Duck with apples is a traditional Russian dish, especially popular for New Year and Christmas. However, some housewives are used to considering duck a rare bird, and the recipe for its preparation is too complicated and therefore deny themselves this wonderful delicacy. Meanwhile, this dish is healthy and dietary when properly prepared.
Duck baked with apples and served with a whole carcass for a festive table or a family dinner is a truly colorful and enjoyable sight. A fried poultry carcass, a side dish laid out next to it will delight both real gourmets and connoisseurs of simple and healthy food. Duck is more expensive than chicken, moreover, it is considered a dish that is not so common, therefore it is not bought so often for dinner. And in vain: duck meat is more interesting, tastier and juicier than chicken meat. And when cooked in the oven, it is also very fragrant. In addition, in this case excess fat is melted out of the duck, so that it becomes tender and pleasant to the taste.
Duck with apples is famous for a reason: it is apples that absorb excess fat from the carcass best of all, making a dietary product out of rather heavy food. Although you can stuff duck with buckwheat porridge, potatoes, oranges.
To begin with, the poultry carcass must be well prepared for baking, because it will be unpleasant to find feathers or remnants of entrails in the plate. Wash and dry the bird, remove visible hairs. If there are a lot of them, hold the duck over the switched on gas stove, after which it will be much easier to remove the remaining feathers. It is worth cutting out the gland of the duck, which is contained in the tail, since when heated it will exude a not very pleasant aroma. When in doubt where it is, remove the entire ponytail. Duck meat has a very specific taste, not everyone likes it without proper processing, which is why herbs, spices and marinade are used to prepare this bird.
You can cook the dish in an open container, or you can bake it in the sleeve - then the duck will be fried in its own juice, it will become more juicy. This method helps to keep the oven clean, otherwise grease will sprinkle along the sides of the oven.
When the meat is washed and dried, take 2-3 sweet and sour or sour apples, wash them, cut them in half or into pieces, peel the seeds. Sprinkle the apples with the juice of half a lemon to keep them from darkening. Then prepare the marinade, for this, mix the juice of 1 lemon, 1 spoonful of sunflower or olive oil, the same amount of honey, a few drops of balsamic vinegar, 2-3 cloves of garlic or a little ginger root. Finely grate the ginger, chop the garlic, mix all the ingredients, rub the carcass with salt and pepper, then coat it with marinade on top and inside. It is best to put the duck in a bag after that and keep it in a cool place for 12-24 hours. But you can start cooking right away.
Stuff the duck with apples, sew up the belly if they fall out, or secure with toothpicks. Place the carcass in the oven and bake for about 1.5 hours. If you are cooking a dish in the sleeve, then 15 minutes before cooking you need to open it so that the skin is golden brown. Determining the cooking time for duck is quite simple: every 500 g of poultry should be cooked for 20 minutes, the same amount is added to the total weight of the bird. Duck can be served with a garnish of apples, stewed cabbage, buckwheat porridge, baked or fried potatoes, herbs, salads.
