Herbal Roasted Duck

I was kinda excited when Precious Pea told me about her roasting a duck. I had always wanted to try roasting a duck but never pluck up the courage. I told Pea I would try that weekend but alas I was out the whole weekend so instead I made them last Saturday. Thanks to her step-by-step pics, it did make things a whole lot easier.

I searched thru the wet market and found 2 stalls selling them but one of them only have frozen ones. Stepped up to the one selling fresh duck and found out that 1kg cost RM14. I asked her to pick me a small one slightly less than 2kg.

Whilst I was cleaning the duck, I was literally cursing and swearing as it was tremendously tedious to remove the remainder feathers on the skin. A lot of them were embedded or ingrown on the skin!!!! I sat down for almost an hour just to pluck as much as I could but there were still so many under the skin which can't be removed. Now I totally understood why my mom needed one day to prepare a duck to be cooked the next day!

Other than this, it's relatively quite easy to prepare this duck. I hung up my duck on a pole above my wok for the vinegar and hot oil baths which made it easier as I did tried holding on to the duck and it's very heavy as I pour the liquid over it.

Since Pea had told me that it was not salty enough, after stuffing the duck, I rubbed some salt all over the duck and hung it up for about 45 mins before I bathe it. I think it worked. Then I hung it to dry with a fan blowing at the duck for about 6 hours.

Roasted the duck in the oven in a roasting pan breast side up, after 30 mins I checked the underside, it's not browned throughly so I turned it over and roast it till golden brown. Lots of oil collected in the roasting pan!

I rested it for a while after the oil bath since I can't handle hot stuff hahaha... Managed to chopped the bird up nicely which is a FIRST for me :p I'm so shy to admit that I can't even chop up a chicken properly without disintegrating it but this duck seems fine. My palm was in pain though from thumpping on the chopper to chop the hard bones.



As for the taste, it was okay but hubby said something is missing but he can't pinpoint. To me, seriously it's not worth my time cleaning up the duck, well unless someone volunteer to do it for me. When compared with those sold outside, of course can't compare lah... those were way off better. Nevertheless, it was a good effort.

There you go, my FIRST time cooking a duck and chopping one cooked one too! Very high achievements in Babe_KL's book!!!

For the recipe and step-by-step pics, please check over at Precious Pea.


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