Fancy French Feast - Duck a l'Orange Recipe

In Carine’s house, Christmas is – at the very least – a two-day affair. Her Swedish husband and mother-in-law rule the roost on the 24th, with their Swedish Christmas, complete with meatballs and mustard and pickled herring. Then, on the 25th, it’s Carine’s time to shine with a “posh” French feast. And the star of the show? Canard à l’Orange.

This dish may seem to many of you far too fiddly and complicated to try to recreate on Christmas Day, but we assure you it’s actually fairly simple. And we’re going to show you just how simple right now!

Ingredients

• 1 whole duck (ideally, plus giblets), about 2 kilos for 6-8 people (but for 10 people, Carine normally goes for 2 ducks)
• ½ cup vinegar
• 150g Caster Sugar
• 6 Oranges – 3 for the sauce, 3 for decoration
• 1 small cup Gran Marnier
• 100g butter or – even better! – duck fat from your roasting duck
• 2 Carrots
• 2 Onions
• 1 clove Garlic
• 1 bunch Thyme
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 500ml White wine
• 1 tbsp tomato puree 
• Salt 
• Pepper

Method

Roasting your Duck

• If you bought a duck with giblets - well done! – remove these and place your duck on a wire cooling rack in your roasting tray. You want the duck slightly elevated so the fat can run off and your duck can get nice and crispy.
• Rub your duck all over with salt and pepper – on both sides!
• Pop it in the oven at 190◦ for about 90 minutes.
• Baste it with its own juices every 15-20 minutes.
• After the first 20 minutes, you can cover it with some foil to make sure it doesn’t dry out.
• After 45 minutes or so, pour off some of the fat and juices and set it aside – you’re going to be using it later.
• That’s it for the duck!

Making your Sauce

• Take one large, oven-proof pan. 
• If your duck came with giblets, add these now and brown them on a high heat. If your duck did not come with giblets, don’t worry! It’s not the end of the world.
• Pop in the butter or 3tsp of the duck fat you set aside.
• Add the onions and garlic – finely chopped – along with the thyme and the bay leaves.
• Cover the pan and leave to simmer on a low heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• While that’s happening, chop your carrots into discs and add those to the pan.
• If you want an extra duck-y flavour, you can also add in a few tablespoons of the duck juices.
• Cover the pan and simmer for a further 5 minutes on a medium heat.
• Add the wine.
• Pop the pan in the oven for about 45 minutes.

• Now you are going to make what is called a gastrique, which is a basic sweet-n-sour sauce made from sugar and vinegar.
• Put your sugar in a pan and caramelise – adding a tablespoon of water to help it along. Don’t stir it lots, just let it sit until it starts to go brown
• Add the vinegar.
• Warning – this is NOT a nice smell, so be prepared for something pretty pungent
• Also, when the cold vinegar is added to the hot sugar, it can spit a bit, be careful not to burn yourself!

• Peel the zest of 3 oranges and cut into small pieces – like you might find in marmalade
• Blanch the pieces of zest in boiling water – just boil the kettle, pour the water over the zest and leave it to sit for a bit.
• Juice the 3 oranges. 
• Add your chopped orange peel to your gastrique

• Remove your onion-carrot mixture from the oven.
• Add the tomato puree, the Gran Marnier, and the orange juice.
• Pop it back on the stove and leave it to simmer on a low heat.

• Pass the carrot mixture through a chinois or fine sieve, making sure that no bits get through
• Add the sieved carrot mixture to the gastrique
• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• And your sauce à l’orange is done!

Serve your duck whole and carve at the table, before adding sauce and fresh orange slices to the plate. Have it alongside green beans and crispy roast potatoes (cooked in duck fat) and voila! A very French – and very tasty – Christmas dinner. Joyeux Noël!