Wild Duck with an orange sauce.

Wild Duck with an orange sauce.

Ingredients for two people.

1 young wild duck (mallard will do nicely, but a pintail, gadwall or as in this case teal are not to be sniffed at)

3 dessert spoons of butter fat (I used ghee)

3 oranges

1 medium onion diced

50 g of speck or smoked bacon

100 ml white wine

100 ml of good game stock

1 carrot roughly chopped

1 slice of celeriac diced

White of a small leek sliced

Slug of Tawny Port

2 desert spoons of orange marmalade

Salt and pepper

Game spices (I make my own, but you can get propriety brands of the shelf)

A few leaves of sage, sprig of rosemary and 2 bay leaves

Method:

Wash and clean the duck, removing any visible shot and any tough stubble. Salt and pepper the bird inside and out, ¼ one of the oranges and put into the duck cavity along with the herbs, rub all over with the game spices.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C

Put the butter fat into a deep roasting tin just big enough to take the duck, heat the fat on top of the stove and brown the duck all over in the hot fat. 

Remove the duck, set aside and in the same fat sauté the onion and add the speck, then add the root vegetables. 

Sauté all briefly place the duck on top of this and add the wine and stock.

Lightly cover the roasting tin with aluminium foil (if you have a covered roasting tin all the better), put onto the middle shelf in the oven and roast for an hour, basting with the liquid from time to time (4 times during the roasting period). 

Check after an hour, remove the foil (or cover) and roast for a further 15 minutes. 

Remove the duck from the roasting tray and cover. Strain the liquid and veg through a sieve, squeezing out the vegetables, into a saucepan, skim off as much fat as possible. 

Peel the remaining oranges and segment them.  Add ¾ of the segments into the sauce along with the port and the orange marmalade reduce to a half and add salt and pepper to taste.

We served this with spiced red cabbage, plain boiled potatoes and a Ceps ragout.

The Ceps Ragout

200 g frozen Ceps (or other wild mushrooms)

25 g of dried Ceps (reconstituted in water)

1 small onion

1 clove of garlic

50 g speck

100 g double cream or catering cream (Rama)

Soften the onion and garlic clove in a little oil; add the speck and sauté together. Add the both Ceps and some of the liquid that was used to reconstituted (strain through a muslin, there may be grit in it) bubble up and add the cream.

To serve cut the duck in half and serve decorated with the remaining orange segments.