Today's recipe in culinary literacy
is a gorgeous Bohemian style duck.
When I was a little kid, there were a handful of really, really soigné Czech restaurants
that my father loved. We would go to these restaurants with the bohemian style
duck, which was so simple. Orange, and caraway, and duck. And they had a
wonderful, sweet, tart, orange sauce that went underneath it. It was always served
with roasted carrots, and potatoes, and every time I make this,
which is at least once a month, I think of my dad. Because it was one of
his favorite, favorite dishes to eat. He would get so excited on the walk to the
restaurant, and then home.
First thing I want to show you is the sauce. You make a
reduction of fresh squeezed orange juice,
and it has to be fresh squeezed. A nice
rich stock, it can be a duck stock,
it can be a dark poultry stock, and Grand Marnier.
So we reduced that by volume,
until we get a little bit of viscosity in here.
I've got some sugar here,
and I'm just gonna sprinkle that, and when I'm
making sauces that are caramel based, I like to kind of pile it in the middle,
because I can watch the sugar melt and turn color.
I want the citrus flavor, but
I'm putting a little lemon juice in the middle.
It helps to promote the melting
of the sugar, but more importantly, it prevents it from scorching too much.
We're just gonna agitate that, and we'll let this turn to caramel.
Now while that's happening, I can tell you that we started this yesterday.
I take an all-natural duckling,
I prick it with a fork all over, you can actually see
little dots from my fork, and I've sprinkled it liberally
with salt.
What I'm gonna do now, that it's dried a little bit,
is trim the wings, because the
first two joints of a duck wing,
there's really not a lot going on there.
Look at this. And I'm waiting, I have some nice colorization there, but I
think it could get a little darker, and if you can get it just right, it has that
wonderful, toasty, caramel note to it, and that's getting dark, I see a little smoke.
Touchdown.
A couple of crushed clove heads,
my orange zest.
Let's add a cinnamon stick.
Then that's cooked, and I'm just gonna add our stock reduction. And we're
gonna strain this sauce when it's all done, because the orange and the shallot
and the cinnamon will have done their job.
So I've got my duck. We have salted it,
and let it dry, inside and out.
I'm gonna sprinkle my caraway, all over this duck.
I'm gonna sprinkle it inside this duck, and sprinkle it on the bottom.
So this goes into our oven.
I had during the last half hour of cooking, and will continue to,
even now while its resting,
just baste with fresh orange juice.
And there's a lot of sugar in fresh orange juice,
and it's what gives it that gorgeous, beautiful glaze.
Very carefully, rock the duck back and forth.
All you do, is make a slice in that pocket of skin, that's right there on
either side of the duckling. And then I pop that thigh bone, and I run my knife,
and I want to get the oysters of meat that are in the back. So you have your
thigh and leg, put those little bits of meat and skin in a little pile.
The duck breast, all I want to do is drag my knife across the keel bone, I'm
pressing against the wishbone...
and you get your fingers in there, and you can
literally take this entire breast off in one piece.
Little bit of salt, we have roasted carrots,
and potatoes, cooked in the duck fat.
When you look over here at
our sauce, the water has reduced, the liquid has evaporated, and what's left behind is
more of that caramel and orange juice, and you can see how perfectly saucy,
texturally that is. Nice light, little jus. And you don't want to put it so it's like
gravy, where it's swimming all over, but just enough so it's moistened. If you're
serving it family-style, I always pass a bowl of this at the table.
There you have it, pretty classic and simple bohemian roasted duck.
My dad is looking down upon this, and really wishing that he was here.
And I hope you make this recipe, it's simple, it's easy, make it a part of your
family tradition, it's a huge part of mine.