Part of the joy of cooking a duck is all that you can do with everything that is leftover after you have made a meal of it. I love a meal that keeps on giving, and a duck carcass offers not only a delicious dinner, but pints and pints of glorious stock for soups, stews and ramen and rendered duck fat, which is a gem of an ingredient, adding flavor to any recipe in which you incorporate it, though it is best known for its role in making stellar crispy potatoes.
I have friends who occasionally make duck for dinner parties but who are intimidated by the idea of rendering the fat and keeping it for future use. This week I planned on making my usual Peking style duck but read about an alternative method of cooking the duck which I attempted and which made the fat "harvesting" step fool proof. (It will also make the duck skin extra crispy).
Preheat the oven to 325.
Prick the duck all over and then place it as is (no brine, no seasoning) on a rack over a deep roasting pan.
Add 2 cups of water to the pan. Cover tightly with foil and then place the duck in the oven. Bake uninterrupted for one hour.
Remove from the oven. Place the duck on a plate or board and pour the liquid remaining in the roasting pan into a bowl.
(Return the duck to the roasting pan and either brush it with a glaze or rub it with spices and cook in an oven that you have increased to 425 for an additional hour to 90 minutes until the skin is crisp and delicious. A bed of sliced apple and onion is a nice touch).
As for the rendered fat, let it cool and then cover the bowl with foil. Refrigerate overnight.
The next morning, remove from the fridge and you will find that the fat and water will have separated. The fat will have solidified and the water below will contain any duck sediment that remained in the fat. The end result will be snow white duck fat that can be removed and mounded into a container that will keep in the fridge and for which you will find yourself reaching more and more often...
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