Slight problem: the recipe calls for a 1.25 kilo duck but I've never seen such a small duck avaliable in Australia. The smallest I can recall seeing avaliable are the 1.6 kilogram Luv-a-Duck 'ducklings' (I'm not sure if Luv-a-Duck's definition of duckling matches with Larousse Gastronomique's). I bought a 1.9 kilogram 'duckling' purely because, two days out from Christmas, it's what was avaliable at Queen Victoria Market--unless I wanted to fork out almost twice as much for a Barossa Valley duck.
The problem is that rather than providing a formula of 'x minutes at x degrees per x grams of meat' formula, Larousse Gastronomique simply tells you how long to cook the one and a quarter kilo bird. The roasting temperature is very high, too. This is okay for small birds but I'm not so keen on cooking a near-2 kilogram beast at that temperature. And so I'm going to step away from Larousse Gastronomique and turn to Google. The results are horrifying. One site--one of the top results on Google--instructs its readers to roast the shit out of duck until 'no fat remains'. I closed the browser window in horror. Luckily, Luv-a-Duck's website has some sensible-sounding advice: 45 minutes per kilogram at 190*C. Given I'm working with a 1.9 kilogram duck, not a 2.0, I'll cook it for about 80 minutes and rest it for 25.
The bird was seasoned liberally, both all over the skin and inside the gut cavity. The gut cavity was stuffed loosely with half a bulb of garlic and a small sprig each of rosemary and sage. The duck was roasted first breast side up and then, after half a hour in the oven, turned upside down. At the one hour mark it was turned so as to face breast up. It rested breast side down.
The duck was juicy and rich and I ate, oh God, I ate too much. Two breasts. A drumstick. A wing. A thigh and a half. So much delicious duck. Goes quite well with Chimay Grand Reserve, too.
60. Ratatouille nicoise
Ratatouille goes well with roasts. It is, for those not in the know, a Provencal vegetable stew that contains (although there are variations) capsicum, eggplant, garlic, onion, tomato and zucchini. You simply chop up all the vegetables and sweat them in a pan for half a hour. Fresh herbs are thrown in for extra flavour and aroma.
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