Get your fat pants ready and eat drink and be merry
One of the loviest holidays is coming soon! And besides the wonderful and dreamy view of a winter wonderland we are all hoping for, we also can’t wait for the breathtaking Christmas Eve dish. The smell of Christmas pasteries mixxed with all the spices of cinnamon red cabbage and oranges together with walnuts :-)
I personally could not wait for it, and tried my first run of preparation to not mess it up on Day x :-) Don’t worry if it won’t turn out perfect when you do it for the first time! Those things need preactise but trust me, once any chicken or duck is in the oven, it’s always going to be tasty ;)
Lets start!
For the stuffing I used:
- Dates
- Sliced apples
- Garlic
- Onion
- raisins
1) You can totally decide wheter you clean the duck before or after you prepared the stuffing. I prepared the stuffing first, so that by the time I cleaned the duck the stuffing won’t be as hot anymore for me to grap. Therefore, I sliced 1 apple, 1 onion and half hand full of dates with 1,5 tablespoons of raisins. Fried them slowly in a pan for about 15 minutes. It’s important to leave them frie slowly rather than quickly with a lot of heat. Also start to pre-heat the oven now, it needs to be very warm by the time the duck goes in. Pre-heat it up to 200°.
2) Now wash the the duck slowly and afterwards you can already spice it as you wish. I put garlic oil all over the duck and then put some curry powder and pepper on it.
3) Now that the filling has cooled down a bit, you can start the stuffing :-) At the end you can either sew it together or use some toothpicks to stick the end together. Then put it gently in a roasting foil and lace up the ends very well so that the wather and oil won’t come out. Don’t forget to punch some holes into the foil carefully. This step is very important! Otherwise the foil will explode a soon while after :)
Now when all that is done. It is truly ready to rumble!! :-) In the oven it goes!!
5) Leave in the oven for about 1 hour on 200°. Then lower the heat down to 160-170° and let it rumble for another 2-3 hours. Since all ovens are different it is never wrong to check every 35-40 minutes on the heat and the skin color. It might not even take you 3-4 full hours!
6) When the last 30 minutes arrives to take out the duck, you can start preparing the side dishes that shall be served with the precious duck. I prepared the side dish in a very German and typical way. We love serving it with dumblings and red cabbage. The red cabbage is also flavored with either apple or peach. Such a taste bomb! Then all I do is add a little bit of cinnamon into it. All in all it only needs to be taken out from the bag and be heated up slowly. It burns very quickly, so watch it and use low-mid-heat. And keep stiring every now and then.Since I am the only person who adores dumblings in our family, I just made two for myself and the rest made some extra rice, so don’t get confused by the „only“ two dumblings :D
And now,.. after 3,5 hours! There it is! The precious duck! Look at this amazing color!:)
What can I say other than let the christmas come and let it snow!! :) I can’t wait for the second go! As you can see, it’s one of those awesome traditional dishes that look extremeley hard to prepare but with litte bit of patience and happiness it will work out and you don’t need to be a chef for that.
If you made your own version of the christmas duck or goose, feel free to send me a picture or comment below how you will going to prepare your duck! :)
Lots of love!!
vilorygreen 