Roasted Duck with Salad

One more Tuesday, and one more dinner idea. Can you all believe that it has been a month since I started Weeknight Meals With Sandra?  Yup, proud to say that this is 4th post and I absolutely love sharing my ideas for healthy, easy and balanced dinners. Today is roasted duck. I know it is not most affordable kind of meat out there, but I wanted to cook something out of the ordinary. Most common is chicken of course or beef even on my dining room table, but I wanted to treat my family with something special since all of us were home together...yes, we are back to our chaotic dinners. My little one didn't have chance to try duck before, at least I don't remember that I cooked it since he was born, so it was very interesting watching him opening up the fridge and saying "mom, is this a turkey?" See he was last year for more than 3 months Vegetarian little man. I had to cook meat when he is not around. It was tough going through that stage but we adjusted and waited until he stopped talking about me disliking animals.
I am sure that many mom's went through the same stage with their kids. What you need to do in those kind of situations? Simply enough you have to be patient and talk as much as you can that it is circle of life, but never pressure no matter what because they will pass that stage in a month, or two or year. 
He was fine and started to laugh when he saw whole duck wrapped in our fridge.  We all really enjoyed our dinner together, it was really sweet having them home after they spend a week at grandma's house. Now let me share virtually this fantastically balanced dinner with you too. 

Roasted Duck with Salad
Serves 4-5
Prep time 10 min.
Cooking time: 40 minutes + 10 minutes
Total time 60-80 minutes
Ingredients:

• 1 Fresh Whole Duck/or frozen
• 1 Tbs. Sea Salt+ 1 Tbs. additional salt
• 1/2 Tbs. Ground Black Pepper
• 1/2 tsp. Sweet Paprika
• 1 Tbs. Olive Oil + 1/2 tsp for the baking pan
• Sprinkle of Crushed Red Pepper
• 3 Cloves of Garlic, split in halves
• Rosemary
• Parsley

Salad:

• Young Green Salad Mix
• 2-3 Ripe Tomatoes
• Mozzarella Cheese Balls
• 1/2 Tbs. Olive Oil
• Juice from 1/2 Lemon
• Salt to taste
• 4-5 roasted mushrooms *optional

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven on 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Boil the large pot of water with salt you can drop even veggies and make a nice broth.
3. Drop the Duck in and the boiling water and let it cook for 5 minutes.
4. Take it out on the wooden board and let cool down just a bit.
5. Season the duck inside and out with salt, pepper, sweet paprika.
6. Rub the duck all around with olive oil.
7. Sprinkle crushed red pepper, rosemary and parsley on top; Always put breast side up.  
8. Make a several holes in the duck skin and squeeze in each hole garlic cloves
9. Transfer the duck in a greased baking pan. If you have a rack for the baking pan your duck will be evenly baked faster.
10. Cook the duck for the next 40-45 minutes or until the skin is turning dark and when you poke there is no blood coming out(also it depends on size of the duck, you can roasted for an hour if the duck is large)  
11. Meat should start to falling apart and skin should be crunchy.
12. Assemble the salad and you can serve it with some baked potatoes and freshly baked bread on the side too.

Frozen Duck: If the duck is completely frozen Fill the largest pot/bowl with cold iced water and defrost it for a few hrs. in advance or even over night. Never defrost the meat in the microwave or in a hot water; meat becomes rubbery and not as good. 

Final Temperature: Thermometers and many of your books and recipes say fowl must go to 180°F/82°C - based on a USDA recommendation. That recommendation was reviewed in 2006 and the USDA could find no supporting data whatever, not even scribbled notes, to support the 180°F recommendation and now says 165°F/74°C is perfectly safe.
*Note: Even though the Duck ($18 w/tax) is not cheap I think if you combine it with salad meal for whole family would come out way cheaper than if you go and eat in a restaurant. It takes bit hard work, but your family will appreciate your hard work and your tummies will be more happier too. This meal was less than $40 for whole family, but I included cost of olive oil, sea salt, black pepper, garlic, potatoes for the side est. ingredients that we can use way more than one time. 

Enjoy every moment with people that you love around your dining room table!

I wish you beautiful sunny week,

Your friend,
Sandra 

Follow me:

{Facebook} {Twitter} {Google +} {StumbleUpon} {Foodbuzz} {Pinterest} {LinkedIn}{Digg}

All the images and recipes are ©2012 Sandra's Easy Cooking. All Rights Reserved. 

You cannot copy, or republish (recipes or images) without permission of the author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.