There are only a few days left until the New Year. Each hostess wants to surprise guests with a dish that will not only be delicious, but also become a table decoration - a real culinary masterpiece. An oven-baked duck with apples can be a good solution for a festive feast, the main thing is to know some of the secrets and tricks of its preparation!
Duck with apples in the oven: choose the right carcass and prepare it for baking
A duck weighing up to 2.5 kg is considered ideal - it contains both fat and a fairly large amount of meat. If possible, buy a chilled carcass. If the duck is frozen, you will need to defrost it correctly: forget about the microwave or cold water, put the duck in the refrigerator for several hours, and then leave it at room temperature until completely thawed - this will help preserve the taste of the poultry, and the meat will not be dry and tough after cooking.
Make sure that the duck is plucked well, if feathers remain, burn it over a fire (for example, over a gas burner), and remove the hemp with tweezers. In addition, the duck should be free of offal residue, so rinse it before cooking, even if the carcass was purchased already gutted.
How to cook whole duck in the oven with apples: do not forget about seasonings and spices
Duck is a tasty bird, but with a slight drawback, expressed in a specific smell (although for many it is he who is the highlight of the finished dish). You can get rid of it with pickles or spices. Sour liquids are used as a marinade: wine, orange, lemon or pomegranate juice, apple cider vinegar. Seasonings that go well with duck meat include cinnamon, all kinds of peppers, oregano, star anise, and cardamom.
Duck apples in the oven
Since apples are one of the main ingredients of the dish, you need to be careful about their choice, giving preference to hard varieties with a sour taste. Stuffing a duck with apples, do not overdo it, otherwise the skin may burst - this will not particularly affect the taste, but it will ruin the appearance of the finished dish. The stuffed duck is sewn up or chipped off the skin with wooden toothpicks.
The final touch: take into account the cooking time and baking temperature
Another secret of how to cook duck with apples in the oven at home is the cooking time and temperature at which the carcass will be baked. The temperature should not be very high so that the meat does not dry out - 80-90 ° C. It will take 2, 5-3 hours to cook the carcass. A prerequisite for obtaining juicy and tender meat is watering the carcass with juice and fat released from it every 30 minutes. The baking time is conditional - it depends on the size of the bird, but it is very easy to check the readiness: having pierced the duck in the thickest place, you should see that a clear liquid flows out, and not red or pinkish.
Now you know how to cook duck with apples in the oven at home, all you have to do is choose the recipe you like and follow simple rules!
