Canette de Barbarie, rôtie

I got home around 6h00 last night, soaking wet, so I slept in pretty hard, not getting up until nearly 15h00. I lazed about for a bit, and then worked on blogging yesterday’s events, took care of some email correspondence, and then made dinner.

I had a canette de barbarie (a young duck of the Muscovy Duck variety) and some potatoes, so it was time to make like a volailler and whip out the rotisserie grill! My oven has a rotisserie attachment, which works relatively well. So I washed a bunch of potatoes and cut them into large chunks, and then put them in a baking pan and drizzled a light coating of olive oil (just a bit, since they’ll continue to be basted with the fat of the duck). After mixing the potatoes to give them a good coating, I turned them all on their skins, so that the cut sides of the potatoes were facing up. I stuck them in the oven and turned it to high, so that they would start to bake while I was prepping the canette.

For the canette, I gave it a wash and then gave it a good coating of rosemary and oregano all over the skin, and then added a generous dash of salt. I didn’t put any pepper on it, since black pepper can burn under high heat.

I put the canette on the rotisserie skewer and then stuck it into the socket in the oven, with the bird positioned over the potatoes. I let it grill quietly for almost two hours, during which the fat from the young duck dripped onto the potatoes and the skin turned a caramel brown. The last time I had made poultry this way, I had pulled it out too early, thinking that the first sign of brownish skin was a sign that the bird was done. This time, I waited until the skin was beginning to look crispy and the tips of the wings were beginning to go black. At that point, the bird was perfectly and thoroughly done. The breasts of the duck came out a bit tough and iron-heavy, but that’s the taste that comes with the duck, and it was corrected with a bit of gravy.

The potatoes weren’t completely done (the rotisserie attachment requires the oven to be left partially open, so they didn’t get much heat), and so I pulled out the bird and put it on a serving plate to rest while I closed the oven and put the potatoes to roast on high.

Once the potatoes were ready, I pulled them out, placed them on the serving tray, carved the duck into pieces, and then poured the pan drippings (duck fat!) over the whole thing. Then, I put the pan over the stove and heated it and splashed in a bit of water to bring up all of the tasty browned solids from the bottom of the pan. I transferred the liquid to a saucepan and reduced it by nearly half, and then threw in some tapioca flour that had been mixed into a slurry with a bit of water. Eventually, the sauce took on a thick consistency, and I drizzled it over the cut duck breasts.

Delicious! And that was my day.