Photo by Holly A. Heyser
Who doesn’t love a perfect roast duck? Crispy skin, tender meat and just enough fat to make things interesting.
Getting there, however, can be daunting for inexperienced cooks. I mostly work with wild ducks and geese, but I do cook enough domestic birds to know my way around a bill and a pair of webbed feet.
A caveat: I don’t always roast my wild ducks or geese because the legs are better slow-cooked and the breasts served rare. But sometimes you want that pretty presentation, and small ducks, like teal or ruddy ducks (pictured above), are best enjoyed roasted whole. Here’s how I do it:
roast wild duck
This is a recipe specifically for wild ducks that are not morbidly obese. It will not really work well with hugely fat ducks or domestic ducks. For those ducks, use my slow roasted duck recipe. You will want to set the birds out for 30 minutes to an hour to warm up; roasting a cold duck doesn’t work well.
Geese can be a little harder to roast. They tend to be older and tougher than ducks, but you can use this recipe easily for small geese such as Ross’ geese, Aleutians or cacklers or smallish specklebelly geese. Large geese, such as normal-sized specklebellies, snow geese and typical Canada geese can be roasted whole, but I don’t really recommend it. Giant Canadas are, in my experience, terrible roasted whole.
As for sauces, I have a selection of wild game sauces elsewhere on this site. And perfect side dishes are mashed potatoes, polenta, roasted potatoes, spaetzle, etc. A good green salad is nice to cut the fattiness of the duck, too.
Serves 4.
Prep Time: 30 minutes, resting time
Cook Time: 15-25 minutes
- 4 small ducks (teal, ruddy ducks, spoonies) or 2-4 larger ducks or small geese
- Lemon or orange wedges
- Duck fat, butter or lard
- Salt
- 2-3 celery stalks
- Black pepper
__________
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees or higher. I often cook ducks at 500 degrees, and small ducks are best cooked at these high temperatures. Let the oven preheat a good 20-30 minutes, and check the temperature before cooking. Let the ducks rest at room temperature while the oven heats up.
- If the duck is reasonably fat, use a needle to pierce the skin where there is a lot of fat under it: The front of the breast, between the breast and legs, at the flanks, and all over the back of the bird. Be careful not to pierce the meat. Rub a little duck fat, butter, olive oil or somesuch over the bird and dust it well with a good salt, such as fleur de sel. Stuff a lemon or orange wedge inside the duck.
- Place a few celery stalks onto an oven-proof pan, arranging them so you can rest the ducks on top. This prevents the ducks from sitting in its own juices. Roast in the oven as follows: About 10-15 minutes for teal or other small ducks, 13-20 minutes for anything up to the size of a gadwall, 18-25 minutes for a mallard or canvasback, and 25-45 minutes for a goose. The key here is an internal temperature of about 135-140 degrees. Don’t have an instant read thermometer? Get one. Ducks really need to be cooked medium-rare to medium. An overcooked duck is a sad thing.
- Take the duck out, move it to a cutting boar and tent it loosely with foil. Let it rest at least 5 minutes. Let large ducks rest closer to 10 minutes, and geese up to 15 minutes.
- If you want a simple pan sauce, remove the celery and stir a tablespoon or two of flour into the drippings, stirring well. Let this cook on the stove (you might be able to pull it off with the residual heat in the hot pan) until this roux is the color of coffee-with-cream. Add maybe a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, some wine or brandy and the juice of a lemon. If the sauce is too thick, add a little water or stock. Whisk everything to combine and taste for salt. Turn off the heat, add a tablespoon of minced parsley and a knob of butter. Swirl to combine and serve it hot.
Here is another way to roast a duck. And another way, if you have a very fat duck.
81-84 I was stationed at Pt Mugu. We duck hunted on base -mostly pintails. We “discovered” the grill method somewhat accidently. Nothing beats using mesquite wood (or in a pinch mesquite impregnated charcoal.
Isn’t it roasting a carcinogenic way of cooking? Have read something ’bout this and just got very curious. Your recipe is so sumptuous but its more healthy if steamed.
Not really, Life’s Uncertainties. Humans have evolved to tolerate — and enjoy — the Maillard reaction, which is what you are referring to as “carcinogenic.” And the thought of a steamed fatty duck is pretty revolting to me. Sorry.
Maybe I’m being overly paranoid, but I’ve never cooked duck and right now I’m preheating the oven to roast four teal I shot this morning (opening day in Colorado!) I live at 5,500 feet elevation and I’m wondering if I’m going to ruin my ducks because of some elevation adjustment I should make to the temperature of my oven. Any last minute advice?
Billy: You should be fine. I’ve cooked ducks at altitude and had no problem. Just get your oven hot-hot-hot for teal! As hot as it will go.
As hot as it will go? It’s on 450 now (I’ve been preheating it for an hour, just to make sure!) but the highest setting available is 550, and then Broil after that. Should I crank it up to one of those settings?
One more question: even after cleaning the teal there are small amounts of down feathers…I mean they’re pretty tiny. I just couldn’t get it smooth like fowl from a grocery store. I was told by a hunting buddy to wrap each bird in a sheet of newspaper and set it on fire, which would burn off the bits of excess down without hurting the duck. Have you ever had this problem? Or is it not even a problem?
