Crispy duck & sticky plum sauce
with plum & watercress salad
2 hrs 10 mins
Not Too Tricky
serves 4
About the recipe
Beautiful summer plums, I really love them – and one of the things that has always fascinated me is how well they work in savoury dishes. So, here I’m using them to make an easy sweet and sticky sauce to go with crispy, fall-off-the-bone duck. Think duck à l’orange, but duck à l’plum – perfect for summer celebrations, without the stress. What an absolute treat!
Ingredients
1 x 2kg whole duck
olive oil
1 heaped teaspoon Chinese five-spice
½ a bunch of thyme (15g)
1 bunch of sage (20g)
1kg new potatoes
2 bulbs of garlic
8 large mixed-colour ripe plums
2 red onions
SALAD
1 ripe yellow plum
1 ripe red plum
½ a red onion
red wine vinegar
extra virgin olive oil
80g watercress
50g unsalted hazelnuts
Method
Beautiful summer plums, I really love them – and one of the things that has always fascinated me is how well they work in savoury dishes. So, here I’m using them to make an easy sweet and sticky sauce to go with crispy, fall-off-the-bone duck. Think duck à l’orange, but duck à l’plum – perfect for summer celebrations, without the stress. What an absolute treat!
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350°F/gas 4.
Place the duck in a large roasting tray and rub with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, the five-spice and a large pinch of sea salt. Stuff the thyme and half the sage into the cavity of the duck, then roast for 1 hour.
Scrub and cook the potatoes in a pan of boiling salted water for 20 minutes, then drain, and tip into a roasting tray. Halve and add the garlic bulbs.
When the time’s up on the duck, remove it from the oven and decant the fat into a clean jam jar. Drizzle a few tablespoons of fat over the tray of potatoes (save the rest for tasty meals another day), season with a little salt and black pepper, then toss together.
Use a fish slice or fork to squash down the potatoes (this will increase the surface area for extra crispiness). Tear over the remaining sage.
Destone 8 large plums and peel and quarter 2 red onions. Remove the duck from the tray and add the plums and onions, tossing to coat in any remaining sticky tray juices. Add a splash of water, then pop the duck back on top. Roast the duck and potatoes for 1 hour, or until the duck is crispy and cooked through, and the potatoes are golden.
Remove the duck to a serving platter to rest, then mix up the plum sauce in the tray and decant into a serving bowl.
For the salad, destone the red and yellow plums and peel the red onion, then very finely slice. Pour over 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar and 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, add the watercress and toss to coat.
Lightly toast the hazelnuts in a small pan until golden, then bash in a pestle and mortar to rough crumbs, and sprinkle over the salad.
Remove the breast and leg from the bone, then shred the meat and crispy skin.
Spoon the plum sauce onto plates, top with the shredded duck and crispy skin, a few garlicky roast potatoes and a handful of the salad.
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