Roast Wild Duck (Teal)

Preheat oven and stuff the duck: Preheat oven to 450°F. Inspect duck to see if there are any remaining pin feathers, if so, remove them.

Rinse the duck with water. Thoroughly pat dry with paper towels.

Lightly stuff duck with a sprig of rosemary, an apple slice with a few cloves poked in them to hold them in place, and a small wedge of onion.

Slather the duck inside and out with olive oil.

Sprinkle all sides of the duck with coarse salt.

Lay the duck breast up, on a roast rack in a roasting pan.

Place in the middle rack of the 450°F oven. Immediately lower the heat to 425°F.

Cooking times depend on the variety of the duck. Teal ducks typically weigh less than a pound and cook in 10-15 minutes. According to the Joy of Cooking a mallard can take up to 25 minutes. Our duck was perfectly done at 13 minutes. Another duck we cooked for 17 minutes was slightly overdone.

Meat thermometers are often not very useful with the small fowl because there isn't enough flesh to put the thermometer into. But if you have an instant read thermometer and can get a good read, my pal Hank suggests cooking until the duck reaches an internal temp of 135°F. If you error on the rare and underdone side, you can always put the bird back in the oven for a few more minutes if it isn't done enough.

If you aren't using a meat thermometer, to test for doneness you can take the bird out of the oven and cut a part of it with the tip of a sharp knife. Note that the juices will run RED, and the meat will be quite red. You want the meat to be rare (wild duck only); it should look like a rare (not raw) steak. The more the meat is cooked beyond the rare stage, the more "livery" or gamey it will taste.

Remove the duck from the oven and remove to a separate rack or plate to rest, breast side down, for 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove the stuffing in the cavity before serving.

Make gravy with the drippings: While the duck is resting, if there are drippings in the roasting pan, pour off the excess fat (save this wonderful fat for another recipe).

Place the roasting pan on the stovetop, heat to medium, and deglaze with a little dry sherry or white wine.

Scrape up the browned bits with a metal spatula. Use a metal whisk to break up the bits even further into the wine.

Reduce and then add a little cream, (and a few juniper berries if you want an extra touch).

Pour off into a gravy serving dish or little bowl.

Serve ducks with wild rice and gravy. Teal ducks are single serving ducks.

Note that you can get excellent stock from the duck carcass.

Put the duck carcasses in a saucepan, cover with an inch of cold water, bring to a simmer, lower the heat to barely-a-bubble-simmer covered, and cook for 3 hours. Then strain the stock to a glass jar, let cool to room temperature and refrigerate. Use the duck stock in place of chicken stock for recipes.