Billy: Go for 525 degrees. Teal cook better at this higher heat because they are so small. And don’t bother with the down feathers. I pick ducks with wax, so I don’t have this problem, but you are too late for that now. Just pick off as many as you can.
Yeah I was reading about a paraffin dip to really get the ducks smooth. I’ll try that next time if the feathers pose a problem. Thanks for all the info. Here goes nothing! By the way, I loved your book.
Well, after 15 minutes the thermometer stuck into the breast read 135, but the skin was definitely not crisp or golden. It was kinda pale and soft. Blood was running out the bottom and out of the hole where the thermometer stuck. We bit into them and they were tough, though the breast did resemble the texture of correctly cooked or perhaps slightly undercooked chicken, at least in the center.
I’m sticking them back in the oven. Surely they need more cooking time?
Well I cranked the oven up to 550 and stuck them back in for another 10 min. The tops started to turned golden and almost what I might call crispy, the tips of the legs started to burn, and the sides and backs stayed soft and white. The meat cooked enough that it was mostly edible and got a little less tough, though the inner thighs were still pretty much raw. Maybe my oven is just junk. It’s pretty old and it’s not uncommon, after experimentation, to figure out that my actual cook times and/or temperatures tend to vary (sometimes quite a lot) from the directions given in recipes.
Next time I’m cooking them over charcoal in the back yard. That has never failed me.
Thanks again for your help!
I’ve only cooked young domestic duck before,4 hours slow roasted. Yummm. A neighbor just gave me a duck he butchered that was over 3 years old. I figure this should be treated like a wild duck Is this a logical assumption, or am I wrong?
I’m really enjoying the website. Thanks for all the effort.
Candy
CandyBaby: Don’t roast it. It will be too tough. Break it down and cook the breasts in one meal, the legs and wings in the other. Use the carcass for soup.
I come back to this recipe again and again–it’s simple (and works every time) and yet I still have to look it up every season.
Thanks so much,
Jennie Alice
I was given a Barbary duck recently that I have in the freezer(frozen weight 2.8kg not sure of unfrozen)
Is this recipe the best technique for this type of duck to cook it medium or am I better trying the slow cooking recipe
David: A Barbary duck is a Muscovy in these parts. It is generally a pretty lean duck, and I would use this method for it. Make sure to bring it to room temperature before roasting, and roast it at closer to 400 degrees than 500 degrees; 425 is a good choice. It will probably take close to 30 minutes to cook through.
Use a meat thermometer to monitor the thigh and the breast. You want the breast no higher than 140 degrees, and the legs no cooler than 150 degrees. You might need to take the duck out midstream and carve off the breasts. Let the legs cook a little more while the breast meat rests.
Hope that helps!
Thanks for the advise Hank, Cant wait to try it now.
Hi Hank, Just wanted to let you know I tried that and it turned out fantastic. Very moist and not over cooked at all. Thanks.
Just one quick question I have a 3.8kg goose and the instructions I was given where 200c for up to 4 hours, now that seems way to long to keep the bird moist.
But given its larger size would the technique from the duck still work?
Sorry for all the questions I’m fairly new to cooking this kind of animal.
David: I would use a different technique with a goose. I wrote a tutorial on roasting a domestic goose for Simply Recipes. I’d follow that.
Hi Hank, I just stumbled on your site and have really enjoyed it. I have a question about cooking multiple birds. Will it take longer if I roast 3 small ducks at the same time? May be a stupid thought but I seem to have trouble when I attempt to cook more than one at a time. May be an issue with my stove.
Hi Hank,
Thank-you for all your work on putting out this information. I have come across your site a few times (last when I was looking for how to cook moose, though I didn’t find specific info for that here). I have three ducks to cook in the near future – 1 fresh (4-5 lbs) (I split up the parts yesterday – my first time with any poultry!, as the local organic/naturally raised butcher usually does it for me) and 2 frozen (5-6 lbs).
I cooked a breast yesterday (sear & ‘render’ skin-side, then put in oven at 450 for 14+ min, with pan onion/red wine/herb/butter sauce). This duck is so lean there is no fat! I tried to render the breast and got nothing on the pan. I collected up the skin to maybe render, but there is no appreciable fat under it. The skin is quite tough, and we didn’t bother trying to eat it with the breast, actually. But the meat was lovely. I found it took longer to cook this one to the rare-med.rare I like than the fattier ducks from the butcher. These ducks were naturally raised on the property of a cross-country ski and outdoor education property near Toronto, Ontario.
So, as I prepare to roast one of the frozen (well, defrosted, of course) ducks whole, do you have any tips on what to do to get the skin crisp? I was thinking of 450 for about 30 min based on my reading, but also see that others have had trouble with getting the skin to that dreamy crisp place.
I do have an instant read thermometer.
Also, would braising the legs be a good choice in this case? How would that compare to trying to confit them, maybe together with some legs that are more fatty? (It would be my first time trying that too, though I did once try the foil-wrapped-in-the-oven confit shortcut for my first cassoulet.) I would have to freeze them and wait for that, as I don’t yet have enough duck fat, so I’d maybe rather do something else and cook them this week.
Thank-you very much!