Roast Gressingham Duck recipe

Need a special occasion dinner with wow-factor? It’s got to be this Roast Gressingham Duck recipe complete with a honey-cardamom glaze and a side order of cumin-roasted potatoes and buttery cabbage. The various spices add so much delicious flavour, to make this hearty meal a real crowd-pleaser.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 Gressingham Duck®

For the glaze:

3tbsp honey

1tsp dry sherry

1tsp cracked black pepper

Juice of 1 orange

5 cardamom pods, husks removed and seeds crushed

For the vegetables:

1 Savoy cabbage

1.5 kg Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks for roasting

3 x sprigs of rosemary

150g duck fat

1tsp cumin seeds

1 bulb of garlic split into cloves

Method

Pre-heat oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas Mark 6. Remove all packaging from the duck and remove the bag of giblets (if included) from the cavity. Weigh the duck.

Prick the skin around the duck legs and season with salt and pepper. Place the duck on a rack in a baking tray that’s big enough to allow you to also fit the potatoes, and add the duck fat (or vegetable oil if you do not have duck fat). Place the duck in the oven. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes per 500g, plus 20 minutes extra.

Meanwhile prepare the glaze by mixing all the ingredients together and gently warm in a small pan. Then leave aside in a warm place.

Prepare the cabbage: peel off the leaves, discard any that may be spoilt and remove the core. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil. Blanche the cabbage by plunging the leaves into the boiling water and then into a pot of cold water. Drain well, slice thinly and set aside.

After the duck has been cooking for 45 minutes, place the potatoes into the roasting tray around the duck, then add the rosemary, garlic and cumin seeds. Baste with the duck fat and season. Turn the potatoes once during cooking.

Then 10 minutes before the end of cooking, take the glaze and paint all over the duck with a pastry brush.

When the duck is ready, remove from the oven and carefully take out of the tray and place in a warm resting place for approximately 30 minutes.

Then take the potatoes from the tray and put into another roasting tray, baste with the duck fat and return to the oven to finish cooking.

Pour off all the fat from the liquid left in the tray, and save for another cooking opportunity.

You should be left with just the juices to create the sauce. Pour into a saucepan and place onto the hob, bring to the boil, add a generous dollop of butter and simmer.

When you are ready to serve, quickly fry off the cabbage in some butter for two to three minutes.

Taste the sauce for seasoning and adjust accordingly. Remove the potatoes from the oven. Serve and enjoy!

Recipe courtesy of Gressingham.