C oven for 20 minutes.
6. Heat down to 170C and roasted a further 1 hour 15 minutes, the fat poured off every 30 minutes and kept.
7. Meanwhile: the zest of two oranges pared off in strips, cut into fine shreds, blanched 3 times in fresh boiling water to take the bitterness out, and set aside.
8. All the oranges and the lemon juiced.
9. Sugar in a heavy pan over a medium heat, melted without stirring and taken to a DARK amber.
10. The vinegar poured in -- it will spit violently and the caramel will seize -- and stirred until it dissolves again.
11. The citrus juice and the stock in, and reduced by half, 15 to 20 minutes, until it coats a spoon.
12. The duck rested 15 minutes. Any juices from the tray skimmed of fat and added to the sauce.
13. The blanched zest and the Grand Marnier in, then the cold butter whisked in off the heat, which gives the gloss. Tasted: it should be sharp first and sweet second.
14. The duck jointed and the sauce spooned over rather than poured, so the skin stays crisp.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes