Duck

I've ordered a duck for Christmas but I've never cooked one.

Can anyone give me some tips on how to prepare and cook a duck? I don't want anything like orange duck of peking duck, just a simple roast duck.

Help!

I did a duck a couple of weeks ago with a recipe from the Sainsbury's magazine...  we didnt really enjoy it that much, so i chucked out the recipe! 

But if you can get hold of last month's Sainsbury's mag... its in there.

Sorry, I'm a vegetarian... but I do watch a lot of cooking shows.  Duck is a grease bomb, so draining off the oil is important.  I've seen lots of shows where they remove the entire skin, cook the meat on it, then discard it.

This recipe for whole duck seemed pretty good:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/235744

Thanks ladies.

I've scoured the net trying to find good advice on how to prepare and cook a whole duck and apparently the advice is just to not do it.

I have, however, gathered a few bits of advice here and there and I'm hoping for the best. I suppose it's not all that big a deal anyways as it's only me who will be eating this duck. Jon is vegetarian. I just wanted something other than turkey this year.

Wish me luck!

Good luck... sorry i wasnt able to help.

Hope your duck turns out well, my mum used to cook us that for Xmas dinner after my brother had left home cause a turkey was too big for 3 people. She used to do it with the orange sauce, not sure exactly how but it always turned out nice. Have you looked at the BBC food site? There might be something on there.

Oh my, duck is the EASIEST thing ever to cook. No fuss at all. I cleaned the duck, put it in a roasting pan on a rack, rubbed paprika, salt and pepper into the skin, popped it into the oven at gas mark 5 and left it. 20 minutes per .5 kg plus 20 minutes at the end. Half way through I took it out and emptied the oil. Had I turned up the heat at the last minute I could have had a crispy skin but as it turned out it was AMAZING.

Very tasty, very easy, spot on. Was really chuffed.