Oven-roasted Duck, Success!

With some time on my hands, I'm freed up to experiment with doing a Cantonese-style roast oven-grilled duck. Found small young Muscovy ducks (1.5kg each. It's hard to get my hands on a Rouen) at the butchery which are perfect for a table of three to four persons. Then I got to work. No special recipes since I always get them off the internet, and I don't bother writing anything down. I can't 'air-dry' the ducks, so it's an hour in the freezer and then back to fridge. Getting the marinade right was imperative (it's everything!), and the cooking time and temperature(s) in the oven. But mine is a tiny basic home oven, so I was nervous. I really didn't know how the ducks would turn out. Maybe they be like rubber ducks... *gulp

I managed to find last-minute volunteers for this cooking experiment! I kinda bravely bought the ducks without making any dates with humans. Eh, the butchery doesn't always stock 'ideal' ducks! With the lucky dates locked, two ducks meant that I could do two consecutive meals, ensuring that the ducks were eaten while fresh. But I did warn both sets of friends that it would be mainly Cantonese-style roast duck on the menu, and told them to bring whatever else they wanted to fill their stomachs if they were afraid of what they would be fed. Hurhurhur.

For the first experiment, it was lunch with visiting friends in town. Fed them the first version of oven-roasted duck. They seemed to have enjoyed it. I tasted that first version and thought about what to tweak for the second, and managed to set up an impromptu dinner the next day. Yay. For the second duck, we had it along with wine! V brought an easy lovely 2015 pinot noir from Misha's Vineyard aptly named 'Impromptu'. I really wanted to have wine. These kitchen experiments and the friends got me through a trying and tedious week.

Obviously I didn't put out the whole duck on the table. I served it chopped up. Those presentation skills aren't fantastic, but I can still chop duck decently lah. I know how to slice up the breast meat nicely hor. My cleaver was put to good use. I didn't bother to keep the bones for soup—the bones went onto the serving plate too. Ducks have big bones, and the dish looked enormous on the table, but there isn't that much meat, so the portions were enough for three, and should be sufficient for four. We're talking about two smaller eaters and two bigger eaters.

There were greens, as usual, and rice for carbs for hungry people. The larder had a fair bit of white rice grains that I wanted to use up. Lunch was blanched spinach, and shrimp and whitebait fried rice; dinner was stir-fried choy-sum and a batch of ugly tofu and egg fried rice. For both meals, I made another dish of soya sauce chicken—the light version with little sauce, not the dark soy braised version that has more gravy. Chicken is always easy to do, and having that on the table would ensure that the meal would at least be edible. #ImpieCooks2019

I'd cautiously say that roasting duck this way at home is a success. Woohooo! The friends ate and they very 賞臉 to say it was good. They kinda finished the duck. I'll take that as an indication that they would eat this again at my dining table. Muahahahahah. I did warn them that if it's too salty or whatever, please complain. If I stick to this mish-mash recipe, they'll have to suffer this duck again when I repeat it. 🤣 Although I daresay my ducks taste better and are more tender than those you'll find in a foodcourt/coffeeshop/hawker center stall doing roast meats. Unless it's the famous and damn-solid kind, then I willingly lose lor.

This was dinner.